The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#21

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

quietbritishjim wrote: post #15

gfodor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does confuse me that these mobs have such power on decision makers at companies and media outlets like this. The interesting thing about Twitter "mobs" is that if you look away from the computer screen or hit the button on the side of your phone, they are suddenly silent and may as well not exist. You can, in fact, log out of Twitter and never log back in again. Most of the time doing so will have zero long term n…

> It does confuse me that these mobs have such power on decision makers at companies and media outlets like this. The interesting thing about Twitter "mobs" is that if you look away from the computer screen or hit the button on the side of your phone, they are suddenly silent and may as well not exist. If you are a company then bad stories on Twitter could cause a significant drop in business. So if you just choose t…

[deleted]

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#22

Post by donohoe » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

To be clear, the NYT never did a lot of cartoons nor was it known for them.

I really don’t think this is a big deal.

If The New Yorker or sone other publication did, then maybe.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#23

Post by mevile » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

Political cartoons are, in my opinion, reductionist garbage that fail to take into consideration nuance and complexity and context. The caricature that inflate the size of ears and chins and lips and noses is not dignifying and doesn't add any value to whatever argument is being made, and can sometimes even be racist. There's no rebuttal to a political cartoon, there's no dialogue. They're cheap and easy to make and easy to consume and are just as easy to forget.

I don't care if they exist or not, either way I don't read them, but standing up for political cartoons as being a thing worth defending, I don't think it is. I think they hurt more than they help.

Go look at political cartoons from the sides of opinions you disagree with and see how they make you feel. Are they convincing you of anything or are they just making you mad?

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#24

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#25

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

dlivingston wrote: post #7

"We are in a world where moralistic mobs gather on social media and rise like a storm, falling upon newsrooms in an overwhelming blow. This requires immediate counter-measures by publishers, leaving no room for ponderation or meaningful discussions. Twitter is a place for furor, not debate. The most outraged voices tend to define the conversation, and the angry crowd follows in." This is a significant problem, not ju…

Except that the said newsrooms are more often than not the ones that amplify and give a legitimacy to these mobs by printing their reactions as if it was somehow the reaction of the people. The NY Times itself actively participated in many of these lynchings, like the Covington kids.

To me it looks more like a newsroom that likes playing with fire, got burned itself, and decides to cut its exposure so it can keep playing.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#26

Post by pgodzin » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

> This is the era of images. In a world of short attention span, their power has never been so big.

Given the reach of social media with respect to images, cartoons, memes, etc, do we need newspapers to be the distributors of political cartoons? Does it simply add legitimacy to some cartoons to separate them from the huge amount of low quality social media content?

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#27

Post by NE2z2T9qi » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

I think this piece is a great example of smug, establishment romanticism which grossly overvalues form over function. A political cartoon hasn't made me laugh, think deeply, or--most importantly--change my worldview in years. It's the most self-satisfied, pretentious, and outdated medium I know of. The author's notion that the loss of political cartoons is a serious loss of visual political culture is a self-absorbed joke. Visual political memes have become a massive and persistent grassroots social phenomenon with far more influence and engagement than too-clever-by-half political cartoons... not to mention certain animated shows with extremely sharp political and social satire. I don't think the author really regrets loss of political discourse. I think he regrets no longer being considered part of the political chattering-class establishment, even as that establishment loses its influence in a world of democratized information flow and opinion-sharing.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#28

Post by ehvatum » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

The drastic step of eliminating all political cartoons carries a very specific and misleading implication, if one assumes that the NYT is impartial. Which they are not: https://nypost.com/2019/04/30/anti-semitic-scandal-at-the-ne...

With that in mind, ceasing publication of all political cartoons evidences extremely poor editorial discretion at the NYT. What, they are incapable of excluding Palestinian propaganda? Apparently: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/world/middleeast/christma...

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#29

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

praneshp wrote: post #18

hestefisk wrote: post #12

This reminds me of the famous Muhammad drawings in 2005 in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (JP). Back then they were seen as a defence of free speech and our democratic rights, a way of mocking the draconian regimes of the Middle East. Had it happened again today, the Puritan twittersphere would have been all over it and JP would likely have had to follow same route as NYT. Very sad.

> Back then they were seen as a defence of free speech and our democratic rights, a way of mocking the draconian regimes of the Middle East Was this an universal viewpoint in the West? As a non-Muslim teen in India I saw it as mocking Islam (I get that others' mileage varies).

In the case of Charlie Hebdo the intention was clearly to mock Islam indeed. But I am mystified that we are questioning in 2019 the right to blasphemy in a modern, western, free, secular society.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#30

Post by jdoliner » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #25

dlivingston wrote: post #7

"We are in a world where moralistic mobs gather on social media and rise like a storm, falling upon newsrooms in an overwhelming blow. This requires immediate counter-measures by publishers, leaving no room for ponderation or meaningful discussions. Twitter is a place for furor, not debate. The most outraged voices tend to define the conversation, and the angry crowd follows in." This is a significant problem, not ju…

Except that the said newsrooms are more often than not the ones that amplify and give a legitimacy to these mobs by printing their reactions as if it was somehow the reaction of the people. The NY Times itself actively participated in many of these lynchings, like the Covington kids. To me it looks more like a newsroom that likes playing with fire, got burned itself, and decides to cut its exposure so it can keep pla…

This is how I see it too, things like the Covington kids create a backlash against the newsrooms that promulgate them. And NYT gave them too perfect of an opportunity when they published a remake of a Nazi propaganda comic that could easily be portrayed as antisemitic.