The 2006 list of "50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers" was published this week, and the former New York Press editorial staffers who walked out in protest are at #50, right below Chloe Sevigny and Vincent Gallo. "You didn’t think we were going to let this issue go without some kind of dig about our predecessors, did you?" the writers ask. Editor Harry Siegel and three other staffers resigned in February when the paper's publishers refused to print the controversial Muhammad cartoons. The current Press writers say, "This mountain-into-a-molehill gave them a semi-Warholian 13 minutes of fame, while we were left picking up the pieces. ... Thanks, guys!" The New York Press publishes its "Loathsome" list annually.
The Stranger's staff was ready for a protest after running the controversial Muhammad cartoons last week, Editor Dan Savage writes on Slog, The Stranger's blog. Instead, they were targeted by four members of Catholic Youth Abstaining (C-YA) who were upset by the paper's humorous coverage of their efforts to put the "Saint" back in "St. Valentine's Day." The blog also contains a photo of the four "humor-challenged, orgasm-deprived kids" holding a sign with a picture of Jesus and the words "be mine." Savage reports that the protest ended abruptly after 10 minutes and speculates,"Maybe they were afraid we were going to come down and fuck them?"
According to Editor & Publisher, Coulter was speaking to a conservative group on Feb. 10 when she joked, "Iran is soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust. So far, only Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau, and The New York Times have made submissions." Rall, whose cartoons appear in several AAN member papers, asked readers of his blog if they would pledge money to support a lawsuit against Coulter. Rall said he doubts that Coulter's "claims of 'humor' or sarcasm will fly with a jury since (a) she's not funny and (b) her audiences take her literally and she knows it." In an update, Rall announced that votes were running 3-1 in favor of suing.
Harry Siegel, one of four editorial staffers who resigned from New York Press last week, participated in a discussion of the Muhammad cartoons with Mike Luckovich, an editorial cartoonist, and Jim Warren, deputy managing editor of The Chicago Tribune (which did not run the cartoons). Siegel called the cartoons "very amateurish and very vile" before arguing that "it seems Orwellian to talk about this at such length without showing the images." Siegel also tangled briefly with Warren, who asserted that "characterizing the cartoons in great detail" was sufficient to cover the story.
AAN members are among the media outlets that have become targets of form e-mails generated by RightMarch.com. The messages forcefully state, "in solidarity with the people of free Europe and in support of the concept of freedom of the press, you need to PUBLISH the Danish cartoons." Alt-weekly editors, however, suggest that their only response will be to use the "delete" button.
