Editor & Publisher Notes My Retraction

There was never in any doubt in my mind, once I discovered the dubious nature of TBRNews, that I would issue a retraction. It sucks to admit you’re wrong, but considering the alternative–becoming as credible as a Republican–well, there’s really no choice at all. Anyway, there’s a piece about my retraction in Editor & Publisher.

You get guys like Desmond who kick sand in your face:

Your excuses are pathetic. You liberals are unbelievable. You believe anything no matter how obviously wrong it is, if it fits your liberal agenda. Why don’t you just fold up your act and disappear. It is so apparent what you are trying to do. You should be embarrassed to show your face. Say goodbye already.

Yeah, I know. Doesn’t the guy care about Bush’s lies? Or that he never, ever admits he’s wrong? But still–I do feel stupid for falling for the 9,000 story. After the lies about WMDs, the “search” for Osama in a country we knew he wasn’t in, etc., it’s easy to believe that the Bushies are capable of just about anything. That cynicism opens one up to this sort of thing.

On the other hand, kind souls like Matt have also been offering support:

Hey, just wanted to let you know that I think it was a good thing to issue the retraction, and I respect you more for it. I know you
probably have a lot of rightwingnuts emailing you and telling you to do uncomfortable things to yourself, but I’d give you a pat on the back. After all, I don’t remember hearing any neocons/fascists saying they were wrong about WMD in Iraq, or much of any thing else that they’ve fucked up.

True. In my own, admittedly biased way, I am trying to find the truth. Setting the record straight when you mess up is a big part of that.

Tom is harsh but brings up an excellent point:

I appreciate you cartoon with some exception, but regularly read it. My question for you is what do you do for the reader that glances
casually at your cartoon when you cite an inflammatory and incorrect fact? Unfortunately, I read you guidelines for e-mail and think you will probably stop reading my e-mail when I get too critical, but while I was angry and disappointed, I attempted to temper my e-mail to your guidelines.
I visited you blog for the first time yesterday and found the “retraction” you posted. Everybody gets it wrong sometimes, but your reaction seemed cowardly and infantile. To cite other cartoonists who misrepresented things hardly make it right for anyone else. You have been very critical of neo- cons and I would expect them to react the way you had. Honestly, I thought you were better than that. I would expect Karl Rove to cite others that have gotten away with his plots to exonerate himself, but you?
It would have been useful to post the retraction for the average reader to see, unless you didn’t care that the average Joe see that you got it wrong. You talked about hiding bodies in the cartoon in question, but what about hiding retractions? I am not of the political mind that frequents your blog. I’m not even sure you care much, considering the amount of e-mail you recieve (according to the guidelines). It would just be nice to see someone somewhere refuse to be shrill and caustic without the integrity to make it worthwhile.
I was disappointed in your handling of the situation and hope you have considered rectifiying it. If the US military dropped a bomb on a
wedding party, I’m sure you would expect something to be done about it. While your “bomb” is on a much smaller scale, the regular reader
might like to know that just because the other kids did it, doesn’t mean it’s right to misrepresent the truth for the sake of argument.

Of course, with few exceptions, nothing does come from the thousands of innocent civilians killed by triggerhappy US servicemen in Afghanistan and Iraq. But we’re not talking about that here.

Tom brings up an interesting point about “burying” a retraction, a practice I deplore in newspapers and television media. Unfortunately, I don’t have the kind of control editors and producers have. Here’s why: I draw three cartoons for syndication each week. Were I to include a text retraction with one or all three of the next week’s cartoons, my subscribing clients would absolutely not run those cartoons–or would run them minus the retraction. That’s because very few of my papers run all three of my cartoons each week, and they tend to view cartoons as extra content rather than staff content–stuff generated by the papers themselves. I could do an entire retraction cartoon, but no one would run it. So while I can screw up in public, it’s virtually impossible for me to issue a correction anywhere other than here, in my blog. It is no doubt a highly imperfect solution to a vexing problem, but until I own my own paper or work on staff somewhere rather than through syndication I don’t see a solution.