Palin bio scooped in "Doonesbury"

Alan Gardner
The Daily Cartoonist

Michael Cavna reports that Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau was given an advance copy of Joe McGinniss’ new biography of Sarah Palin and that the two entered into a partnership allowing Garry the ability to use the material in his comic before the book is released. The first of the Doonesbury series started today.

Trudeau and Lee Salem, president of “Doonesbury” syndicate Universal Uclick, confirm that the excerpts are from the advance edition that the cartoonist received last spring, courtesy of the author. McGinniss did not return requests for comment, but his publicist at Random House/Crown said, “I can confirm that Joe did like the 2010 ‘Doonesbury’ cartoons, and [that's] why his agent reached out to Mr. Trudeau.”

As for Trudeau, he says, “McGinniss’s office first approached me for [the 2010] strip-reprint rights in March, and then subsequently about a possible review.” The cartoonist says he “demurred on the review, but proposed instead an exclusive first serial arrangement.”

Poynter’s Jim Romenesko reports that some papers, including The Chicago Tribune, are not running this week’s Doonesbury. The paper says in an A2 note that “the subject matter does not meet our standards of fairness [because] the strips include excerpts from a book that is not yet on the market and therefore unavailable for review or verification by the Tribune.” The book’s release date is Sept. 20. The Tribune is running “Thatababy” in the place of “Doonesbury.”

UPDATES:

More on the controversy in The Washington Post.
The following article from the Daily Cartoonist:

I THINK NEWSPAPERS WERE RIGHT TO PULL DOONESBURY

Posted by Alan Gardner
September 15, 2011

I’ve read a few reactions to the news that some newspapers have pulled this week’s Doonesbury that mocked Sarah Palin. Here’s a quick recap of some of the voices and then I’ll add my own.

Brigid Alverson from Comic Book Resources:

On the one hand, I want to defend Trudeau’s right to publish his strip (editors who sign up for Doonesbury know what they’re getting into from the beginning, after all) and readers’ right to read it. On the other hand, if I were an editor, I would be complaining to the syndicate. The strips are awful heavy-handed, even by Trudeau’s standards; he’s clearly eager to get the juicy bits out there before anyone else. I’m no Palin fan, but from the excerpts I have seen online, McGinniss’ book is mean-spirited and journalistically dodgy, relying heavily on anonymous sources and folks with axes to grind, and the Doonesbury strips just amplify that. They should have been sent back for a rewrite, but that’s the job of his syndicate editor, not comics-page editors at individual papers.

Michael Cavna over at the Washington Post:

Bottom line: Editors, of course, have the right not to run a cartoon.

But to that I would append: Cartoonists who editorialize, of course, have the responsibility not to be fair.

Now my take. I’m going to side with the newspapers on this one. Earlier in the week after looking at the first two or three strips I thought papers like The Chicago Tribune and others were being overly sensitive. But today’s strip is a game changer. We’ve (comic fans) been looking at these strips one at a time and formulating our opinion of the newspapers actions based on the very small sample of strips. Editors had advanced copies of this week’s content last week and I think they had reason to worry after seeing today’s strip. Today’s strip breaks news that Palin had a fling with Glen Rice of the Miami Heat. That’s news. Coming from a comic strip, but news nonetheless. The source is Palin biography by Joe McGinnis that will not be released until next week. Certainly, if the rumor proves to be false, what is the liability of the newspaper for having propagated the rumor?

So definitely, I think newspapers have the right to be cautious and those that pulled the strip were doing their job as editors.

As an aside, I thought (and I’m painting a wide brush here) liberals believe sex is a private matter for individuals. Why is Garry delving into this salacious issue? We’re talking about an encounter 24 years ago before Palin was even married.

UPDATE: I should probably add the obligatory disclaimer: I am not a Palin fan. She’s one of the reasons I didn’t vote for McCain in ’08 and I’ve struggled to understand why she’s so popular or how she’s been taken so serious.