Clay Bennett

And An Irrational Perspective On Gun Control In The Unethical Cartoon of the Month: “America Reacts”

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

America_Reacts

Since most of the news media have been making fools of themselves with their over-heated, slanted and often hysterical reaction to the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, it was predictable that the odd corner of the commentariat occupied by political cartoonists would go even farther off the rails. For one thing, exaggeration is a tool of their trade; for another, they traffic in irony, satire and humor, giving them leave to jettison fairness and balance for a good laugh. Nonetheless, political cartoons appear on editorial pages. They express opinions that should be responsible opinions, and to the extent that they purport to represent facts, they are obligated to represent them with at least a minimal level of accuracy.

“America Reacts,” the work of Chattanooga Times-Free Press cartoonist Clay Bennett, appeared on December 18. I missed it; a letter to the Washington Post today complained about the Post re-printing it, which is how it finally came to my attention. I have admired Bennett’s work for a long time— I am critical of editorial cartoonists, but I respect and enjoy the good ones—-but this particular cartoon crosses ethical lines right, left and center:

1. As the Post’s critic pointed out, it unfairly deals in gross stereotypes. “Bennett makes assumptions that guns are more important than kids to men while only women care about children. My husband has guns and loves to go shooting, but no way would he choose guns over his children,” Marie Miller wrote. The cartoon also suggests that only men appreciate guns, and that all men are irrational gun nuts. Adding gender bigotry to the gun debate is not a constructive contribution.

2. The cartoon dishonestly frames the issue at hand as a culture having to choose between children or guns. Plenty of talking heads have made the same false representation, and it is intentional distortion for the purpose of appealing to emotions over rational thought. Or it is evidence of brain damage or progressive dementia.

3. The cartoon is incompetent. What is the point that the cartoonist is trying to make? That women are ruled by maternal-instinct and men are gun happy, rendering both stupid and useless? That women’s values are spot on, and men are mad fools? That every family’s children are really at risk because of guns? Is he advocating gun bans? The message is completely incoherent. It’s just a bad cartoon….on a serious and complex subject that could benefit from a good one.

If all a political cartoonist can contribute to an important national debate is the equivalent of a stink bomb tossed into a room, he should resist the urge.

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Pointer: Marie Miller

Source: Times-Free Press

Final Verdict: The Unethical Media Persecution of Herman Cain, and Five Questions for His Critics

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The media’s relentless coverage of the non-story of Herman Cain’s alleged sexual harassment 15 years ago continues in defiance of all previous standards of journalistic ethics, fairness and decency.It is a disgusting spectacle, yet the number of individuals, including many of my peers, friends and colleagues, who continue to manufacture ways to blame Cain himself for his outrageous treatment continues to grow.  It is almost a full week since Politico published its fact-free hit job, and still there is nothing substantive that would allow anyone to determine with certainty or even probability that Herman Cain did anything other than spark  opportunistic accusations from female employees seeking a swift pay-off. Astoundingly, people who readily assume that Cain was guilty of wrongdoing based on their undefined claims and resulting cash settlements pronounce themselves “shocked” at the Cain’s defenders’ suggestion that the women themselves had no basis for their accusations. Yet that suggestion is at least as supported by the facts, or lack of same, as the conclusion that Cain did anything wrong.

Anonymous sources have been cited as damning accusers without any information whatsoever regarding the nature of the inappropriate conduct Cain was accused of, without any objective determination regarding whether such conduct actually occurred or, if it did, whether it constituted sexual harassment.

Worst of all, and this has been true throughout the episode (which I regard as a journalism scandal rather than a political one), the news stories and news commentary about Herman Cain’s alleged sexual harassment have almost totally neglected to make it clear to readers what sexual harassment is. The story has been repeatedly referred to as a “sex scandal,” which is wrong and misleading: there is no sex in the form of sexual harassment at issue. The so-called charges (there are no charges at this point) are repeatedly being called “serious,” suggesting Cain did something genuinely substantial and wrong, when that is completely unknown. A lot of conduct that can be used to support sexual harassment allegations may be neither intentional nor objectively harmful in any way. The average member of the public who does not deal with the term sexual harassment as a legal term presumes that it always involves so-called “quid pro quo” sexual harassment: a superior’s solicitation of sexual intercourse or other sexual conduct from a subordinate, using threats, direct or implicit, to make the subordinate comply.

This is Bill Clinton-style sexual harassment, which the public heard enough about during the Paula Jones matter to imprint it indelibly on its mind. It is also the kind of sexual harassment usually on display in “Mad Men” and in other fictional venues. The news media knows this, or should know it, so it has an obligation to make clear that this is not what the two women who filed complaints with the National Restaurant Association  alleged, whatever it was that they alleged. This should be done as a necessary component off every single story and piece of commentary about the matter, because to do otherwise is affirmatively misleading.

Cain’s mysterious, undefined, unproven and never-described sexual harassment was what is called “hostile work environment” sexual harassment. Among the conduct that have been held in particular circumstances to constitute “hostile work environment” sexual harassment are using words of endearment or compliments of a physical nature that an employee considers inappropriate, a repeated request to get together socially that an employee considers unwelcome, jokes, songs, non-sexual touching (such as putting a hand on a woman’s shoulder), e-mails including jokes, stories or photos of a sexual or risqué nature, insults with sexual associations, such as “bitch” or “whore,” looks that an individual perceives as leering or uncomfortably intense, an individual repeatedly looking at a woman’s breast, legs or derriere…or an executive encouraging or permitting any of this conduct to occur repeatedly by other employees or, in the case of an association, members or customers. As far as sexual harassment law is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether the offender intended any of this to be disruptive or not, or whether more than one member of the extended staff finds it so.

Is this what the news reports and commentary about Cain’s phantom harassment charges have clearly suggested he was guilty of fifteen years ago? Absolutely not.

I challenge those supposedly fair and unbiased critics of Cain now arguing, in classic Big Lie fashion, that it is his reaction to the misleading and vague allegations that now condemn him, to answer these five questions: Continue reading →