Chicago Tribune Gitmos Comic Strip For Talking Smack About Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin's hated author-neighbor enemy Joe McGinnis will soon release his secret spy diary of sexy details about the Palin family's Satanic backyard meth-gobbling rituals, and it is apparently super juicy, in terms of Sarah Palin being an awful moron! Blah blah, that is not the "news part," because that is not "news." The actual faux-controvery surrounding Sarah Palin's mind-numbing existence today comes courtesy of the fact that McGinnis gave an advanced copy of the book to "Doonesbury" comic strip author Gary Trudeau, who pulled some random embarrassing anecdote from one of Sarah Palin's old advisers as fodder for his most recent syndicated political cartoon. This is illegal, in journalism, according to the Chicago Tribune, which has removed the cartoon. Why? BECAUSE, UH, FACT CHECKING.
The Tribune gave some weird excuse that they could not run "Doonesbury" this week because they had not been allowed to "verify" the statements made in a political cartoon, but we will go out on a limb and assume it's mostly because they did not appreciate being scooped about Sarah Palin's delusional antics by its Comics Section. That is Serious Journalism territory!
Last newspaper-reading human on Earth Jim Romenesko noticed the Tribune's print announcement that no one would have ever seen otherwise, which he helpfully reproduces for the Internet in a blog post:
“Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau is running excerpts from Joe McGinniss’s Sarah Palin's bio in this week’s strips, which won’t be seen by Chicago Tribune print edition readers. The paper says in an A2 note that “the subject matter does not meet our standards of fairness [because] the strips include excerpts from a book that is not yet on the market and therefore unavailable for review or verification by the Tribune.” The book’s release date is Sept. 20. The Tribune is running "Thatababy" in the place of “Doonesbury.”
This will be known as The Day That Comedy Died, until next week, probably. [ WaPo / Poynter Institute via Andrew Sullivan ]
Mark that one keeper. My current GF and I both had complete collections of Calvin and Hobbes books in the living room when we met. I think we spent an entire afternoon just reading them together and showing which ones we thought were best when we were kids.
Thank you Terry. I had to read through this entire fucking thread a day late to see if any one else would mention that fact. And the Trib can go fuck itself also.