Much ado about muzzles

The Cavalier Daily this week received a dubious honor: a 2008 Jefferson Muzzle from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, based here in Charlottesville. The Center gives these "awards" to those they deem to have committed "especially egregious or ridiculous" censoring of free speech, which this year includes 14 "winners" ranging from a principal and superintendent in Connecticut to the Federal Communications Commission.

The Cav Daily (more specifically, the paper's 118th Managing Board, which ran it from Jan. 2007 - Jan. 2008) received its muzzle for "firing a cartoonist because of public criticism the paper received for publishing one of his cartoons despite the fact that the editorial staff signed off on the cartoon before its publication," according to the Center's web site.

The cartoonist in question was Grant Woolard, who at the time also served as one of the paper's Graphics editors. His "Ethiopian Food Fight" cartoon (pictured below) drew vocal protests from the University's black community, a sit-in right outside the office, anonymous threats of violence directed towards the staff and, I later learned, thinly-veiled threats from the UVa administration concerning the status of the paper's lease. I was then still serving as one of the paper's Opinion editors. I actually saw the cartoon before it was printed (Grant wanted to know if I thought the MB would print it), but I had no role in approving it.

While I believe the MB serving at the time erred in forcing Woolard to resign, I have a much harder time considering the act a serious violation of "free speech" in any meaningful sense. As I've argued here before, there's a difference between censorship and simply maintaining a paper's standards of taste, especially with regards to cartoons. Woolard wasn't trying to make any sort of editorial point with his cartoon; he was trying to be funny (you can read his explanation to the contrary, but I find it rather contrived and unconvincing).

Newspaper's have a responsibility to their readers to ensure they don't print material that has no other purpose except to shock or offend. When they fail to do that, it hurts both their bottom line and, more importantly, their reputation for journalistic integrity. Scott Adams, creator of the popular comic strip Dilbert, made a similar point in a recent interview: "It’s not censorship when a public company makes a business decision about what product to provide to its customers. I respect that."

The Center's web site states,

A central value of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press is to insure that the press need not fear reporting or commenting on the controversial issues of the day. ... When adverse public reaction is the primary factor in determining press content, one must question how “free” the press truly is.

And in an interview, the Center's director, Robert O'Neil, intimated the paper might win another muzzle next year due to its handling of last month's cartoon controversy.

Were the Cav Daily's comics page an integral part of the paper's "reporting or commenting," I think the Center might have a valid argument. But the vast majority of their comics, like Woolard's and those at issue last month, make no editorial point. Regulating that content to match readers' tastes doesn't constitute any meaningful form of censorship.

In short, one can safely say the events leading up to Woolard's resignation included an awful lot of mistakes. But an egregious violation of free speech? I don't buy it.