Does Fox News just not care anymore? Are they not even trying to be real journalists? Why does it take a comedy show to reveal that Fox's Sean Hannity used film footage from a completely different protest to make the GOP's health care rally appear more heavily attended?
The news media is in a downward spiral. Nine months ago I wrote about Sean Delonas' vile racists cartoons printed in the NY Post. At the time there was a disingenuous controversy over whether the illustrations were intentionally racist. Well, stop the presses. Sandra Guzman, a former NY Post editor fired after speaking out against the cartoon, is now speaking out against the racist and misogynistic atmosphere at the Post. In addition to her shocking allegations of sexual harassment, she had this to say about the atmosphere in the newsroom:
In the complaint, Guzman said that multiple editors knew that the cartoon was offensive, but didn't do anything about it. It was, she alleges, par for the course when it came to the paper's coverage. Guzman alleged that she had once learned that the Post had planned to run a cartoon in the newspaper depicting Jews as sewer rats. She also alleged that "Charles Hurt, the Post's Washington D.C. Bureau Chief and a high ranking journalist at the newspaper, had confirmed to Ms. Guzman that the Post had such a policy in place, telling her that the Post's 'goal is to destroy Barack Obama. We don't want him to succeed.'"
This is the fraud and paranoia that Rupert Murdoch builds his empire upon.
My grandma was a racist. I was slow to figure it out, just like this guy in Clerks 2 (if video doesn't show, click here):
Honestly, my grandparents used "monkey" as a term of endearment. I thought it was cute. I knew very little about that part of history where racists portrayed blacks as chimps to denigrate the entire race... But I was young.
That level of ignorance, though, would be inexcusable for an adult working for the Murdoch-owned NY Post. But ignorance isn't even the apology offered for this recent cartoon by Sean Delonas depicting police officers shooting a monkey for writing the stimulus bill. Instead, the editor-in-chief defends the unfunny cartoon as a "clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut."
Other apologists have suggested that the monkey symbolizes congress and not the president, or that the cartoon is a reference to the infinite monkey theorem -- except, of course, the cartoon depicts only one monkey.
Really though? We're expected to buy these excuses? No editor recognized the racism? Sean Delonas accidently tripped and crossed the line... like he's done so many other times in his other vile cartoons?
Ok, we can agree or disagree on the intended racism, but the bloody assassination part is undeniable. The message from the NY Post is we can solve all our political problems with guns, encourage acts of treason, and still provide a healthy profit to Murdoch, that little carnivorous vulture. And that's not a term of endearment.