Working with editorial cartoonist

I'VE BEEN WORKING with very good editorial cartoonists, Doug Marlette and Kevin Siers. for 25 years. Here is the sum of the wisdom I've derived from the experience: It is an unnatural act for editorial page editors to work with cartoonists, a mispairing of the magnitude of a marriage between Hillary Clinton and Howard Stern (or maybe, for that matter, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton).

An editorial cartoonist who doesn't have great ideas that an editor would refuse to publish probably should seek another line of work. The cartoonist's job is to be provocative. The editor's job is to decide what a family newspaper will publish. I treat the cartoonist pretty much as a visual columnist. So the standard I apply is not whether the cartoon reflects our editorial position (though I can't imagine having a cartoonist whose views detested), but whether it makes a point that the general reader of our pages is likely to understand and whether it is within the rather generous bounds of taste and hyperbole that we apply to cartoons.

With all that in mind, here's the understanding our cartoonists and I have developed:

1. The cartoonist's job is to come up with the best idea he can for that day.

2. The editor's job is to decide whether to publish it.

3. The relationship works best, I think, if the process involves both of us from the outset. I never offer our cartoonist ideas. Coming up with ideas is his job. After he comes up with the idea, he and I discuss it and agree on what the cartoon will be before he draws the final version. During that give and take, I may say "no thanks" to a couple of ideas, but it happens during the sketching and talking process, not after a finished drawing is made. Often he will think of another way to make the same point and persuade me to go a little further than I was initially inclined.

The cartoonists I have worked with are smart and passionate about their work. Almost invariably this process produces a cartoon we're both proud of. The cartoonist and editor have a mutual interest, after all: We both want terrific cartoons in the newspaper.

Three or four times over the years, reader response has been so hostile that I've written columns acknowledging the complaints and explaining what the cartoon said to me and why I approved running it. The topics I recall were the Vietnam war, Billy Graham (the Charlotteborn evangelist), and Jesus' positions on war and capital punishment,

On cartoons I know will be controversial, I make sure I'm able to answer this question: What does this cartoon say to me that merits putting it in the paper? If I can't answer that to my own satisfaction, I'm going to have a heck of a time answering it to readers' satisfaction.

Sometimes I ask the cartoonist why he thinks we should publish it. After all, he has a big stake in it, too.

In our discussion, the cartoonist and I talk about ways various readers might find the cartoon offensive. Our goal isn't to avoid offending anybody. It's to avoid offending anybody unintentionally. Sometimes that doesn't work.

A representative of a national Catholic organization threatened to denounce us in his publication as antiCatholic because of a cartoon that centered on a manger scene. I told him that if the cartoon was offensive, surely it was offensive to all Christians, including Baptists, of which I am one, and not just to Catholics. I also told him that if he accused us in print of being anti-Catholic, his readers who also read the Observer would think he was stupid, and I offered some examples of Catholics who would say so publicly. We exchanged a couple of letters and a phone call, and ultimately he moved on to other things. My guess is that someone had complained to him and he had followed through, much the way your local power company's lawyer will send you a stern copyright warning if you use Reddy Kilowatt in a cartoon.

One time in all these years I apologized for running a cartoon. It criticized a local judge in a situation in which a prisoner was released who shouldn't have been. The cartoonist and I had our usual discussion. Then late in the day, after I'd left the office, he came up with a different version of the drawing that made the cartoon better but, in my judgment, factually inaccurate by shifting the focus from the judicial system to a specific judge. In a column, I explained that after reviewing the facts, I'd concluded that the cartoon wrongly blamed the judge, and I apologized to him in print. (The judge then asked for the original so he could frame it with the apology.)

For editorial page editors, I offer this advice:

1. Remember, it's the editor's job to decide whether to publish a cartoon. Your cartoonist may be unhappy if you reject an idea because you think it doesn't work or doesn't belong in your newspaper. Believe me, he'd be a lot more unhappy if you publish it and then turn on him afterward, and he should be.

2. If you get a lot of complaints about a cartoon you don't regret publishing, don't apologize, but also don't hesitate to explain your thinking in print.

3. If after hearing the complaints you conclude that you shouldn't have published the cartoon, say so in print.

It makes no sense to me to defend a decision you've concluded was wrong. Why not be straight with readers about it? Caution: If this happens to you more than once, something's wrong.

4. If your gut tells you not to run a cartoon, don't run it. Nothing feels worse than publishing something you thought you shouldn't and regretting it later.

5. If you find yourself killing all your cartoonist's best ideas, maybe you need to (a.) find another cartoonist, (b.) decide whether you really want to have a cartoonist, or (c.) send off for one of those exercise machines that Christie Brinkley advertises in the wee hours on cable TV to help you strengthen your stomach muscles. I recommend either (a) or (c). Provocative cartoonists may be the journalistic equivalent of chronic lower back pain for editorial page editors, but readers love 'em. Admit it, so do you, when they're somebody else's responsibility.

Tell us about your problem and how you solved it. Even if you haven't solved it, share the problem. Maybe someone else will offer a solution.

Your contribution may be 500 words long, but it doesn't have to be. If you can describe your problem or solution in just 150 words, more power to you!

Send all contributions to:

Paul Hyde, editorial writer

Greenville News, P.O. Box 1688, Greenville SC 29602

Phone 864/298-4853 Fax 864/232-7091

E-mail: phyde@greenvillenews.com

NCEW member Ed Williams is editorial page editor of The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina Write him at P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte NC 30308, by fax at 704/358-5022, or by e-mail at ewilliams@charlotteobserver.com

Copyright MASTHEAD National Conference of Editorial Writers Spring 2000
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