
Long-time Iowa farm cartoonist fired after creating this cartoon - based2
http://www.kcci.com/news/longtime-iowa-farm-cartoonist-fired-after-creating-this-cartoon/39337816
======
roywiggins
I am sympathetic to him, but there is no constitutional right to an unbought
press (like he is quoted as alleging). Editorial independence is not enshrined
by the Constitution. At all.

To clarify, this is obviously a bad thing if it happened like he says, but
since the press is free, his employer is allowed to fire him and find someone
who will express a different opinion. It's a pretty bonehead decision to fire
someone over a nearly completely inoffensive cartoon though...

~~~
iherbig
I see this sort of defense a lot, and I find it interesting.

Some party does something many would find ill-conceived, reprehensible, or in
some way greedy. Some other people come out declaring that the action wasn't
illegal.

It's interesting to me, because often the legality of the situation isn't even
in question (edit: as it is in this article).

~~~
stormbrew
The defence comes up against the claim of infringed right to free speech,
which is right there in the article. It doesn't come out of nowhere.

~~~
iherbig
I never said it did in this circumstance.

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slackstation
There isn't even a semblance of editorial separation anymore.

That separation did good things like give people a reasonable expectation that
what was presented was more or less unbiased facts. Now more than ever, we
don't have that. If one is smart and looking for the truth, you have to cross-
check with other sources.

One says you might have had to do that always but, now everything is suspect.
I don't mean that conspiratorially, I mean I have to think, "Could someone
profit from me thinking this is true?"

For everything. I wouldn't be surprised if someone manipulated the weather
reports slightly to raise sales of coats and umbrellas. It'd be so easy and
could make a significant difference. "Your Weather Report is brought to you by
Burlington Coat Factory"

~~~
JoshTriplett
> One says you might have had to do that always but, now everything is
> suspect.

Everything was _already_ suspect. I automatically distrust someone more if
they claim a lack of bias, and trust someone slightly more if they explicitly
disclose likely sources of bias. Given knowledge of someone's bias, I can
weight the information they're providing more appropriately.

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skronch
linking the actual comic in question (since it wasn't immediately obvious in
the article):
[http://www.kcci.com/news/39341462](http://www.kcci.com/news/39341462)

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
Maybe he lost his job because it's just not a good comic. It's seriously just
a written statement of fact needlessly wrapped in a drawing of two
(identical?) people standing by a fence.

~~~
cloakandswagger
Agreed. The cartoon isn't funny, subtle or provocative, so I'd fire him on
those grounds alone.

~~~
ball_of_lint
I don't laugh at every Mallard Filmore, but he still shows up in my Sunday
paper.

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hoodoof
Don't cross Monsanto...

~~~
randyrand
Also known as, "Dont bite the hand that feeds you"

~~~
Gibbon1
Difficulty we're drifting back into a world were there is only one hand.

~~~
tanderson92
The invisible hand, that lifts all boats, right?

~~~
Maken
It's not invisible at all and all it lifts are stock indices.

------
based2
src:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4hmvhl/longtime_iowa_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4hmvhl/longtime_iowa_farm_cartoonist_fired_after/)

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JabavuAdams
What a ham-handed response! If they had just done nothing, this wouldn't be a
story. Now, it's a scandal.

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buckbova
A fun list of CEO compensation from 2015.

[http://www.equilar.com/reports/17-2-100-largest-company-
CEOs...](http://www.equilar.com/reports/17-2-100-largest-company-
CEOs-2015.html)

Do the top 3 tech giant CEOs on the list make more than 2192 of you?

~~~
goldbrick
Unless the average of our 2192-strong sample is > $96,857 (doubt it), yes.

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bdvholmes
There is no cartoon on this page

~~~
nacs
Here you go:
[http://thumbsnap.com/i/V80Bg5ye.jpg?0503](http://thumbsnap.com/i/V80Bg5ye.jpg?0503)

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nacs
Link to the cartoon:
[http://thumbsnap.com/i/V80Bg5ye.jpg?0503](http://thumbsnap.com/i/V80Bg5ye.jpg?0503)

------
avs733
paging Barbara Streisand...(yeah its not perfect but its close)

Seriously though, at what point do people in leadership positions really
internalize the influence and power of digital social networks. Social
networks are not new, the have existed and spread information(and
opinions)since the dawn of our species. Online versions in some form have
existed since the telegraph/phone/usenet/facebook (take your pick). You cannot
control the flow or spread of information, and you have almost no control over
the framing it is spread with. This is a story about a cartoonist, for
farmers, in Iowa being discussed internationally...

For christ's sake consider alternate points of view before you act in haste.
You can find people of all points of view on the internet, but they seem to be
united in opposition to schadenfreude and generalized
stupidity/hypocrisy/hamfisted-ness under the guise of 'scandal' and knocking
others down a peg. Stop feeding the beast.

~~~
Zelphyr
It probably wasn't even anyone that high up in those companies. It was
probably some PR guy or gal. But the company spends so much in advertising
with the publication that the mere mention of withdrawal of ad dollars was
enough to get the owner or editor to back down and fire the cartoonist.

~~~
avs733
I get that...I feel like the PR guy/gal though should be the exact type to be
aware of why reacting like this would be a problem

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slosh
Somebody get this guy a scanner lol why bother with the news paper? He can
just start an email newsletter and get more attention.

~~~
hk__2
Attention doesn’t pay the bills.

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basicplus2
I think this encapsulates exactly what is wrong with the world we live in.. We
humans need 1. Food and 2. shelter if the weather is too cold or hot..
everything else is a bonus.. and this shows our systems value the fundamental
need of food below everything else, a world turned on its head.

------
iisbum
I'd be interested to know more about the process of getting the cartoon into
the paper.

Surely if the cartoonist submitted it to the editor of the paper before it was
published, shouldn't the editor be the one getting fired?

------
aurora72
If the same cartoon was drawn in Germany, no one would have been fired. A
matter of Socialism vs Capitalism.

~~~
ibotty
So there is Socialism in the USA? There sure as hell is Capitalism in Germany.

------
pklausler
One wonders whether the corporate overlord in question also advertises on
KCCI, and if more heads will roll.

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gragas
I'm an Iowa native. I find the cartoon itself pretty ridiculous. Why shouldn't
CEOs of multibillion-dollar companies earn more than farmers? In addition,
every single farmer I've ever met is very well off. In addition to the money
made while farming, farmers are sitting on millions of dollars of land.

~~~
HillRat
Median farm income in the United States is -$930. Yes, _negative_ dollars.
Almost every farmer -- basically the bottom 95% at least -- relies on off-farm
household income, and just hopes to make enough farming to keep up with debt
service and opex (assuming they didn't go into debt on seed, which can
happen).

~~~
GunboatDiplomat
Perhaps they should consider another line of work. If your bar isn't making
money, or your hardware store is failing, no one suggests it's unfair the CEO
of Budweiser makes more than many many bars combined, or the President of
DeWalt makes hundreds of times more than a hardware store does. Why should it
be different for farmers?

~~~
pnathan
Worth looking at the historical farm policies of different countries. But, for
the US in particular, the key concept is _agrarian myth_. I present two
comments and suggest reading Age of Reform by Hofstadter.

> There is a general idea that somehow the fate of the United States is
> somehow bound to the fate of the agricultural community. There is a romantic
> appeal to the family farm as the symbol of the good life in this country. It
> stands for democracy in its purest and most classic form. This belief
> persists despite evidence to the contrary. [0]

> The agrarian myth is the belief that the most desirable form of community is
> found in rural, specifically agrarian, village life. In the agrarian
> village, fundamental Western values such as a strong work ethic,
> independence, and integrity are supposedly fostered and passed from one
> generation to the next. Consequently, declines in the value of agrarian life
> and agrarian villages are seen as signals of an even larger decline of
> society itself. For those who believe in the agrarian myth, community type
> and morality become inseparably connected in the rural agricultural village.
> All other contemporary manifestations of community are incomplete or
> counterfeit. [1]

[0]
[http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/36568/1/sp02re01.pdf](http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/36568/1/sp02re01.pdf)

[1]
[http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/community/n10.xml](http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/community/n10.xml)

