Comments on: Obama, The New Yorker, And Shared Enemies

MarketWatch Media Columnist Jon Friedman Waited In Vain For A Rally Around The New Yorker

[kennedy7955]

I will be voting for Obama. The satirical cover in question hardly offends me and shows that the NY''er magazine made a serious error in judgment. It is not a reflection of Obama but that of the Editor and the magazine which has stooped to an all time low for even them.

[tlobe]

I have on occassion read the New Yorker and appreciate its satire and style. However, this cover is not an issue of misuinderstood satire. What shocks me is the attitude of the editor as stated in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN this past Tuesday (July 15): the magazine is meant only for the sophisticated--read upper crust liberals (the phony intellectuals); the hoi polloi should not be reading his magazine--the underclasses won''t get, that is, are unable to understand, the New Yorker''s intellectualism qua snobbery. This elitism is totally misplaced. Editors of this ilk give journalism a bad name, but then they''ve always been suspect. The New Yorker has belied press''s claim that they are defenders of the public trust. That just ain''t (sic) so. Freedom of speech has nothing to do with truth, rather it only protects one''s right to without fear of retaliation and public persecution by governments at any level of authority. The New Yorker is free to look down its nose at those of us in the lower classes at anytime the editors choose to do so. The converse also holds. Those of us not a part of the magazines target audience are free to resent and throw "tomatoes" of negative criticism whenever the New Yorker goes too far. The outcry of protests of this cover cartoon is not only justified but are as much an exercie of free speech as the New Yorker''s right to publish such trash. Those that decry this criticism are the ones that don''t get it and should hold their tongues.

[ggrape]

Well Jon Friedman, you got it all wrong. Why has the media not rallied around the New Yorker? I believe they''re as disgusted as I am, and you sir do not get the broader picture.

Satire of Obama, McCain, or any other candidate is appropriate and necessary in our society. But I go back to the central purpose of the news media: to shine the light of truth where there is ignorance of it in the public. By current polls, 13% of americans still believe Obama is a muslim. THIRTEEN PERCENT!!! The New Yorker knew this, and should have known that their cover would feed more into that ignorance than highlight the GOP''s hateful lies about Obama.

Does anyone suspect McCain or Hillary Clinton of being a muslim? No. But a significant number of folks are ignorant about Obama, and the New Yorker should have chosen another means of fighting the gop''s ignorance, rather than fueling it (not to mention the ignorance among independents and liberals who make up part of that 13%).

So shame on the New Yorker, and a raspberry to Jon Friedman for not seeing the bigger picture.

[Razzl]

Sorry Friedman, I''m not buying it. The New Yorker cover didn''t work as intended because the editors didn''t sufficiently telegraph that it was parody (which they wouldn''t have had to do if it were an interior illustration for a story, because then only New Yorker readers would have seen it) for a public dumb enough to believe a lot of this stuff as real in the first place. I also don''t buy the idea that New Yorker is somehow the object of a campaign against them; it takes too much of a highbrow taste to bother reading it in the first place, let alone bother to get mad about anything they say in it...

The main problem with the New Yorker cover "cartoon" is the mixing of fact with fiction. People have seen the fist bump and know it is fact. The rest is fiction but because the fist bump is real the viewer can, if so desired, believe the rest is true.

While the regular New Yorker subscriber or reader might anticipate this as satire, many of the viewers once it was or would be put in distribution via TV coverage and/or the INTERNET, may not "know" this publication''s history of satire. It would have helped things if there had been a caption such as "This is what some Republicans and/or conservatives want you to believe about Obama". The New Yorker should have, could have and hopefully will in the future realize there is an informal distribution network and they have to adjust to it by making sure the intent is stated on the actual page that will be distributed.

One of the journalistic issues is that when the falsehoods are presented or used, too often journalists just let it pass without confronting the person being interviewed regarding the truthfulness of their statements.In conclusion, mocking and sarcasm should be based on fact not fiction, Otherwise, you may be just feeding the ignorance and stupidity that often prevails in society.

[suzyku]

This is NOT funny! The cover angered me. The ignorant, low information voters out there will see only a cover and that is the image that will stick with them, they will NOT go beyond that and this does not in any way help Obama. The cover is plain stupid, does not accomplish the goal the New Yorker "says" it wanted to. Bad idea, bad cover!

[joyous88]

the main stream propaganda machine, owned by the conservative wealthy, the republicons, the big churchs

has always been the enemy of free thinkers, democrats,
liberal minded tolerant peoples everywhere,

they are FASCIST, their only concern greed, profit,

they are UnAmerican republicons and theirs is a war against humanity, not a war against terrorism

[dnsallday]

I think the people who read the New Yorker will understand it to be satire, although many will view it as very much a slam to Muslims around this country and that will just fuel the stereotype.

What is extemely damaging, is that this cover will be shown all over the internet and cable news, over and over and over again. It will be misconstrued, shown as ''proof'' that even the liberal left, sees Obama as a Muslim and a danger.

In the corporate world, the only thing that matters is the bottom line. Personal responsibility is something the regular folks are supposed to have as they get screwed. And people sit back and demand nothing from the corporations.

[pdchapin]

So every time a cartoonist draws W as a cowboy or in some other outlandish outfit we should think that the artist is mocking liberals for saying nasty things about the President.

This was just a badly done cartoon that depended on the public picking up on the fact that it was a bank shot at another target. Given the high probability that the average reader wouldn''t recognize that the New Yorker were trying to do something odd, I can understand why the Obama people were upset.

[ubrew12]

I thought it was funny.

I''m worried that the reaction to this cover will stop them from offering the cover of McCain in a wheelchair being pushed by Mrs. McCain''s ''boy''