I suppose congratulations are in order
The Washington Post Ombudsman on those cartoons of Dr. Rice that so perturbs people who really don't like any other Black folks:
I could tell from the mail I got, particularly on the Rall drawing, that at least some of it was from people who had been told about it and were probably part of a campaign, although clearly many people didn't need anyone to tell them what to do.
Setting aside last week's episode, this kind of thing has happened before in which a special-interest group picks something that appeared only on the paper's Web site and uses it as part of a campaign or mass e-mailing to make a point. That damages the paper in the process because large numbers of people are told that something appeared in The Post. On the other hand, as one reader argues, "The Post's responsibility is the same regardless of where the strip appeared."
Typically, newspapers have a lot more people and resources than the offshoots that look after their Web sites. So episodes such as these raise the question of whether news organizations are hurting themselves by not having enough resources to check the raw material that is fed into the system. On the other hand, this material is widely available on many other sites, so there is no stopping someone determined to find it.
After a few days on The Post's Web site, the Rall cartoon was pulled and, according to Doug Feaver, washingtonpost.com executive editor, Rall's work has been dropped from the site. Feaver said the decision was a "cumulative" one based on some earlier drawings as well. Feaver said he felt the Oliphant cartoon was "within the normal bounds of editorial cartoonery, although I understand that others could disagree."
