The Arizona Daily Star badly erred in its handling of this week’s controversial “Doonesbury” comic strips.

The Star decided not to run this week’s strips, by the great Garry Trudeau, which deal with a woman taking a trip through right-wing ineptitude at a Texas abortion clinic. The strips discuss real laws enacted in Texas in recent years.

The Star‘s explanation, as posted on the daily’s Facebook page: “We decided not to run this week’s ‘Doonesbury’ story line because of its placement on our comics and puzzle page. Tucson schoolchildren read the Star through our Newspapers in Education program, and we know that comics and puzzles are among the favorite features of our youngest readers.

“In addition to the adult story line, this week’s strips use language like transvaginal, rape, slut, contraceptives and genitals. Yes, those words appear in news stories, but such stories are easy for teachers and parents to spot and choose whether to discuss or not. That’s not the case on the comics page.”

Fair enough. However, as a subscriber to the Star, I now ask: Why didn’t editors move the strip somewhere else for the week, like some other newspapers that carry “Doonesbury” are doing? There’s certainly plenty of space for these strips among The Associated Press wire copy and the syndicated columns, after all.

Another question: Why didn’t the editors publish an explanation in the print version? On Monday and Tuesday, print readers of the Star got no warning about or discussion of the sudden “Doonesbury” re-runs. What about readers who don’t follow the Star on Facebook?

For what it’s worth, I sent a note to Universal UClick, the syndicate that distributes “Doonesbury” (as well as a couple of features that we run, including “News of the Weird”), and I asked if we could print this week’s “Doonesbury” strips. A representative said no, because Universal UClick has a “contractual agreement” with the Star.

Therefore, those interesting, important strips won’t be printed in Tucson this week. And that’s a damn shame.

This article appears in Mar 15-21, 2012.

4 replies on “Editor’s Note”

  1. The Houston Chronicle is running the abortion strips on the Editorial page.
    The strips are very well done.
    I would like to tell your readers what today’s strip says:
    First block, a woman is lying on an examining table, a tech is sitting by her. Patient says, “But I don’t want a transvaginal sonogram!”
    “Sorry, Miss, you’re first trimester.”
    Second block, a male doctor holding a probe says, “The male Republicans who run Texas require that all such abortion-seekers be examined with a 10″ shaming wand.”
    Third block, the patient with wide eyes says, “Will…will..it hurt?”
    The tech replies, “Well, it’s not comfortable, Honey…
    Fourth block, …but Texas feels you should have thought of that.”
    The male doctors says, “By the authority vested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”

    Are we going to let the Republicans get away with their War on Women?
    Are we going to let them “get rid” of health care for three million low income women who get mammograms, paps, check ups at Planned Parenthood as Romney states he will do?
    How do Tucson residents feel about this? Do they too want the strip out of sight as did the Arizona Daily Star? Or do they want to speak up, protest loudly and send a check to Planned Parenthood?

  4. Agree. I sent an email to the Star early this week to complain. No response.
    I then posted my concerns, as well as a copy of the banned Doonesbury strip, on the Star’s Facebook page — several times. Each time the Star’s web master deleted my post.
    I also posted my complaint, with the real Trudeau strip, on Fitz’s Facebook page. He kept it up; thank you, Dave.
    There exist many possible solutions to the “problem” that the Star editors saw with publishing this week’s Doonesbury, ones that other dailies made use of — including your suggestion: placing the cartoon on the editorial page or deep in the usually-unread Classifieds.
    But ban it?! Our supposedly progressive Arizona Daily Star? Really!? As it turned out, the Star was less successful in protecting children’s sensibilities (Welcome to the Internet World, Daily Star: kids don’t even know what a printed daily newspaper is!) than in insulting its aging, adult readers’ intelligence.

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