Chimp Cartoon Writes NY Post Editor's Obit

Col Allan, the editor of the New York Post whose career will likely be ended by the cartoon equating President Obama with a chimpanzee, has worked for Rupert Murdoch for 34 years. He is among the people at Murdoch's News Corp. who are closest to the boss. He was promoted to his job at the Post from the editorship of the Daily Telegraph, Murdoch's paper in Sydney, by Murdoch's son Lachlan. The Murdochs are wealthy, educated and, in their way, genteel aristocrats. Allan is a hard-drinking, profane, sometimes violent newspaper hack without education or polish--and, yet, he's as close as you get to a Murdoch family alter-ego.

When Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal little more than a year ago, one of the first things he did was take Col Allan to meet the editors there--that was Murdoch's way of screwing with the fancy heads of the Journal staff, making it clear that Allan was his kind of editor and journalist.

The fact that Allan is now being hung out to dry, and his obituary written, over a cartoon, is more mind blowing to Allan than to anyone else. After all, the Post has always been all things a tabloid should be--what Murdoch wanted it to be. In your face, politically incorrect, gleeful in its disregard of journalistic propriety. If you took issue with that, well, the Post would rough you up a bit. The aggressive, reckless, racially insensitive nature of the chimp cartoon is just business as usual at the Post.

Continue reading at newser.com

Comments

[FLMom99]

Too Little, Too Late - More than an apology is now needed:
http://www.floodthelines.com/rupertmurdochnyp/
The NYP must be held Accountable for its actions!

[FairTalk]

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[SabrinaFair]

This will not end with these pathetic half-apologies from Mr. Murdoch.

This will end when the editor-in-chief and the cartoonist responsible are dismissed.

[carnelld]

Rupert Murdoch and News Corp, with their ownership waivers ,have done media creep all over the globe. In America , Fox News and the New York Post spew the worst ideological garbage in America disguised as news.

Murdoch (News Corp) has also purchased the Wall Street Journal. They have initiated its' transformation from one of America's best known business information newspaper to a tool of the far right wing in disguise.

[mcfried]

Mr Wolf it appears you and may who write about this cartoon miss the point. It is not just politically incorrect due to it's racial in sensitivity. I'm white and I found the cartoon beyond offensive. Even if you take the obvious racial overtones out of the equation, It found humor in the idea of doing harm to members of the congress or the President, that's outrageous. The editor and cartoonist should have been summarily fired and potentially investigated by the secret service.

[headstrong]

Murdoch may be many things, but he ain't stupid. Rupert knows who's in the White House, and which way the political wind is blowing these days. Time to butter the other side of the bread for a while.

[flatus]

Should all free speech be pleasant?

[karinova]

Oh enough already.
He's being (if anything) persecuted, not PROSECUTED.

One is perfectly legal under the 1st Amendment; the other violates the 1st Amendment.

[HyperInfluential]

He GOT his free speech. He got to say what he wanted to say, and he even got the additional honor of having his drawing published in a newspaper! He got to do that, nobody prevented him. The system worked, free speech ensued.

Now it's time for our free speech. Like, I have the right to freely say I think Congress should revoke Rupert Murdoch's citizenship if possible, and send him back to the nether regions of the Earth from whence he came.

All perfectly free and legal. It's a two-way street!

[mcfried]

Free speech does not come without consequence. Besides the man gets paid for his speech and his being fired is business not censorship. He is still free to spout his cr@p on any street corner in America - paycheck free.

[Jamchinadian]

Hate speech is against the law. So is speech inciting violence.

[garment69]

This entire debate is pointless. At the center of all this "outrage" is a cartoon which was not even referring to President Obama. My first thought when I saw it was Pelosi, Reid and all the clowns in congress who actually WROTE the bill. People should lighten up and stop looking for outrage at every turn.

[Margo Arrowsmith]

What is amazing is that people use the 'Pelosi and Reid' excuse as something that would make this cartoon ok. Its ok to suggest killing people, killing elected officials as long as it isn't racial?

And of course, we all know that they certainly did mean Obama, who is the author in principle of this legislation. We know that saying it is about the (female not 'he') Pelosi or the two of them is just an excuse from someone who has been caught. Next thing you know people will say that 'the dog ate his other cartoon so he had to print this one"

[HyperInfluential]

Exactly! The cartoon said SOMEBODY ought to be killed. To the cartoonist, SOMEBODY had no more right to live than a crazed animal on a rampage.

If the idea was to just show that the bill "could have been written by a monkey" then the drawing should have shown the rampaging monkey going into a destructive fit, and the caption would say something like, "He's just upset because people don't like his stimulus bill." Of course that would still have been seen as racist: as I saw a commentator on CNN say, you just don't use monkey metaphors when the situation involves an African American person. You find another metaphor, because that one is tainted with historical racism.

That would still have been racially insensitive, but at least it wouldn't have ALSO advocated violence against our elected officials!

[eden4barack08]

And a cartoon shooting two Congressional leaders is ok? Wow, you people are too far off.

[surfcitysteven]

At the top of this chain is Murdoch, a foreigner at that, hiring all these clowns in his whole empire to pull these stunts. Hannity i reduced to a one hour hate-fest, Beck is even further off his meds, and now this guy. My fantasy treatment for Murdoch, and I smile when I think of it, is him being detained by the secret service and given the Batman-Joker interagation treatment. "Don't start with the head! It makes the victim all fuzzzy!

[MPeter]

He Alan even American?These guys come from Australia and instead of being respectful to this country for allowing them to get this wealthy in America, they insult our Prez? They should be sent back to that penal colony down under.

[roshni]

This one can take his filth and high tail it right back Down Under.
I know lots of nice people from OZ and they are disgusted by him too.

[zanzig]

The Daily Telegraph in Sydney is a "newspaper" in exactly the same mould as the NYP so Col Allan brought good credentials to this job. The fact is that Murdoch is now an American so he has every right to make whatever comments he chooses within the bounds of your laws. I don't know what Allan's immigrant status is, so we might have to take him back, but he knows that he will not get quite the same latitude in Australia. We have laws against racial vilification that mitigate any implied rights to free speech; he would never have got away with this cartoon here.

[aussiegal77]

Sorry but you can keep him! Aussies don't want his type of people here either! We've got enough problems already, thanks!

=)

[NCRDIBULL]

While extremely poor judgment as any who saw would immediately think of the racial connotations ... It still wa directed at Pelosi and Reid as the authors ... I still don't recall the outrage directed at Oliphant of the Wash Post for his racist cartoons directed at Condi Rice

[Rrhain]

Then why is there only one chimp? And why did it say, "He"?

And until you can provide evidence of these "racist cartoons directed at Condi Rice," we'll just chalk them up to Republican talking points...m­eaning that the exact opposite is true.

[cobraxus]

In Austrailia racism of this kind isn't simply tolerated or even tacitly encouraged­.It's The Law!

[deeppeace]

It's in the gene pool.

[MaciasJ]

Racist.

[roshni]

That is their problem to solve, if true. I rather doubt it. We have enough problems of our own.

[aussiegal77]

Nothing like this has ever been published in Australia - not even in that rag, the Daily Telegraph!

Yet in the US - it comes to the light of day and you have the nerve to point the finger at Australia and say WE are the racist country?! Oh please, you're delusional.

Australia does have a racist past but we've made strides since then so please step off your soap box and self righteous high horse cuz even with an awesome President like Obama - there are still plenty of people in the media and in the US who would like nothing better than to see him fail.

[surfcitysteven]

He made the decision and with a chuckle or two when he did, that he would put a picture of Obama, WITH A PEN IN HAND, signing the bill right next to the cartoon. He wanted to make sure that everybody got it. Well, we did.

[CAMBEL]

I'm so glad you wrote that. We don't get the NYPost here so I hadn't seen the cartoon actually in the paper. That really underlines it! At first, whenver I hear Sharpton is doing something I assume there is a manipulative angle to it. thank you for adding in how the cartoon was laid out in the paper!

[Neal Patel]

Is Col Allan - Rupert Murdoch's Waylon Smithers..

[deeppeace]

His career won't end. Only in the US. He'll go back to Australia, where they reward behavior like his.

[surfcitysteven]

I do believe that it is rewarded in this country more than any other. Look at Ann Coulter, (well don't actually look at her, it is unpleasant, but you know what I mean) only in America, with it's rich, ingrained bigotry, coupled with so much wealth, could a mean hag like that make so much money. "Ditto" that for Limbaugh and Beck.

[roshni]

We've got lots of our own tr@sh to deal with. DOn't need it from other people.

[jack7576]

Australia today is different from the Australia 20 years ago