NY Post Fires Editor Critical Of Racist Obama-Stimulus Cartoon

Huffington Post
First Posted: 10- 6-09 03:29 PM Updated: 10- 7-09 08:55 AM Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/ny-post-fires-editor-crit_n_311432.html

A New York Post editor who spoke out against a controversial cartoon the paper ran comparing the author of the president's stimulus package to a dead chimpanzee has been fired from her job, the paper confirmed.
Sandra Guzman was quietly dismissed from her position as associate editor last week for reasons that are being hotly debated by personnel inside the company. An official statement from the New York Post, provided to the Huffington Post, said that her job was terminated once the paper ended the section she was editing.
"Sandra is no longer with The Post because the monthly in-paper insert, Tempo, of which she was the editor, has been discontinued."
Employees at the paper -- which is one of media mogul's Rupert Murdoch's crown jewels -- said the firing, which took place last Tuesday, seemed retributive.
Guzman was the most high-profile Post employee to publicly speak out against a cartoon that likened the author of the stimulus bill (whom nearly everyone associated with President Barack Obama) with a rabid primate. Drawn by famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, the illustration pictured two befuddled policeman -- having just shot the chimp twice in the chest -- saying: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
"I neither commissioned or approved it," Guzman wrote to a list of journalist colleagues shortly thereafter. "I saw it in the paper yesterday with the rest of the world. And, I have raised my objections to management."
The remark from Guzman was a rare instance of dissension within the halls of the paper making its way into the public domain. And sources at the Post now say it cost her a job.
"I think ever since then, she has been on their shit list and they were trying to look for a reason to get rid of her," said a Post employee who was granted anonymity in exchange for speaking freely. The problem at the Post is a revenue problem, the employee said. "My whole thing is, she is not in charge of advertising. She is an associate editor. Whoever is in accounting or advertising should have been held accountable."

News Corp. Forms Diversity Council After Cartoon

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by JESSE WASHINGTON,
AP National Writer
Jun 11, 2009, 09:34

News Corp. has agreed to form an external diversity council after meeting with civil rights groups about a New York Post cartoon that critics said likened President Barack Obama to a dead chimpanzee.

The company will form a "diversity community council" in New York City that will meet with senior company executives twice a year, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said Wednesday. It also will include a statement of commitment to diversity in its annual report.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch published an apology in the Post soon after the cartoon appeared in February, but pressure for further action continued. Jealous called the cartoon an “invitation for assassination” and urged a boycott of the paper and the firing of the editor and cartoonist. The Rev. Al Sharpton asked the Federal Communications Commission to review policies allowing News Corp. to control multiple media outlets in the same market.

Representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Sharpton's National Action Network, the National Urban League and 100 Black Men of America met with News Corp. executives on May 19.

Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_12648.shtml

Activists Seek More Than Apology from New York Post

Washington Afro
NAACP demands editor-in-chief and cartoonist resign, more newsroom diversity
By Alan King AFRO Staff Writer

(February 24, 2009) - Nearly a week after the New York Post’s controversial cartoon sparked nationwide outrage, and just days after the paper apologized, protests and outrage have continued – with political activists and celebrities demanding the resignation of the editor-in-chief and cartoonist.
The illustration, published last Wednesday, depicts a gun-downed chimpanzee and two police officers, with a caption, saying: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Since the image was published a day after President Barack Obama signed the federal economic stimulus package, and two days after police killed a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut, many say the connection between the president and the ape was clear.
“This connection between simians and Black men is an old canard,” NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olberman” Monday night. “That’s what this cartoon is all about.”
NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous called the illustration an “invitation to assassinate President Obama,” and he urged readers to boycott the Post.
In addition, the civil rights organization called for the removal of Post editor-in-chief, Col Allan, and cartoonist, Sean Delonas.
“This connection between simians and Black men is an old canard.”
The drawing, Jealous told the media, “picks off the scabs of all the racial wounds.”
NAACP officials said they planned to reach out to organizations across the country to join them in their efforts against the tabloid if the Post does not take “serious disciplinary action.”
Calling the cartoon “thoughtlessness taken to the extreme,” Bond said, “Anyone who is not offended by it does not have any sensitivity.”

Full Story: http://www.afro.com/tabid/456/itemid/2975/Activists-Seek-More-Than-Apology-from-New-York-Pos.aspx