Another Post Apology, Same Old Racist Attitudes

By the end of last week, an editor at the Post finally made a non-apology apology for their racist cartoon after many in the community came out to protest the Post's actions. Since that did nothing to address the problem that the cartoon generated, the protests continued and the press surrounding the story became increasingly negative for the newspaper rag. So who else does the Post bring out but the head honcho himself to make yet another "apology."

From The Albany Project (because I refuse to link the Post anymore):

As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.

Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you - without a doubt - that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.

What Murdoch is make this look serious and even professional. It does not snipe and make childish remarks such as berating Al Sharpton and others that saw the cartoon and were compelled to give their time to protest the racist behavior of the cartoonist and editor who let it be published. Yet, it is still not a true apology. I put that sentence in bold up above because as the comments at The Albany Project show, there is no way to interpret this cartoon as anything but racist. You have to be racist in order to find humor in it. Mocking the stimulus bill is one thing, but to do it in this fashion is not only about the legislation Barack Obama had signed into law last week. I sincerely find it hard to believe that Murdoch's comments are nothing more than an attempt to kill the story that his paper has serious racist elements lurking inside.

The NY Post's Non-Apology Apology

Last night, after significant pressure for nearly two days, the NY Post issued a statement on their website addressing the racially-stigmatized cartoon. The image, depicting a chimp being shot dead by two white cops while they talk about the stimulus bill has drawn considerable outrage from nearly every group except for white conservatives. Al Sharpton even led a protest of hundreds in front of the paper's offices. So to sweep things under the rug after getting their desired amount of free publicity, they came out with this:

Wednesday's Page Six cartoon - caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut - has created considerable controversy.

It shows two police officers standing over the chimp's body: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," one officer says.

It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period.

But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past - and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon - even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.

So for those that were offended but didn't say anything, you can thank those that did because their apology is directed at you. The response above is written by someone with the mentality of a five year old, who is resentful at various people for daring to call them out on their approval of a cartoonist's veiled use of racism. This wasn't about payback, it was about being shocked and horrified at a major New York daily paper that would print a cartoon that follows in the path of a long history of comparing blacks and chimps/monkeys/apes, etc.

This was no apology, it was meant as a childish swipe at people of our community that have protested the actions of the Post, and who will continue to do so until they take full responsibility for condoning that type of racially-insensitive material.

Unfortunately though, I seriously doubt the Post will take any additional steps. They are known as a rag in this city for a reason. Yet I am a little uncomfortable even using that description, because I wouldn't want to tarnish the good name of the many rags out there by elevating the Post to their level.

Update: A nearly identically titled post from The Zoo also explains why this isn't an apology, starting with what's written in the dictionary.

Keepin' It Classy At The NY Post

I admit that sometimes the Post runs decent stories, but their rep is ruined by the nastiness that of the paper that bubbles up to the surface from time to time. It is widely known that the rag has a conservative bent, but it is a true shame when the editors can't do their jobs. The edit, or shall I say lack thereof concerns an editorial cartoon that fuses the story of the violent chimpanzee in Connecticut with the stimulus bill brought forth by President Obama.

From The Huffington Post:

The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones. In it, two befuddled-looking police officers holding guns look over the dead and bleeding chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut.

"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," reads the caption.

An email to Delonas and a call to the New York Post went unreturned. The cartoon appears both on the New York Post website and page 12 of the Wednesday paper.

At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that's what Delonas wanted.

You can view the cartoon at the link above, I can assure you it is rather disturbing. Whatever the intention of the editors of the Post, the decision to print it is a real shame. Either they were stupidly ignorant at best, or maliciously embedding racial undertones at worst. Perhaps putting it back in the paper on page 12 suggest they felt a little guilty about inserting it at all.

NY Post Fires Reporter After Being Targeted By NYPD

Freelance reporter Leonardo Blair has a lot going for him. Born in Jamaica, Mr. Blair made it to New York and has a Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia and was worked freelance for the NY Post. Then he was picked up by the NYPD and temporarily thrown in jail for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and for the color of his skin. They let him go after he told them he was a reporter, but that wasn't the end of it.

From The NY Daily News:

Leonardo Blair, 28, a freelance crime reporter since May 2007, was let go just days after he slammed the NYPD in a federal suit filed on his behalf by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Blair's suit came on the same day the Post defended the Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy in an editorial.

"The Post won't have any comment," said the newspaper's spokesman Howard Rubenstein.

Blair refused to comment when reached Sunday night.

The Jamaican-born reporter was let go, in part, because the paper's editors were caught off guard by the suit he filed May 7, sources told the Daily News.

"Caught off guard" sounds a lot like they were pissed that Blair decided to fight for his rights to be treated equally under the law. The first hand account he wrote for them helped to sell papers, but taking the NYPD to court seems to be another matter for the brass at the Post. Now Mr. Blair and the Post won't comment, so the full story is going to have a tough time in coming out to see the light of day.

One thing is for certain though, if Blair were white, there wouldn't be a story to report.

Explosion At Fox News HQ, Propaganda Overload Suspected

An explosion occurred this morning at Fox News headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Despite CNN's glee at the building being destroyed by a terrorist attack, that does not seem to have been the case. While the rest of the media reports an accidental chemical explosion on the upper floors in an equipment room, I think many are missing the obvious.

Recently massive amounts of propaganda have been building up all across the company, from the lowly interns to the even lower-based life forms known as pundits. With the Bush Administration in tatters (despite Democratic efforts to sustain it) Fox News has been working overtime to put a good face on neo-cons throughout the White House and across the country.

People like Shepard Smith, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and many others have dedicated their tireless efforts in order to disinform the American public. The entire network has been dutifully parroting Bush's talking points, but lately that hasn't been enough. Since Fox has been focusing on so much sex, the computers might have just gone overboard and exploded, leading to the catastrophe we saw today.

Unfortunately Fox does not seem to care about the cause of the explosion, so future "accidents" could become commonplace. If you walk by 1211 Avenue of the Americas on a regular basis, please beware of falling loads of bullshit at all hours of day and night.

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My apologies to the injured, I hope they recover quickly and never return the aforementioned building.

NY Representative In D.C. Get Big $$$ For Environment

The headline in the New York Post hints of outrageous pork barrel politics committed by the new and improved NY delegation to the House of Representatives. The article itself is much tamer and I am glad to see these projects getting done. Cleaning up the environment is serious business and if Federal Regulatory agencies are too weak to get things accomplished, then kudos to Congress for stepping up to the plate.

From The New York Post:

WASHINGTON - New York's newly powerful congressional delegation has snagged tens of millions' worth of pork projects to aid local rivers and streams - grabbing cash to clean up babbling brooks in Westchester and combat putrid smells near La Guardia Airport.

All of the projects were "earmarked" by individual lawmakers in a water-resources bill, which is moving through Congress in a process that critics say pours taxpayer dollars down the drain by putting decisions in the hands of legislators instead of agencies.

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Queens) got the feds to kick in $2.7 million to help flush Flushing Bay to improve the water quality near La Guardia Airport, where past practices have soiled a once-tranquil inlet.

Critics like those that the NY Post fails to cite do not mention how the EPA has gone down that drain a long time ago. If the agencies are ineffective then you need to find a better way to get the job done. You can call it pork, but if chemicals have destroyed part of the natural habitat of a particular district, it needs to get fixed. We have spent hundreds of billions on Iraq and nothing has been accomplished. So shelling out a few million dollars to improve water quality is a much smarter allocation of dollars.

New York Post Is A Disgrace

The daily paper is known for its flashy front pages, usually the font is 4 inches high and says something to get your attention, trying to separate itself from all of the other papers offered here in Manhattan. They also have a reputation for having a conservative bent (being owned by Rupert Murdoch certainly proves that) and going over the top for its reporting of certain local stories.

Saturday's paper was a perfect example of that bent and their penchant for going completely out of bounds. This time the editors showed their heartlessness by posting a picture of a crash test dummy with ICU patient Governor Jon Corzine. The big headline for the Governor was "BUCKLE HEAD." The NY Post has no shame and careless disregard for Corzine and his family. It is one thing to disagree with him on political issues, but to exhibit that type of callousness should be relegated to right wing hate sites.

Newt Rails Hillary: This Is What Bipartisanship Gets Ya

After so many years of being bashed by Republicans, Hillary sought to find a centrist middle ground in the Senate. The junior Senator reached out across the aisle to many Republicans to work on legislation. One of those Republicans was Newt Gingrich. You might even remember the two of them teaming up to work on health care. This was only a few short years after he helped lead a charge to smear the then First Lady's failed bid to provide Universal Health Care shortly after Bill became President.

So what does Newt do after she reached out to him and other Republicans to build a consensus?

Well Newt certainly had some nice words for Hillary and the Clintons in general. This came from the New York Post this morning:

March 1, 2007 -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday called Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "a nasty woman" who runs an "endlessly ruthless" campaign machine.

The conservative Republican made the surprising comments - after months of taking care not to trash the Democratic presidential front-runner - in a wide-ranging New York Post editorial-board interview.

Asked whether Americans are ready to elect Rudy Giuliani - a leader, the questioner noted, whom Ed Koch had called a "nasty man" - Gingrich shot back, "As opposed to a nasty woman?"

Oooooh, a nasty woman. That is quite the intellectual commentary coming from a man with a history of nastiness. Anything else to add Newt?

"Nobody will out-mud the Clintons," said Gingrich, who added that he'll decide in the coming months whether to run for the White House.

He called Clinton's political team one of the most "talented" in U.S. history, but "endlessly ruthless."

"You can't beat them tactically . . . They're too relentless, they're too well-organized, they have too big a machine and they'll just grind you down," he said.

"If they think [Obama] is a real threat, they'll just grind him up."

Ouch! Ground-up Obama? That sounds painful. Seriously though, for someone would only run for President next year on the most remote of chances, why bother making harsh commentary like that? Why would the liberal bashing NY Post want to interview him? Perhaps he is trying to look like a tough guy with all the doubt surrounding Giuliani and McCain.

I think that Newt is seriously underestimating Barack Obama and the un-mentioned John Edwards. The nasty backbiting campaign tricks from years past are wearing thin on voters. Now would be a great time for candidates such as Obama and Edwards to rise above this type of viciousness and show the American public that politicians can rise above the mud-slinging.

Newt has no business in the Democratic primary and he should really stick to his own side. Hillary can sling mud all she wants, but when it comes down to it Democratic voters are going to see her stance on the war and weigh their decision heavily on that, not what Gingrich says about her.

Fox Misleading Its Viewers Yet Again

What our buddies over at Fox fail to mention is that poll is taken by a Republican polling firm that asked skewed questions in order to achieve those 'results'. Funny how the only two media outlets that used the poll was the NY Post and Fox News, both owned by GOP supporter Rupert Murdoch.