(Jeremy Nguyen and Brendan Loper, The New Yorker)
(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
(Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Regarding our last cartoonist, Rob Rogers, this is the first cartoon of his that the Post- Gazette has had published in more than a week. Why?
Rogers, who has drawn cartoons for the Post-Gazette since 1993, has seen six cartoons killed in a row by Keith Burris, who took over as the newspaper’s editorial director in March when the paper’s editorial board merged with its sister newspaper, the Toledo Blade. The cartoons included criticism of President Trump and of the NFL’s decision to prohibit players from protesting racial injustice during the national anthem. [snip]
Burris stoked controversy in January by penning a controversial editorial defending Trump’s criticism of immigrants from “s–hole countries,” a comment the president made during a discussion about protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Africa. The leaders of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, which represents about 150 Post-Gazette newsroom employees, blasted the editorial in a letter to the publisher for “twisting itself in knots in a colossally failed attempt to defend the indefensible.” [snip]
According to Post-Gazette reporter and Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president Michael Fuoco, Burris was asked to write the editorial by Post-Gazette publisher John Robinson Block, who demanded it run in both the Post-Gazette and the Blade. [snip]
Block is a Trump supporter who said during a 2013 community forum on racism that people of color needed to pull themselves up “by their bootstraps” like they did in the “old days.” Both Block and Burris met with Trump on his private plane at Toledo Express Airport in September 2016 after a campaign rally. Block was also called out by reporters in the newsroom for asking that the term “vulgar language” be removed from the first paragraph of an Associated Press story about Trump’s vulgar language. (our emphasis)In censoring Rogers, corporate media thugs like Block and his pet weasel Burris are mirroring Fox "News" and other right- wing propaganda instruments, for whom fealty to the Very Stable Genius is paramount. Fortunately, they're getting push back from the journalists in the newsroom. Someone has to uphold the First Amendment, and it won't be Trump sanitizers like Block and Burris.
