The New Yorker’s newest cover is causing a major flap nationally with its portrayal of the Obama’s as terrorists in the White House. The magazine’s editors call it a satire of right wing stereotypes of the Obama’s that have been created by the political right. Unfortunately it is very damaging to the Obama campaign because it reinforces the stereotypes that some Americans actually believe. Visual messages, even illustrations, can be a very powerful way of reinforcing accepted stereotypes.

A cartoon by a University of Virginia student newspaper cartoonist causes an uproar over its controversial content. This one comes on the heels of another cartoon printed just a few days earlier. This report from Andy Guess at Inside Higher Ed goes into detail:

The University of Virginia’s student newspaper found itself backpedaling last week after publishing a cartoon that spurred spontaneous protests by students who found it racially insensitive and inflammatory. The outcry culminated on Wednesday night, when between 100 and 200 students marched to the offices of The Cavalier Daily demanding an apology and the firing of the cartoonist. Racial tensions are not necessarily a new problem at the campus and neither, for that matter, are controversial comic strips. A year ago, a pair of cartoons by the same artist, Grant Woolard, offended Christian groups and was eventually featured on The O’Reilly Factor, which garnered thousands of angry e-mails from viewers. The current uproar has so far remained a local issue at the university, which bears a legacy of discrimination as a result of Jim Crow and also has faced a more recent history of racially tinged incidents on campus. It has made concerted efforts to boost its racial diversity in recent years, including a President’s Commission on Diversity and Equity and a statement of regret earlier this year for the institution’s onetime use of slaves. The cartoon in question, printed last Tuesday, presents a scene of bald, dark-skinned men in loincloths throwing ordinary items such as a shoe and a chair at each other. The caption reads: “Ethiopian Food Fight.” The newspaper retracted the cartoon that day and removed the image from its Web site. Although that cartoon was the immediate catalyst for student action, it came on the heels of another controversial strip the previous Friday, again by Woolard, that depicted Thomas Jefferson with a whip, standing before a black woman sitting on the bed (presumably Sally Hemings), who says, “Thomas, could we try role-play for a change?” The editor of the paper, senior Herb Ladley, said it was a mixture of lapses in oversight and a failure to recognize that the “food fight” scene would be seen as controversial that resulted in the comic being published. “A lot of times we’re just making snap judgments late at night … not really sitting down and reflecting on our policy like we should,” he said. Normally, at least three sets of eyeballs see comic strips before they go to press, he explained: the graphics editor, the operations manager and Ladley himself. But in this case, there was a difference: Woolard, the cartoonist, was also the graphics editor. -more

Prep Football: Photo raises a furor in Carroll
BY KEVIN WHITE, OMAHA WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER.

Three Carroll High School football players face a one-game suspension for making what the school has deemed obscene hand gestures in a team photograph. The decision prompted one boy’s father to resign as a booster club president and left the local newspaper explaining its decision to publish an altered version of the photo. The controversy comes the week Carroll High is to play cross-town rival Carroll Kuemper. The photo, taken by the Carroll Daily Times Herald, appeared Monday in the newspaper’s fall sports preview section. The newspaper “blurred” four players in the photo, three of whom were making similar hand gestures and a fourth whom the newspaper judged not to be acting in a “respectable manner.” The fourth player was not suspended from playing. Every player on the team, including those obscured, was identified by name below the photo.

An editor’s note followed: “The above photo has been altered to remove hand gestures displayed by four members of the team. While we considered not publishing the photo, we felt it was not fair to the 51 young individuals who conducted themselves in a respectable manner.” In explaining her decision to run the altered photo, Ann Wilson, general manager and co-owner of the Daily Times Herald, said Monday that the players’ action “was disrespectful to the team, to us and to women, which means mothers, sisters and girlfriends.”

“Why cover it up?” she asked. “I think young people need to learn to take responsibility for their actions.” On Tuesday she added that the paper would have handled any gesture, including one not considered offensive, the same way. “Any gesture would be considered inappropriate, whether it’s a thumbs-up or anything,” she said. “If it happens again, we’d do it the exact same way.” On Monday, Wilson said she strongly opposed shooting the photo again, citing an unwillingness to take up more of the team’s time, as well as the newspaper’s time and resources. – more

From one of my recent posts I talked about Vanity Fair magazine’s recent covers (20 different covers to be exact) that are touted by the editors as “historic.” Yet only two of the Annie Leibovitz covers are real, the other 18 were Photoshopped in post production. After checking the actual magazines there is nothing that states the “historic” covers are actually illustrations. In fact, for the most part you are led to believe that these people actually came together in each scene. In the print version of the magazine the film markers are even showing, even further emphasizing that these are “real” images. Only the subjects of two covers, President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Alicia Keys and Iman, were photographed together.

One of my favorite WTD strips

Privacy is a huge concern for individuals surfing the web. Google and other search engine companies have long held on to personal data for long periods of time. There has been an ongoing concern that personal search data is being used by Google and others to spy for the government on private citizens. While this is a step in the right direction, we need to let these companies know that privacy is paramount.

From the BBC: Google will limit the length of time it holds personally identifiable data

The move comes in response to a data protection group that wrote to the firm questioning its privacy policies. The European advisory body, called Article 29, said Google’s current data retention practices could be breaking European privacy laws. The search giant has said it will now keep personally identifiable search data for 18 months rather than the previous period of 18 to 24 months. – more

Sun photojournalists launch byline strike

Eighteen Baltimore Sun photojournalists launched a byline strike today protesting Tribune Co.’s move to force reporters to become photographers and videographers as a way to cut costs.

If Chicago-based Tribune has its way, reporters at The Sun, with little or no experience in photography, will not only be required to shoot still pictures, but take pictures with video cameras for submission to the paper’s website while they are conducting interviews and writing stories on deadline.

“Combining jobs and forcing reporters with limited experience to take videos and still shots will compromise the quality of The Sun,” said Cet Parks, Chief Negotiator for the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. “This is another misguided step by Tribune and clear evidence that the company will compromise quality to save a buck. What Tribune fails to see is that when quality suffers advertisers will spend their money elsewhere.”

In protest Sun photojournalists will withhold their bylines from pictures they take from June 11- 13. The photojournalists along with two photo editors and three technicians sent a letter to Sun Editor Timothy Franklin on June 7 expressing concern that quality will be compromised if the paper moves aggressively in this direction. - more