My concern with last week's editorial cartoon featured in the New York Post stems less from the paper's decision to run it. If nothing else, it stirred the pot and got some people talking about race, as Clarence Page put it in the Chicago Tribune.
No, my concern stems from the Post's apology -- or lack thereof -- two days after the cartoon ran.
Here is a link to The Post's "apology," entitled "That Cartoon."
Maybe this is too simplistic, but I remember being told as a child something along the lines of: "When you make a mistake, fess up."
The NY Post did no such thing, apologizing not for its decision to run the cartoon, but to those who may have been offended by the image. In fact, the Post actually took the opportunity to go on the attack.
"It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period," The Post wrote. The paper went on to add that it would not apologize to "some in the media and in the public life who have had differences with the Post in the past" and "see the incident as an opportunity for payback."
But as Page put it:
"The Post's apology sounded half-hearted, as if it were forced from a schoolyard bully by a bigger bully."
The cartoon and the subsequent lack of a serious apology left many people, including leaders of the black community, outraged.
Spike Lee, for example, has called for celebrities to ban together and boycott the Post. Rev. Al Sharpton joined Lee, as did TV judge Greg Mathis.
Of course, this isn't the first time Obama has had to deal with a satirical cartoon on the front of a major news publication. Yes, these types of cartoons fuel discussion -- discussions about race and about news judgement. Unfortunately, what's at the heart of these decisions is a less noble cause -- selling more covers.
So while the questions now surround this latest controversy, another question should be: Where will the next satirical cartoon come from?
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