Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Alex Christy complained in a Nov. 9 post:
The woke inmates run the asylum at the Washington Post as executive editor Sally Buzbee apologized to staff on Wednesday for running a cartoon condemning Hamas that some considered racist and insensitive.
The cartoon in question shows a caricature of a Hamas leader, that could possibly be Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk or leader Yahya Sinwar, and not some generic Palestinian, strapping himself to women, children, and babies and saying “how dare Israel attack civilians.”
This is, of course, a completely fair and accurate depiction of Hamas, but the Washington Free Beacon’s Drew Holden reports that Buzbee said in an e-mail, “Given the many deep concerns and conversations today in our newsroom, I wanted to ensure everyone saw the notes sent out tonight by The Post's opinions editor, David Shipley, to Post readers and to his staff in opinions.”
[...]
The Post itself also noted, “Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi wrote: ‘This is the Washington Post. This is the kind of anti-Palestinian racism that’s acceptable for publication.’ Left-wing British activist Owen Jones called the cartoon an example of ‘racist dehumanization.’”
How so? If anything the cartoon is saying Hamas doesn’t care about the very Palestinians Kanazi and Jones claim to care so much about and that dead Palestinians benefit Hamas because it gives them a talking point for their propaganda campaign.
Still, Buzbee added, “A cartoon published by Michael Ramirez on the war in Gaza, a cartoon whose publication I approved, was seen by many readers as racist. This was not my intent. I saw the drawing as a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson, who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel.”
It will not surprise you to learn that the MRC has a double standard on offfensive editorial cartoons. As we've documented, it had a fit when a cartoon critiquing Ted Cruz for exploiting his children during his 2016 presidential campaign -- but had no problem with a New York Post cartoon depicting Barack Obama as a chimipanzee. Its NewsBusters also once published a cartoon of a "Combat Barbie" that includes a prisoner-of-war uniform as an accessory.
In other words, the MRC has no problem with cartoons that offend people -- as long as those people are its political enemies.
