This week finds me facing an ethical and practical dilemma.
I am inclined to write my syndicated column, which is run by 40 papers, about corruption in editorial cartooning: brazen conflicts of interest, exploitative practices that reduce the quality of the average cartoon that appears in a paper, plagiarism by Pulitzer winners, recycling/self-plagiarism that is tolerated and even encouraged within the field, a professional association that covers up wrongdoing.
Should I do it?
I’m worried about professional backlash, but I’m willing to take the heat if there’s a chance that anything might change. But I wonder if anybody cares.
Certainly most of my colleagues do not. Editors keep admitted plagiarisms working in high-profile jobs, so obviously they don’t care either. Prize committees don’t care. Neither do reporters at the journalism trade publications.
The Thin Black Line, as it were.
I wonder, do readers care? I mean, not Internet care, but really care enough to create a massive outcry? To demand change? Almost certainly not.
So perhaps I’ll just forget the whole thing.
I can’t reform the system by myself.
39 Comments.
I remember being a child in love with comics. I ate them up, read them all, and just wouldn’t stop. My mother said I was rotting my brain, and in a sense she was right, because it’s forty years later I still can’t forget how the picture and caption format is still my primary form of literacy. Sure, I may be living in more of an all-text world today, but when something is said in a cartoon it’s like using my native language when using my native language is a rare treat.
I used to pick up a paper and go straight to the comics page or to the comic on the editorial page, but the older I get, the less inclined I am to do so. The weird thing is that this is not because the comics cater to the young. It is because they cater to the old, and I am apparently not getting old fast enough to keep up with the trend.
I can not in good conscience say to you “let’s you and him fight,” but if you wand to know whether your readers are with you on this, I for one most definitely am.
Gosh Ted, if I hadn’t seen your blog, I would have never known about this – I don’t see this issue raising its head anywhere else – like Susan, I also think it is no biggie but a bit lazy to re-issue your own artwork, although I agree that there are instances of blatant plagiarism like the assualt weapon artwork. Still – considering all the other issues, I wouldn’t get wrapped around the axle with it. When you can’t get much response with outing all the other issues, why get dug in on this? – especially when “they don’t care”.
Ted, if you care about this issue, to the point where you have to write about it, then do it. Artists and writers are most effective when they are most impassioned and least calculating.
Methinks your doubts are justified. I think you should be especially leery of naming names, even if the names you (might) name belong to despicable cretins. It’s not up to Mr. Rall to reform his occupation all by himself; further, he’s not likely to do it by shaming individuals who are probably shameless.
Ted,
I’ve written about six replies to this and thrown them all out because I kept wandering on them.
The profession that you love is dying. At least as a method to earn a living. Regrettably, it is pretty much impossible to do your level of work as a “thing on the side.” And the idea that a sufficient population of talented cartoonists could all marry into money, win the lottery, or somehow remain able to indulge their craft independent of the demands of the world, is ridiculous. There’s a functional minimum, below which, the field dies and the institutional memory perishes as well.
I think that your decision requires you to resolve the risk-reward ratio rather than the ethical situation. You’ve already explained the ethics behind it. The real question now, as you said, is whether it’s worth it to make a fuss.
Sorry, Ted. You’re the only one who can answer that.
You’re off the rails Ted. Off the rails. You’re advocating seizure of the entire assets of private citizens for redistribution, now you’re on about this plagiarism thing. The real question with all this nutty stuff is, why are you going off the rails and what is the outcome you expect?
We’re not going to start seizing the assets of private citizens who have done well just so you can continue cartooning. Similarly, editors are not going to say “fire these plagiarists and get me Ted Rall!”. Not going to happen.
In short, no — you should not write the piece. Simply put, you are not going to get the outcome you want, so why bother.
This is all so sad. So much talent was there, but it’s all off the rails now.
Hey look at this:
“Billionaire Warren Buffett gave Berkshire Hathaway stock worth $21.6 million away in the second half of 2012.
Buffett revealed the donations Monday. Buffett, who is Berkshire’s chairman and CEO, made donations of Class B shares to four unnamed charities and three individuals between September and December. ”
http://news.yahoo.com/buffett-gave-21-6m-charities-231841354.html
Clearly, Buffet should have all his assets seized and re-distributed to Occupy members! That’s the obvious takeaway from his charitable donations!
The same salary for everyone! The janitor should make what the CEO makes! The person who says “wa choo want?” behind the counter at McDonald’s (and gets the order wrong) should make what a skilled software engineer should make!
It’s Ted Rall America! Woo-hoo! A recipe for success! Or complete meltdown! Who knows!
Hang on: Those skateboard punks in my front yard belong to a BMX club! They should be paid what my doctor makes! It’s only fair! Everyone doing their best gets paid the same according to Ted!
Off. The. Fucking. Rails.
Wrap it up Ted. Go out with dignity. Flailing about is totally undignified.
Ex,
Ted is hardly off the rails. Perhaps a little wobbly, but hardly as fringe-crazy as you make him sound in your dismissive — and not very convincing — replies. His main point in the Bloomberg’s-a-pig essay is essentially correct: when you have a system in which a few people can aggregate so much wealth, you put the majority of society in the hands of those very few people. That someone CAN own over a dozen luxury homes is not an explanation for why they should be allowed to.
Good government doesn’t exist in a moral vacuum. Tyranny does, but not good government.
As to the issue of plagiarism. Ted isn’t saying the editors should fire the plagiarists and hire him. He’s saying that the ethics of the profession dictate that plagiarism is simply not permitted. He points to himself as the cartoonist who is following the rules and wants to know what good it is to follow the rules if the people who ignore them are rewarded. If you’d like to know more about plagiarism and why it’s super-wrong, just cut-and-paste something out of Wikipedia for one of your papers in class, and when the teacher fails you, he or she will explain it to you.
Write it.
Alex: Ted says that everyone that works to the best of their abilities should be paid the same salary. Sorry, but that’s off the rails. The person who works the register at McDonald’s should not be paid the same as a talented software engineer who has spent tons of time honing their craft, their skills, working long long hours to bring shit to you — including the internet itself. The internet, where Ted can say the McDonald’s person should get the same as you.
Fortunately Ted doesn’t get to be king and decide these things. The market does.
Also, this kind of crap is what really gives liberals a bad name. It reeks of “I know what’s best for everyone”.
Exko, Ted isn’t saying everyone should be paid exactly the same. He’s saying that it’s absurd that some people make hundreds or thousands of times more than others.
And pay doesn’t have much to do with effort or social benefit. As a software engineer I make way more than any schoolteacher in this town. And you have to have a Masters in Education for that. I have an undergrad degree in English, my programming skills are mostly self-taught. At the end of the day, most of what I make helps someone sell something- which is why it pays so well. But is what I do really of greater benefit to society than what a teacher does?
“Ted isn’t saying everyone should be paid exactly the same.”
Let’s re-read exactly what Ted said in his anti-philanthropy op-ed:
“Everyone who contributes to society, everyone who works to the best of their skills and abilities, deserves to earn the same salary.”
There it is in black and white. There’s no ambiguity there. It’s clear as a bell. Read again: “Everyone who contributes … deserves to earn the same salary.”
So, some simpleton with a 80 IQ whose “best” is saying “what up dog, wha choo want” behind the register should be paid what a computer security expert with a PhD gets paid, ostensibly enforced by the government. Anyone recommending that system is nothing by a tyrannical maniac, someone without an ounce of morality in them.
Either way, the quote is clear.
Russell,
I’ll go one further than that. It isn’t that it’s obscene that a CEO — who ruins the company — gets thousands of times the salary and benefits of the lower-level employees.
It isn’t obscene that the CEO gets, say, $20 million and the employee, who is working a 40-hour week, isn’t making enough to live on.
What’s obscene is that people think that somehow, that’s how it should be.
Yes, Bill Gates made billions. And at the end of the production trail, Bill Gates’ millions depends on child laborers digging up conflict metals (you can Google it, Ex). All those iPhones? Same thing.
And we’re all guilty. Every one of us who has a cell phone, uses a computer, or uses a service that uses a computer. We’re all doing our little bit. Recently, Trader Joe’s was on the radar for about two minutes because there was a protest to get the workers who pick tomatoes a raise. It would mean charging customers five cents a pound more for tomatoes.
Jesus Christ, is that the world we’re in? The world in which I have to listen to other people shriek themselves hoarse about the perfection, desirability and worthiness of always getting the best price? A world in which we actually have to debate whether people who have to pick tomatoes outside for hours on end should get a raise that would cost each of us, tops, 50 cents a week?
“Everyone who contributes to society, everyone who works to the best of their skills and abilities, deserves to earn the same salary.”
I skimmed the article and missed that quote. But I’ll address it.
That would be moral. It just wouldn’t be practical. The best way to get people to work “to the best of their skills and abilities” is to make sure that both hard work and high ability bring rewards.
Personally, I don’t worry much about the rich. I worry about the poor. If we can find a way that everyone can make a good living, what difference will it make if a few still make a fabulous living? But as long as people can’t find jobs, or the lowest paid full time worker can’t live decently without government assistance, it is obscene that others can collect far more wealth than they can ever reasonably use. No one should get to own two houses until no one is homeless.
“A world in which we actually have to debate whether people who have to pick tomatoes outside for hours on end should get a raise that would cost each of us, tops, 50 cents a week?”
“No one should get to own two houses until no one is homeless.”
See, these comments are everything that’s wrong with liberalism. You both don’t seem to understand that your opinions are irrelevant. My opinion is irrelevant. Those outcomes are what the market dictates. The market sets the value on resources. Or perhaps you’d like “Central Services” to price everything using their iron fist. Perhaps you recall this little place called the USSR that tried that. It didn’t work. It failed miserably, and even when it was working it was miserable — what with people waiting in line for days just to get some bread and soup.
Frankly, I don’t like capitalism much either. But the notion of some central authority mandating who gets what is even worse.
Ex,
Let me try it this way. Let’s say that I win the Powerball jackpot: $208 million. And I invest it very prudently, and in the course of a few years, now have, literally, so much money coming in that I simply can’t spend it all.
I decide that I’d like to hunt and kill a human being for sport on my island home.
“No!” shouts the Majority. “You aren’t allowed to do that. It isn’t an issue of money.”
Now, that sounds pretty reasonable, right? That there IS an upper limit to what money can get you?
Okay. Now, instead of killing someone for sport, I want to own a human being. I want to buy me a slave. Here’s a check for $50 million, and I now own a person. I can do whatever I want to him: brand him, beat him, make him work 16 hours a day, feed him scraps, change his name, sterilize him, force him to breed, anything I want. He’s my property.
“No!” shouts the Majority. “You aren’t allowed to do that. It isn’t an issue of money.”
But it used to be. Slave-ownership was double-plus super-good. It was right in the Bible. Owning a slave was like buying the newest model of car two centuries later. It showed that you were a success!
Until … “some central authority mandat[ed] who gets what [… .]” That’s right. The government stepped in and said that you could no longer engage in the private contract with your own money of buying a human being.
The point I’m trying to make (I suspect it’s the one Ted is trying for as well) is that we now consider slavery to be indefensible. Even though the market was there. Even though the interdiction was meddling in the most sacred of all institutions — the right of someone with money to make all the rules — slavery was stopped.
The “rights” of an individual to do anything he wants with his money have been curtailed ever since day one. Although I can use money to hire a good lawyer and beat a murder rap, I cannot “kill-and-pay” with a check. I cannot demand that a local store stock child pornography because “I can pay for it.” Money has a limit. The people who cross that limit are shunned and reviled.
Why, exactly, does someone owning many, many homes when homelessness is an endemic problem NOT disgust you? Why are these people “okay” to spend their money in such a disgusting fashion? Where, exactly, does the gag reflex kick in for you, Ex? At liberals who point out the moral indefensibility of this all?
Your analogies are not only irrelevant, they are frighteningly ignorant — and offensive. Offensive especially to black people, who I think would take serious issue with your cavalier usage of slavery to somehow make a point about homelessness.
For Alex …
Brutal beating, whipping, killing, enslaving millions of sentient creatures is equivalent to ….
Homelessness.
Just disgraceful. Utterly disgusting. I will not comment or debate in response to a straw man argument that’s so offensively bad.
@Alex,
I’m not really in favor of taking the homes owned by individuals, but we do have millions of home sitting empty owned by banks, and that’s gotta change.
@Ex,
It’s pretty obvious to me that you are in actuality a laissez-faire conservative rather than the overly cynical, disaffected leftist that you pretend to be. Well, it is “off the rails” to think that “the market” is a sentient creature that can make decisions. There is no such thing. The market is made up and controlled by human beings, and can be changed by human beings.
@Ex,
If we lived in a decent society, we wouldn’t tolerate homelessness any more than we do slavery. How much does it cost to set up dormatories for people to sleep in?
Ex,
My point, which you ignored by pretending to be shocked, shocked I say, that I would dare to use slavery as an example, was this: Behaviors that are now considered obscene used to be standard business practice, simply a matter of contract between private parties. Clearly, the “right” to spend your money anyway you want to has some limits. Why do you put your limit where you do? What, exactly, is the purpose of owning a dozen luxury homes while people freeze to death? Would you approve of a restaurant where people eat in front of starving children?
Stop being so precious.
Ted professional editorial cartooning is basically like a corpse twitching after death. Movement doesn’t imply signs of life.
The newspaper professionals do NOT matter, the AAEC does not matter. There’s a reason Bors is the only AAEC member under 30. Not only have the career possibilities of editorial cartooning dried up, by far and large nobody’s interested anymore. I’m assuming people are bored of them because when someone shares a political opinion on facebook they use an infographic or slap some clever text on a photo.
There are literally millions of amateur political cartoonists out there posting their work in forums everywhere and none of them are interested enough in the traditional professionals or there work to join the AAEC. The evidence would seem to indicate your professional compatriots have totally failed to inspire several generations of individuals to follow them.
The AAEC will lurch on as the print industry continues to shrivel up and it will be gone in the next twenty to thirty years.
So here’s your situation:
If you speak your mind you will further ostracize yourself from the few dozen of has beens who are your shrinking number of professional associates.
However if you express your dissension well you may stand to inspire a far greater number of anonymous amateurs.
Honestly aside from a few grumpy self important adults sneering at you what are you honestly risking? I mean for christ sake you are the only one of the entire group with the balls to venture into a warzone, what do you have to fear from them getting ruffled and snippy?
There is nothing wrong with a CEO making 500 times the salary of someone who works at Mickey-D’s; provided of course the job is 500 times more difficult.
Of course, it isn’t, so we do have a big problem.
The Idiot Whimsical, right on time.
Guess what dummy — your opinion on how hard particular jobs are, and your desire to peg those difference to your beliefs? Irrelevant. Just like all your other opinions.
Thankfully, Idiot Whimsicals aren’t able to poison the world with their “opinion” on what everyone should earn. We have the free market to do that. The McDonalds cash register person is making exactly what the market dictates, and not a penny more. Same goes for the CEO. If either thinks they are worth more, they are free to obtain more — if the market dictates. Not because some self-appointed (fascist) king says what they should make.
If Ted can make more cartooning, the market will say so. So far, that hasn’t happened. Which is why there’s all this “someone should intervene” crap going on in this thread. Well, bull fucking shit. There’s things I’d rather be doing, funner careers — but the market won’t pay me enough. So I do something where it will. That’s the choice we’re all faced with. Some people are not “special”. They don’t get to circumvent the market just so they can do their “fun” job. Soaking the taxpayer so one can be an avant garde ballet dancer or something, is bull fucking shit. Make it in the free market, or don’t make it at all. We need LESS propping up, not more.
Oh! The market! The market!
What a load of Poo.
“The Market” is a human construct, and as such, imminently fallable.
These fat cat industrialists, (I guess I should say Financialist’s these days), who run everything, they all know each other. They met each other at Havard.
Oh! The market! The market!
What a load of Poo.
“The Market” is a human construct, and as such, imminently fallable.
These fat cat industrialists, (I guess I should say Financialist’s these days), who run everything, they all know each other. They hung out and chased babes together at Harvard. Is it so hard to imagine that they might call each other, or meet over a nice lunch, and work together to fix the market?
Why is it that when one of the airlines raises its prices, then all of the others do too? Shouldn’t it be the opposite? Where is my 99 cent cat-scan?
“The market” is a scam and a sick joke.
The market, forsooth!
The market
Why is it that even though per-worker productivity has risen, wages have fallen?
Oh right, the Market.
Why are coorporate profits at an all time high?
Uh huh, you guessed it.
The market is not infallible, yes — that’s true. But it’s waaaaaaaaaaaay better than having some arbitrary panel, or king, or bureaucracy decide what everyone should make.
As for the “Harvard club” — are they stopping Ted from making a living as a cartoonist? Are they conspiring to force him out? You know, the ones who “hung out and chased babes together at Harvard”. Are they killing Ted’s career? No. They are not. Stop demonizing people to explain away failures that have nothing to do with them. Failure is a hard pill to swallow, and we all have to swallow it from time to time. It’s part of life. Stop blaming “Harvard”. Suck it up. The free market is here to stay, for better or worse.
Yes, certainly, the Harvard Club is stopping Ted from making a living, and they are denying all of the rest of the livings that we deserve.
It goes something like this:
Big Bossman: “Have you tried the lobster?”
Fat Cat: “I hear it’s good.”
Big Bossman: “These damn cartoonists, they’re killing me, keep asking for raises…”
Fat Cat: “Yeah, I know, right?”
Big Bossman: “Well, they can cry all they want, as long as you and I hold the line and don’t get into a bidding war with each other, what can they do?”
Fat Cat: “Amen. More champaigne?”
Not that I wanted to specifically point the finger at Havard, I was using them as a metaphor for the super-power-elite, but whatever, it works.
The point is that all of “Us” are making too little, and all of “Them” are making too much. I’m not sure that a democratic socialist system couldn’t do a better job of spreading rewards.
us
And once again, the plant that claims to be a “disgruntled leftist” betrays his slavish devotion to right-wing ideology.
The idea that a “free Market” even exists is utter bullshit, of course. It’s been shown time and time again that businesses manipulate the marketplace to serve themselves. That’s why HEAVY government regulation is so necessary; otherwise business would be free to steamroll over the little guy with no consequences whatsoever. Goverment at least makes an attempt towards tilting the playing field back to level (nowhere near enough, but infinitely preferable to letting businesses do whatever they like).
In short, plant, your argument, much like yourself, is intellectually and morally bankrupt.
Christopher Dorner. Fat lot of good it did him. You may find yourself on the street too.
@aaronwilliams135: Your imaginary dialogue among the elite is just that: imaginary. There’s not some dark, cigar-smoke filled room where the elite sit there conspiring to “deny all of the rest of us the livings that we deserve.”
In Ted’s case, the dialogue probably went more like this.
Newspaper Owner: “Shit, we’re bleeding revenue like a sieve here. This “internet thingy” is killing us! If we don’t do something quick, we’re toast!”
Newspaper Editor-in-Chief: “I hear you. Everyone wants everything for free now. You can’t pay people if consumers don’t want to pay for reporting, talent, and content.”
Newspaper Owner: “What can we do?”
Newspaper Editor-in-Chief: “We may have to start looking at making cuts just to stay afloat.”
Newspaper Owner: “What should we cut”?
Newspaper Editor-in-Chief: “Well, research indicates we can cut Dear Abby and the cartoons. Our readers indicate the reason they buy is for the news and investigative reports”.
Newspaper Owner: “Ok, it’s unfortunate. Make the cuts. We have to make tough choices”.
THAT is what happened. I reiterate: It’s called “the free market”.
I might also add: It’s very convenient that so many liberals demonize elites as these evil-doers who are hell-bent on destroying the Ted Ralls of the world, when it’s the consumer who decided it was ok to steal content, from musicians, from authors, and from cartoonists. If you want to script a dialogue of the REAL people who caused terrible losses for the Ted Ralls of the world, then have the decency to write something like this:
Liberal Consumer ABC: “Hey the internet is fucking sweet dude! I can get all the free cartoons I want now! Don’t have to pay anymore! Music too!”.
Liberal Consumer XYC: “Fuck yeah dude!”.
But no, go ahead an imagine the Harvard elite as being at fault, if that makes you feel better.
Exko, Aaron, I’m sure both these conversations happen.
@Exkiodexian
As Russell point out, I think there is truth in what we both say. But I have to ask you, is it really necessary for the CEO of walmart to make $11,000/hour? Are the poor broke consumers who shop at walmart really collectively screaming: “Oh great and wise one, we are addicted to your cheap crap, we want you to pay your employees minimum wage while you to pay yourself $11,000/hour!”
“is it really necessary for the CEO of walmart to make $11,000/hour?”
No. But …
Is it really necessary for lawyers to make $500/hour?
Is it really necessary for doctors to make $400k/year?
Is it really necessary for engineers to make $150k/year?
Is it really necessary for CPAs to make $100k/year?
Is it really necessary for George Clooney to make $20 million/year?
No.
Would you rather have a “pay czar” peg what everyone can make and have the government enforce it legally? I think you would like that arrangement a hell of a lot less than what we have now.
@Ex: “Would you rather have a “pay czar” peg what everyone can make and have the government enforce it legally?”
Yep.
Everyone should earn the same.
I have never heard any argument against that that makes any sense.
The problem really isn’t what the CEO makes. It’s that 90% of the staff working in the stores don’t make enough to get by and raise a kid without getting food stamps.
If the staff make a living wage, who cares what the CEO makes? But if the staff are on food stamps, then we are all subsidizing the company.
“Everyone should earn the same.”
How do you deal with slackers if we’re all guaranteed a job and the same income? If the guy in the cubicle next to me spends half the day playing WoW and still makes the same as I do, why would I keep trying to do my best?
@Russell
Actually, given that the workers at Walmart aren’t paid a living wage IN ORDER TO let the CEO of Walmart make $11,000 an hour, yeah it kinda is the problem. And it wont change until we legally force them to change.
Now, I’m not with Ted. I don’t believe that everyone should earn the same (I’d like wealth distribution in the US to be a bell curve, rather then the hockey stick it currently is)- but there absolutely has to be some sort of legal cap on what people can earn.
I admit being a CEO is more difficult than running the register, but no way is it 500X more difficult. And since it’s not 500x more difficult, there is NO way to justify paying the CEO 500X more than the guy who runs the register- the plant’s blather about the (non-existent) “free market” nonwithstanding.
I’d go with having a government agency to monitor and cap the discrepancy between CEO’s and lowest paid employees at 50x, tops- unless you can legitimately prove the job is difficult enough to justify a higher ratio.