April 7, 2003

Boondocks: Banned in NC

This time, Boondocks artist went too far
...What the syndicate sent us for publication a week ago Saturday was the Boondocks strip with a statement plastered over it that read:

"Special Boondocks protest strip! In order to express the outrage and the disappointment at the situation in the Middle East, as well as an upcoming movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr., in which the actor will undoubtedly shame himself and his race, today�s installment of The Boondocks will not be appearing.

"Seriously, folks. Let�s stop the madness. The Bush administration�s hunger for war, and Hollywood�s continued production of movies starring Cuba Gooding Jr., must be stopped. � Aaron McGruder"

McGruder essentially mutilated his own strip for the purpose of forcing his political views on a page where they don�t belong in that context.

The syndicate did send an alternative strip for that day, in effect giving editors the chance to censor the strip.

I am not a proponent of censoring comics. In fact, we ran installments of the Cathy comic strip in The Herald-Sun years ago that were censored by other newspapers in this state when one of the characters in the strip endorsed presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

I said then I would not censor a comic, but would drop it if I thought the author was abusing his or her relationship with our newspaper for personal gratification.

Accordingly, I canceled the Boondocks strip.

It does appear today because our Sunday comics section is pre-printed. We replaced Boondocks in the daily editions with Get Fuzzy, which we have been running just on Sundays.

Whether that tenacious little feline will remain in our lineup remains to be seen. We may sample other strips in the coming weeks to see what our readers like...

Uhh... yeah.

Bill Hawkins is Vice President and Executive Editor of The Herald-Sun. He may be reached at (919) 419-6678 or at bhawkins@heraldsun.com

Posted by jsmooth995 at April 7, 2003 8:38 PM

Comments

~"But as long as the strip was in context and characters were doing the talking, we were content to allow McGruder to work out on the edge."(Hawkins)

~ In essence, as long as McGruder didnt do nething controversial which would spark debate not only of the war, but also of the Bill of Rights (which is b4 our eyes being destroyed, only if one is not "patriotic" tho), they were content. Don't try to think, ne1...keep ur thoughts and opinions to urself. Funny how hardly any anti-war sentiments are seen in papers.

Posted by: Shehza at April 7, 2003 9:52 PM

The media is controlled, so why do newpapers get an exception?

Posted by: Johnny High at April 8, 2003 1:09 AM

What happened to "Freedom of Speech and Expression"? Way I see things now is that "MaCarthyism" is back again. I see too many trends nowadays where anybody whose outspoken about anti-war are getting harassed by media, government, and other organizations. So now if you speak out your mind against governemt policies and you'll be silenced? I can't believe how some organizations are putting out extra effort to silence and harass anti-war advocates. Are we going to have "Secret Police" monitoring everything we do and hunt down any anti-war advocates? With organization like Clear Channel, you know goverments are putting unspoken pressure on all media outlets to censor what they put out. I don't know if what this cartoonist did is correct way to express his feeling about the war. But I think editor's excuse regarding removal of the cartoon was lame also. Editor should admitt that this is a "censorship" and nothing else, cut the BS.

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