As is too often the case, these days, the argument we're having isn't the argument we should be having.
Rob Rogers joined The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as an editorial cartoonist in 1993. He worked there until this week. In 1999, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
This week, he published the following op/ed piece in the New York Times.
After 25 years as the editorial cartoonist for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I was fired on Thursday.
I blame Donald Trump.
Well, sort of.
I
should’ve seen it coming. When I had lunch with my new boss a few
months ago, he informed me that the paper’s publisher believed that the
editorial cartoonist was akin to an editorial writer, and that his views
should reflect the philosophy of the newspaper.
That was a new one to me.
I was trained in a tradition in which editorial cartoonists are the live wires of a publication — as
one former colleague put it, the “constant irritant.” Our job is to
provoke readers in a way words alone can’t. Cartoonists are not
illustrators for a publisher’s politics.
When
I was hired in 1993, The Post-Gazette was the liberal newspaper in
town, but it always prided itself on being a forum for a lot of
divergent ideas. The change in the paper did not happen overnight.
From
what I remember, it started in 2011, with the endorsement of the
Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, which shocked a majority
of our readership. The next big moment happened in late 2015, when my
longtime boss, the editorial page editor, took a buyout after the publisher indicated that the paper might endorse Mr. Trump. Then, early this year, we published openly racist editorials.
Things really
changed for me in March, when management decided that my cartoons about
the president were “too angry” and said I was “obsessed with Trump.”
This about a president who has declared the free press one of the
greatest threats to our country.
Not every idea I have works. Every year, a
few of my cartoons get killed. But suddenly, in a three-month period,
19 cartoons or proposals were rejected. Six were spiked in a single week
— one after it was already placed on the page, an image depicting a Klansman in a doctor’s office asking: “Could it be the Ambien?”
After
so many years of punch lines and caricatures, skewering mayors and
mullahs, the new regime at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette decided that The
Donald trumped satire when it came to its editorial pages.
This
has been my dream job. It makes the experience of buying a coffee or
checking out at a grocery store a thrill. I go to pay and the person
looks at my credit card, sees my name, asks me if I’m the
Rob Rogers and then tells me about a particular cartoon he or she
loved. The outpouring of support I have received in recent days from the
people of this city, including its mayor, has been overwhelming and
uplifting.
The paper may have taken an eraser to my cartoons. But I plan to be at my drawing table every day of this presidency.
Reaction to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's actions in firing Rob Rogers was, and continues to be, both swift and predictable. Not just a little ironically, the increasing awareness of how often these kinds of incidents are occurring is also both swift and predictable.
Aside from a few swift and predictable peeps from the Donald Donald He's Our Man peanut gallery, (and, as long as we're articulating alliteratively here, let's add in "pathetic" to the "p" pile), the consensus is clear as crystal.
Put simply, as offered up by one social media poster, "well...there goes the 1st Amendment".
Yeah....while, actually.....no, not so much.
"Free speech", as a practice as opposed to a concept, is rapidly climbing the overused catchphrase charts at a pace that may find it, sooner rather than later, taking over the top slot from the several many weeks in a row crowd favorite.....
..."fake news".
And, at least in this instance, free speech and freedom of the press are pretty much interchangeable when it comes to dissecting the dissent created by this seeming assault on the ol' number one, the amendment to begin all amendments, numero uno and, for all you mother of language lovers out there, "qui emendatione".
The rub, here, perchance dreamers, is that we all have a natural predisposition to latching on to that word "free" without allowing any intellectual wiggle room for accommodating the limitations that come in the box with it.
Say what? Limitations. What you talkin' bout, Willis?
How can there be "limitations" on "free"?
Well, for starters, we could get into a thing about "buy one, get one free....just pay shipping and handling", but that's a birdie for a different badminton game.
Let's just paint the picture with this anecdote.
A number of years ago, a colleague of mine in the radio business shared with me the story of an on air personality who, after being repeatedly warned to stop saying a certain few things on his daily show, was fired, after continuing to say those certain few things a few more times. Or at least exactly one more time than management was willing to consider forgivable.
The reaction of the on-air was (we all know where this is going, right?) both swift and predictable.
"This is America. First Amendment. Free speech." And a few additional spits and sputters about infringement, denial and, probably, a little allusion to fascism, sprinkled in here and there.
My colleague, at the time working as program director for the station, listened patiently and professionally, to the protestations of the suddenly ostracized on-air. Then, he responded, also patiently and professionally, as follows:
"I absolutely agree with you that this is America and that the First Amendment guarantees you, and me and all of us, for that matter, the right to say whatever we want. And I, personally, respect and defend your personal right to say whatever you want. You're simply no longer going to be given the opportunity to say it on "our air".
The simplified moral of the story is "we are free to say what we wish to say. We are not, obviously, free from being held accountable, responsible and subject to the consequences resulting from what we say.
For the deep thought impaired amongst us...." you say it. you own it."
At this point, it's important that you do not make the mistake of misunderstanding me.
The firing of Rob Rogers by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for his continued cartoon lampooning of Donald Trump is a slap in the American mouth.
But it's not a violation of his First Amendment rights.
No one prevented him from drawing the cartoons.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette simply decided that Rogers was no longer going to given the opportunity to present those cartoons "on their air."
And arguing Rob Rogers' rights as citizen of the United States of America to say what we wants, be it verbally or via' cartoon caricature, is the too easily taken path that is, in fact, the wrong road.
You see, where you really want to go is here....
Letting it be known that the really damaging slap in the American face that took place was an American newspaper in an American city either endorsing the very un-American behavior of a demagogue who rode fear, ignorance and hatred into the Oval Office by silencing a single voice of criticism coming from inside their house.
Or, in the worst case, cowered and caved in to the pressures almost surely applied by the other endorsers of that demagogue...or, perhaps, even the demagogue himself.
Rob Rogers is a talented, accomplished guy.
Pretty sure he's gonna land somewhere successfully and carry on the classic lampooning.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, meanwhile, will continue, at least for the time being to, create the illusion that they are serving their community and, to some extent, the nation by providing that community, and the nation, a professional, powerful and, ideally, productive assembly of the events that shape, and change, lives.
The news.
Thing is, by firing Rob Rogers, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has set off an alarm in the minds of reasonable people.
Not so much about the news they might be providing.
But about the message they are sending.
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