Cartoon Jihad Journalism

Some mornings, depending on the parking situation downtown, I find myself walking by the offices of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

When I was a teenager I went through a phase when I considered a career in journalism. Russell Baker's Growing Up and a Mencken biography instilled in me a maudlin appreciation for the old profession, and even now I sometimes imagine that within that nondescript office building can be found a newsroom raging on the adrenaline rush of deadlines, pursuing big stories about gritty local crime and tawdry politics. But this isn't the newspaper business today, and most likely it wasn't quite the news business of yesteryear either.

The brutal 24/7 newscycle demands more than a few rote local news reports and an agreement with the associated press. Corporate media giants must not only do battle with one another they've also got all of us crackpot bloggers creating a whole alternate economy of information. Stories have a different inertia in this environment. Their importance can't be accelerated if the public isn't interested, and likewise, compelling stories won't be ignored.

This is why coverage of the Cartoon Jihad baffles me. This is a great story of free speech in a democratic society, and it's an opportunity for the type of soul-searching that journalists typically enjoy. While bloggers everywhere have decided to re-print the cartoons, CNN contorts itself with pixilated images and an appeal to sensitivity.

Here in Cincinnati we have a Pulitzer-class editorial cartoonist, Jim Borgman - one of the most consistently inventive and engaging practitioners of the craft. I was pleased to see that he recently began a weblog to chronicle the doodling and thought process behind his cartoons. On the editorial page his work looks effortless, but a glimpse behind the scenes shows the careful labor involved in making a concise, funny editorial cartoon.

Any time an aging baby-boomer embraces a new technology like weblogs it seems like sour grapes to make any complaint. It's like hassling grandma for not responding to email - it's a miracle she can logon in the first place. And certainly Borgman's blog is not intended to be a forum for his general opinion on issues of the day. But I can't help but wonder about his perspective on the Danish cartoon controversy. Free speech or sensitivity? They're both defensible positions - but here you have editorial cartoons playing a key role in geopolitics and opinion. Jim, what do you think of this turn of events?