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Controversy Over 'L.A. Times' Political Cartoon
Aired July 21, 2003 - 15:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Secret Service is not amused by a cartoon depiction of President Bush with a gun to his head.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: This is the work of "L.A. Times" editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez, apparently suggesting the politics of war may be the president's undoing.
O'BRIEN: It's an obvious reference to the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo from the Vietnam War. And that is of a Viet Cong officer being executed in broad daylight.
So is it artistic license or it over the line? Ramirez is not talking about it right now. He's letting his cartoon do the speaking. And so our friend and next-door neighbor Mike Luckovich is here to talk -- well, to speak on behalf of cartoonists all over the world.
(CROSSTALK)
MIKE LUCKOVICH, CARTOONIST, "ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION": Yes. Yes.
O'BRIEN: And Pulitzer Prize winner on his own right.
Good to have you with us.
LUCKOVICH: Well, it's great to be here.
O'BRIEN: All right, getting into hot water as a cartoonist, this has happened to you before. Well, first of all, you have some thoughts on this cartoon.
LUCKOVICH: Yes. First of all, I think probably Mike Ramirez should be beaten for the cartoon, because he just should.
No. it's a judgment call.
PHILLIPS: I don't know if we should laugh or not. Are you being serious?
LUCKOVICH: No. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: A little bit of hyperbole there.
LUCKOVICH: The cartoon, I think, these are judgment calls. But I think that his message may have been obscured a bit by the imagery of Bush with a gun to his head. When I saw it, that was what I looked at first of all. But these are judgment calls. And cartoonists get paid to be hard-hitting. So you just have to realize that.
PHILLIPS: Well, he got what he wanted accomplished. He wanted people to react. Obviously, we're all talking about it.
LUCKOVICH: Right. Right. Right.
PHILLIPS: Is this the objective or the...
LUCKOVICH: Yes. Yes, I think so.
But I think we're talking about it, but I think, initially, the message may have been lost because of the imagery. But his message that it's -- that this controversy has a lot to do with politics, that's really what people should be talking about.
O'BRIEN: And that's a message that certainly is a valid point of debate. And I guess, as you say, your point of obscuring it a bit.
LUCKOVICH: Right.
O'BRIEN: Let's look at some of your famous hits, or perhaps misses, depending on how you look at it.
LUCKOVICH: OK. Right.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Now, in the heat of the welfare reform debate, you put a cartoon out.
LUCKOVICH: Yes, I did this cartoon...
O'BRIEN: That one there first.
LUCKOVICH: Yes. This was a congressman here. And he's holding up an African-American infant. And this was a big debate, welfare reform, whether it would cause people to be out on the street or not. And so I did this cartoon, a congressman saying, either you're unskilled, uneducated, mother gets a job, or you're dead meat.
O'BRIEN: OK. And that was a lightning rod, you might say.
LUCKOVICH: It was. My editor, Cynthia Tucker, is African- American, and she approved the cartoon. We thought that maybe conservatives might be upset about the cartoon. But it was the African-American population that really became outraged by the cartoon.
PHILLIPS: Did you apologize? Or do you feel you don't need to apologize?
LUCKOVICH: No, I didn't apologize, and neither did my paper, which I'm very thankful for. Both Cynthia and I wrote columns about what a cartoon should be and how satire is sometimes involved and how cartoons shouldn't always be taken literally.
But this cartoon, I drew a little baby here. And it's got a little diaper pin on it. People were saying that that was like a devil's tail. It just became kind of silly.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: That's when things get out of control.
LUCKOVICH: It does.
But all publicity is good publicity. And after Cynthia and I appeared on some various local radio stations and talked about it, it sort of -- the whole thing dissipated. And I think more people started paying attention to the content.
PHILLIPS: Let's get to the next one.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Take us inside the process here.
LUCKOVICH: Oh, now, this was interesting.
This cartoon, Cynthia, my editor, initially proved. This was on Sonny Perdue, our new governor. He got us all involved in this Confederate flag controversy. And it was just so ridiculous. It was tearing the state apart. And I was very frustrated, so I did this cartoon, "A flag Georgians of all races could unite around." And it's the "I'm with stupid" hand pointing at our Georgia governor, Sonny Perdue.
Now, this cartoon was put on -- was put in the paper's system, but then Cynthia saw it on the page and had second thoughts about it, because this is a relatively new governor and thought, well, let's just hold off on this.
O'BRIEN: When you say the page, the Web page, really?
(CROSSTALK)
LUCKOVICH: Well, yes, it went in the Web page and in our page. But then she had second thoughts, so she pulled it out of the newspaper. But it stayed on the Web site. And so everyone thought it was a huge controversy, that the governor had intervened or something and pulled the cartoon.
O'BRIEN: So it sort of made it worse, perhaps.
(CROSSTALK)
LUCKOVICH: No, but it was great, because all the local stations did stories on it. And, actually, more people saw it without it running in the newspaper.
PHILLIPS: For us, we'll get hammered if we lose our objectivity. Is it OK for you, sometimes, to lose your objectivity?
LUCKOVICH: Oh, yes. That's what it's all about.
PHILLIPS: That's OK?
LUCKOVICH: Yes.
PHILLIPS: But your boss, Cynthia Tucker, at times, has to come in and rein you in and say, Mike, this is going a little too far.
(CROSSTALK)
LUCKOVICH: Right. As in this cartoon -- she has a few of my cartoons hanging on her wall. These are rough sketches that she hasn't approved.
PHILLIPS: This is one of them.
LUCKOVICH: Yes, this is one of them. Let me explain this cartoon. These are little coffins, military coffins, and they spell out "W. Lied." So that's a pretty tough cartoon.
O'BRIEN: Not one of your more subtle cartoons, yes.
LUCKOVICH: No, it wasn't subtle. And so Cynthia said, you know, I think this is just going to go on my board and not...
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Dart board or board?
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: When you get into a donnybrook like that -- she is the boss, after all.
LUCKOVICH: Yes.
O'BRIEN: But how much latitude -- do you get a lot of slack? Do cartoonists get a lot of slack?
LUCKOVICH: Well, it really depends on the editor. Cynthia, my editor, is very courageous. And she lets me do mostly what I want to do.
But she's good, also, because, sometimes with cartoonists, you're staring at an idea all day and you lose your sense of perspective and your objectivity. And sometimes, what we do just becomes nutty. And so you need an editor sometimes to say, hey, that's insane and you can't do that one.
PHILLIPS: We'll be the first ones to say, you are insane. And that's OK. We love you for that.
LUCKOVICH: But in a good way. In a good way.
O'BRIEN: Yes, absolutely.
LUCKOVICH: Mike Luckovich, always a pleasure, "AJC," "Atlanta Journal-Constitution." You can see his stuff online.
LUCKOVICH: AJC.com. That's right.
PHILLIPS: There you go. Thank you so much.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you, guys.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 21, 2003 - 15:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Secret Service is not amused by a cartoon depiction of President Bush with a gun to his head.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: This is the work of "L.A. Times" editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez, apparently suggesting the politics of war may be the president's undoing.
O'BRIEN: It's an obvious reference to the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo from the Vietnam War. And that is of a Viet Cong officer being executed in broad daylight.
So is it artistic license or it over the line? Ramirez is not talking about it right now. He's letting his cartoon do the speaking. And so our friend and next-door neighbor Mike Luckovich is here to talk -- well, to speak on behalf of cartoonists all over the world.
(CROSSTALK)
MIKE LUCKOVICH, CARTOONIST, "ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION": Yes. Yes.
O'BRIEN: And Pulitzer Prize winner on his own right.
Good to have you with us.
LUCKOVICH: Well, it's great to be here.
O'BRIEN: All right, getting into hot water as a cartoonist, this has happened to you before. Well, first of all, you have some thoughts on this cartoon.
LUCKOVICH: Yes. First of all, I think probably Mike Ramirez should be beaten for the cartoon, because he just should.
No. it's a judgment call.
PHILLIPS: I don't know if we should laugh or not. Are you being serious?
LUCKOVICH: No. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: A little bit of hyperbole there.
LUCKOVICH: The cartoon, I think, these are judgment calls. But I think that his message may have been obscured a bit by the imagery of Bush with a gun to his head. When I saw it, that was what I looked at first of all. But these are judgment calls. And cartoonists get paid to be hard-hitting. So you just have to realize that.
PHILLIPS: Well, he got what he wanted accomplished. He wanted people to react. Obviously, we're all talking about it.
LUCKOVICH: Right. Right. Right.
PHILLIPS: Is this the objective or the...
LUCKOVICH: Yes. Yes, I think so.
But I think we're talking about it, but I think, initially, the message may have been lost because of the imagery. But his message that it's -- that this controversy has a lot to do with politics, that's really what people should be talking about.
O'BRIEN: And that's a message that certainly is a valid point of debate. And I guess, as you say, your point of obscuring it a bit.
LUCKOVICH: Right.
O'BRIEN: Let's look at some of your famous hits, or perhaps misses, depending on how you look at it.
LUCKOVICH: OK. Right.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Now, in the heat of the welfare reform debate, you put a cartoon out.
LUCKOVICH: Yes, I did this cartoon...
O'BRIEN: That one there first.
LUCKOVICH: Yes. This was a congressman here. And he's holding up an African-American infant. And this was a big debate, welfare reform, whether it would cause people to be out on the street or not. And so I did this cartoon, a congressman saying, either you're unskilled, uneducated, mother gets a job, or you're dead meat.
O'BRIEN: OK. And that was a lightning rod, you might say.
LUCKOVICH: It was. My editor, Cynthia Tucker, is African- American, and she approved the cartoon. We thought that maybe conservatives might be upset about the cartoon. But it was the African-American population that really became outraged by the cartoon.
PHILLIPS: Did you apologize? Or do you feel you don't need to apologize?
LUCKOVICH: No, I didn't apologize, and neither did my paper, which I'm very thankful for. Both Cynthia and I wrote columns about what a cartoon should be and how satire is sometimes involved and how cartoons shouldn't always be taken literally.
But this cartoon, I drew a little baby here. And it's got a little diaper pin on it. People were saying that that was like a devil's tail. It just became kind of silly.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: That's when things get out of control.
LUCKOVICH: It does.
But all publicity is good publicity. And after Cynthia and I appeared on some various local radio stations and talked about it, it sort of -- the whole thing dissipated. And I think more people started paying attention to the content.
PHILLIPS: Let's get to the next one.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Take us inside the process here.
LUCKOVICH: Oh, now, this was interesting.
This cartoon, Cynthia, my editor, initially proved. This was on Sonny Perdue, our new governor. He got us all involved in this Confederate flag controversy. And it was just so ridiculous. It was tearing the state apart. And I was very frustrated, so I did this cartoon, "A flag Georgians of all races could unite around." And it's the "I'm with stupid" hand pointing at our Georgia governor, Sonny Perdue.
Now, this cartoon was put on -- was put in the paper's system, but then Cynthia saw it on the page and had second thoughts about it, because this is a relatively new governor and thought, well, let's just hold off on this.
O'BRIEN: When you say the page, the Web page, really?
(CROSSTALK)
LUCKOVICH: Well, yes, it went in the Web page and in our page. But then she had second thoughts, so she pulled it out of the newspaper. But it stayed on the Web site. And so everyone thought it was a huge controversy, that the governor had intervened or something and pulled the cartoon.
O'BRIEN: So it sort of made it worse, perhaps.
(CROSSTALK)
LUCKOVICH: No, but it was great, because all the local stations did stories on it. And, actually, more people saw it without it running in the newspaper.
PHILLIPS: For us, we'll get hammered if we lose our objectivity. Is it OK for you, sometimes, to lose your objectivity?
LUCKOVICH: Oh, yes. That's what it's all about.
PHILLIPS: That's OK?
LUCKOVICH: Yes.
PHILLIPS: But your boss, Cynthia Tucker, at times, has to come in and rein you in and say, Mike, this is going a little too far.
(CROSSTALK)
LUCKOVICH: Right. As in this cartoon -- she has a few of my cartoons hanging on her wall. These are rough sketches that she hasn't approved.
PHILLIPS: This is one of them.
LUCKOVICH: Yes, this is one of them. Let me explain this cartoon. These are little coffins, military coffins, and they spell out "W. Lied." So that's a pretty tough cartoon.
O'BRIEN: Not one of your more subtle cartoons, yes.
LUCKOVICH: No, it wasn't subtle. And so Cynthia said, you know, I think this is just going to go on my board and not...
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Dart board or board?
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: When you get into a donnybrook like that -- she is the boss, after all.
LUCKOVICH: Yes.
O'BRIEN: But how much latitude -- do you get a lot of slack? Do cartoonists get a lot of slack?
LUCKOVICH: Well, it really depends on the editor. Cynthia, my editor, is very courageous. And she lets me do mostly what I want to do.
But she's good, also, because, sometimes with cartoonists, you're staring at an idea all day and you lose your sense of perspective and your objectivity. And sometimes, what we do just becomes nutty. And so you need an editor sometimes to say, hey, that's insane and you can't do that one.
PHILLIPS: We'll be the first ones to say, you are insane. And that's OK. We love you for that.
LUCKOVICH: But in a good way. In a good way.
O'BRIEN: Yes, absolutely.
LUCKOVICH: Mike Luckovich, always a pleasure, "AJC," "Atlanta Journal-Constitution." You can see his stuff online.
LUCKOVICH: AJC.com. That's right.
PHILLIPS: There you go. Thank you so much.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you, guys.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
