AJC censors comics, movie ads

WTF, AJC?

I’m not usually the one driving the anti-AJC bandwagon (that’s Sugg’s job), but over the weekend, the apparent cowardice of some unnamed editors over there had me steamed.

An AP story appearing in Saturday’s AJC describes how “Doonesbury” cartoonist Garry Trudeau – who must submit a week’s worth of comic strip at a time – is going out on a limb with cartoons “showing his characters reacting to an Obama victory.” If John McCain somehow ends up winning Tuesday’s election, Trudeau says, “I’ll be the one with the egg on my face.”

Still, the article says some newspaper editors are expressing discomfort with running the strip this week, quoting one who will wait until checking Election Day returns before deciding whether to run the Obama-related cartoons. But the article didn’t name any papers that had already pulled the plug on “Doonesbury.”

Well, we found one. Tacked on to the very end of the print version of the AP article is this sentence:

As for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it is giving “Doonesbury” a sabbatical next Monday through Saturday and will resume carrying the strip the following week.

No explanation; no rationale. Just a statement that the strip won’t be running in the AJC, cravenly couched behind the euphemism “sabbatical.” The paper is so gutless that, rather than make an effort to defend its decision, it seems to be hoping no one will notice.