CSotD: Go read something else
Skip to comments
David Horsey saved me from doing something I really didn't want to.
I was thinking about creating an empty box with "Sorry — No Cartoon Available" in the middle and running it as a comment on how cartoonists have missed the target with the Egyptian whatever-it-is. Coup. Restructuring. Revolution. Reformation.
It's been a little disorienting, in fact: Those who hate Muslims are now in the position where they hate the Egyptian army, which is nominally Muslim, for overthrowing the Morsi government, which is militantly Muslim.
So we've got right-wingers demanding that the Obama government cut off aid to Egypt for preventing sharia, which, in every other context, makes them foam at the mouth and fall over.
Meanwhile, cartoonists who would normally be happy to see someone prevent an attempt to short-circuit the move to secularism and put religious conservatives in charge are so put off by tanks-in-the-street that they ignore the fact that the Egyptian military was also instrumental in bringing about the transition of the Arab Spring.
In other words, when the military engineered Mubarak's resignation, it was good, but now that it has stepped in against Morsi, that's bad. Same crowds in the street, same army, different cartoons.
Horsey blames it on the complexity of the issue, which is made no clearer by the Obama administration's lack of candor of where it stands. I don't disagree: White House silence, coupled with lacksadaisical reporting of what little has emerged, has also confused observers about our Syrian policy.
And it was all confusing enough to begin with. It's worth reading Horsey's comments.
My only dissent is not really with what he says but with how it all plays out in the cartooning world, which is a different topic. I don't think it's impossible, once you've chosen a topic, to poke around and find out what someone besides your usual suspects is saying about it.
Particularly if the result of not bothering is that all you end up with is "I hate Obama" or "Oh, those crazy Muslims" or "Tanks bad! Tanks bad!"
I mean, if a 12-year-old can come up with a coherent point of view, how hard is it for a cartoonist to do what cartoonists are paid to do?
You don't have to agree with him, but put some effort into the process.
Here's the state of things:
And speaking of cartoonists and what they should be getting paid for, this ties into a couple of coincidental points of tangency.
The other day, I linked back to a long-lost Editor & Publisher column by Dave Astor. Also, someone asked me about syndicated cartoon numbers and revenues, to which I replied that it's pretty hard to come up with, since it's all proprietary information.
Well, Rob Tornoe, writing for E&P, has a lengthy and interesting piece on where syndication and newspapers stand that may not be perfect or complete but is pretty darned good and qualifies as "must read" for anyone with an interest in the business.
If he were sitting here, I'd have some comments and quibbles, and I'd certainly take him to task for commenting on his own syndicate with just a disclaimer as figleaf, but he's not sitting here, is he?
The only truly major horror I see is the idea that "sponsored" columns have a place in the news section of a paper.
I've worked in advertising and marketing and I've got no problem with thinly disguised ads when they are clearly labeled as sponsored content — disclaimer at the top, different typeface, sponsor ad in similar format, etc.
However, blandly presenting the merging of this self-serving stuff with editorial content as just "another way of doing business these days" is probably accurate reporting, but, if so, that tells us more about the state of the industry than I'm comfortable knowing.
You should go read Rob's article, but the takeaway isn't that things are good so much as it is that they could be worse. And, indeed, they could. They, indeed, could also be better.
Which is why the subhed is what it is: Gilbert and Sullivan fans will realize I might also have chosen "Here's a how-de-do" or "Here's a pretty mess," and any of the three might have fit.
It is customary, when presenting the Mikado, to touch up the lyrics of the Lord High Executioner's song "I Have A Little List" with contemporary references.
I'm afraid, however, that doing the same to this song to bring it in line with Rob's piece would seriously disrupt the continuity of the operetta and, worse yet, would make you sound like "The Capitol Steps."
Compared to which both execution and being buried alive would be relatively pleasant.
UPDATE: On the subject of advertorials, apparently the FTC might actually step in and help consumers. I remember when that's what attorneys general and the FTC were for.
Comments
Comments are closed.