political cartoons

Animationbot

With all the talk of insta-animation, I took a stab at it myself. I finished next week's animation a week early after about 45 minutes of easy clicking. Satire-bots are on the way!

"Nice Enough Guy"

The full transcript and video is finally in (see below, begins around the 52-minute mark), and you can now judge for yourself. Did Steve Jobs call me a liar?

Um, no.

It's those pesky live blogs and paraphrased "transcripts" that fanned the flames of this story. My read on this is that, besides calling me a "nice enough guy," Steve Jobs was a little peeved that I didn't try to resubmit before the Pulitzer win. (As I stated before, the reason I didn't resubmit was because Apple said the NewsToons app would only be approved if it didn't "ridicule public figures.")

I'm hopeful that the "ridicules public figures" edict is no longer in force, but Apple hasn't come out and said one way or another. Jobs uses the "95% of apps are approved" line of response quite a bit--- which I hope means satire and political cartoons are welcome and will contribute to a bright future of journalism for Apple and for cartoonists!

At the risk of joining the ranks of Steve Jobs-ologists, his one comment I take issue with is that political cartoons, by their very nature, defame people. As far as I know, defamation is a legal description that goes above and beyond clever satire. You can get sued for defamation, it's very rare for a political cartoon to defame. Tweak, needle, anger, yes. Defame, no.

Let me know what you think or if you legal scholars out there can enlighten me.

Did Steve Jobs Just Call Me A Liar?

Even though I should be finishing the latest animation right now, I just wanted to give you an update about the latest Jobs/Apple/app dustup. I'm still trying to make sense of what Steve Jobs actually said, but here's an excerpt from his appearance last night at the WSJ's D8 conference:

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7:18PM Walt: So what happened with this candidate?

Steve: We had a rule that said you can't defame other people.

Kara: Determined by your app people.

Steve: Yes... and political cartoons got caught in that. We didn't think of that. So this guy submits his app and he gets rejected. We didn't see that coming. So we changed the rule, but this guy never resubmitted... then he wins a Pulitzer Prize, and he says we rejected him. So, we are guilty of making mistakes. We're doing the best we can, we're learning as fast as we can -- but we thought this rule made sense.

Right after that, Jobs apparently said this:

7:19PM Steve: We're doing the best we can, we're fixing mistakes. But what happens is -- people lie. And then they run to the press and tell people about this oppression, and they get their 15 minutes of fame. We don't run to the press and say "this guy is a son of a bitch liar!" -- we don't do that.

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Now, before you freak out and lose sleep like I did, this was taken from a live blog, and other live blogs from the same event are a little mellower. I'm trying to track down the full transcript or video (the event was filmed, but they're only releasing excerpts) and will update when I've found it.

If I'm hearing Steve Jobs correctly, he's essentially calling me a liar who is just seeking 15 minutes of fame (which, as a cartoonist, is a very funny thing to hear from someone who speaks in front of 30-foot screens projecting his image).

What I am seeking is a clarification from Apple on their policy regarding satire and "ridiculing public figures," and a response to the letter the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists wrote Mr. Jobs. I fully support their right to pick and choose bad or good content for their store, but a blanket ban on ridicule is, um, ridiculous. If the doors are now open to satire and ridicule of public figures, then Steve Jobs has indeed corrected his "mistake."

I've always made a point of being open about my whole experience with the Apple and have never sought out confrontation. My NewsToons app was, in fact, rejected. You can see the actual rejection email below. The reason I never resubmitted the app was because I wasn't about to make the changes Apple sought and remove any "content that ridicules public figures." Ridiculing public figures is what I do and is an essential part of journalism.

I'm in the process of improving and updating the NewsToons app and would love to know whether or not Apple has changed their policy regarding satire, because this isn't just about me, it's about a promising new future for journalism.

Hopefully, I'll be able to reach Mr. Jobs directly and get a clarification.

There are some good postings about this latest development here, here and here. I'll update you as soon as I know more.

Now I've got to get back to cartooning. Ack! Almost deadline-time!

-Mark

Pulitzer Entry Cartoons

I meant to do this sooner, but here are the 15 cartoons that I submitted for my Pulitzer Prize entry. These were all done in 2009 and are now all embeddable youtube videos.

Like my other animation, these are all drawn with a brush dipped in ink, on paper first, then scanned into the computer and animated in Flash.