THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Mark Karlin

Editor and Publisher

July 15, 2008

I tried my mightiest not to write about the appalling and inexcusable New Yorker cover that provides a racist, right-wing stereotyping caricature of the Obamas. From our view, knowing a thing or two about public relations, the decision of The New Yorker editor to run the cover probably included the likelihood of massive free publicity: mission accomplished. So I didn't want to help them out.

But I got a call yesterday from a long-time reader (since 2000) who occasionally e-mails us tips and with whom we have grown close in that Internet sort of way. (I won't reveal his name because he is in the media business in Manhattan and his feeding of information to BuzzFlash could cause his professional life a setback, to say the least.) He was distressed by the cover, in fact in pain. He was concerned that, given that there was no context to the so-called parody (The New Yorker could have had Rush Limbaugh popping pills and hallucinating the image of the Obamas with a contented druggy smile on his face, but the Conde Nast empire and its owners, the Newhouse family, probably doesn't want to offend Rush and his backers), and that a display of bigoted images on newsstands around the country (without any indication except inside the heads of the cartoonist and New Yorker editor that they were meant as "parody") could help further incite racism and a fear of Obama.

More stunts like The New Yorker pulled off could lead to setting off an assassination attempt.

The New Yorker is one of the best publications in America in terms of political writers and content. It, unlike The New York Times news section, regularly blows big wide holes through the lies of the Bush Administration and the status quo in D.C. It has a stable of some of the finest, most conscientious political-government journalists in the United States, including the incomparable Seymour Hersh. Today, July 15th, a book that blows the lid off Bush Administration war crimes in relation to torture is being released. It is by New Yorker writer Jane Mayer.

So what happened?

We can only speculate that a combination of a desire to get free publicity (The New Yorker has nearly a million subscribers -- more in California than New York by the way -- and is actually growing), New York insular smugness, arrogance, insensitivity, and a horribly misguided concept came together to cause a Frankenstein cover, in a magazine that has been known for its droll artwork.

It's inexcusable, and instead of apologizing or promising that McCain and his wife will get the same treatment, the editor of The New Yorker has indicated, with dripping disdain for critics, that they may or may not do something similar with the McCains (which is not really going to undo the original wrong, just compound it equally.)

If the Obama cover were not so radically devastating in fanning the flames of racial and political stereotyping, it would be something to move on from. But the cover of the July 21st New Yorker (weekly magazines dateline themselves a week ahead so that they appear timely on the newsstands) will be seen at bookstores, magazine stands, airports, doctors' lounges, etc., for quite sometime. This is not short-term damage to civility, but a contributing factor to the inflaming of the crackpots in our nation and the nurturing of the lies behind the caricatures. In short, the images on the cover don't debunk or sneer; they promote the lies themselves.

As one blog [1]that a reader posted on BuzzFlash.net [2] suggested: "Well, The New Yorker has published some of the great cartoons of our age. Here's an idea for a new one: a cartoon about a cartoonist penning a cartoon, and editors approving it, all with their heads up their ..."

Sometimes the insularity of Manhattan can be as confining as small town prejudices. Living and working in the world's most self-important city doesn't give one the right to act irresponsibly.

It just may mean that your head is stuck up your ass -- and you can cause great harm due to your smugness and a desire for some free publicity by creating a gaper's block that can harm the basic civility of our nation.

THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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