Dan Murphy, the editorial cartoonist and animator for the Vancouver Province, speaks out after his paper and his company "blink".
“Is that supposed to happen? I don’t think that’s supposed to happen,” are early lines in an animated parody of an energy company’s advertisement as first globs and then gushes of animated oil blot out the pastoral scene portrayed in the advertisement.
Murphy felt the same way after he was told his animated parody was removed from his paper’s website because that energy company had issued an ultimatum to Postmedia Network Inc., the parent company of the Province and nineteen other newspapers and magazines.
On June 22nd apparently both the Province and Postmedia blinked when Enbridge Inc. threatened to pull 1 million dollars in ads.
Dan was told that instead of calling Enbridge’s bluff, Postmedia told the publisher of the Vancouver Province to take the parody down from the website or the editor would be fired. The parody was taken down.
To Dan this was one of those “red flag moments.” He couldn’t stay silent. In the days that followed, Dan risked being fired by giving a limited number of interviews repeating what he had been told as to why his parody was no longer featured on the paper’s website.
To read more about this incident, view an article by Ian Austen of the Media Decoder Blog of The New York Times, the Canadian Press story in the Edmonton Journal, and, "The Province's big, gooey Enbridge mess" by Frank Moher at BackOfTheBook.
Cartoonists Rights Network International is very concerned about this incident of corporate interference into a newspaper’s editorial decision making.
To quote Dan from the above interview with CRNI Deputy Director Drew Rougier-Chapman on July 5th, “If advertising can influence the news side, then it stops being a newspaper really and it stops deserving the support and faith of its readership.”
Consequently we call on the executives of Postmedia and the Vancouver Province to prove to its readership that Postmedia and the Province are worthy of their readers’ support and faith. Repost the Enbridge parody. Anything less is a defeat for freedom of the press.
Cartoonists Rights Network International is very concerned about this incident of corporate interference into a newspaper’s editorial decision making.
To quote Dan from the above interview with CRNI Deputy Director Drew Rougier-Chapman on July 5th, “If advertising can influence the news side, then it stops being a newspaper really and it stops deserving the support and faith of its readership.”
Consequently we call on the executives of Postmedia and the Vancouver Province to prove to its readership that Postmedia and the Province are worthy of their readers’ support and faith. Repost the Enbridge parody. Anything less is a defeat for freedom of the press.
In this interview, Dan thanks the readers for rallying to his defense and the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists (ACEC) for organizing a cartoonists petition on his behalf.
The petition was signed by approximately forty of Canada's most talented editorial cartoonists, including ACEC President Terry "Aislin" Mosher and CRNI Board Directors Nik Kowsar and Michael de Adder.
Dan says this incident won't deter him from doing additional Enbridge cartoons and animations.
The petition was signed by approximately forty of Canada's most talented editorial cartoonists, including ACEC President Terry "Aislin" Mosher and CRNI Board Directors Nik Kowsar and Michael de Adder.
Dan says this incident won't deter him from doing additional Enbridge cartoons and animations.
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| Dan Murphy, The Vancouver Province, Tuesday July 10, 2012 |
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