 The New Yorker cover that normally brings only admiring glances has this week been subject to a huge amount of debate - most of it critical.
The cover pictures the Obamas in the Oval Office dressed as their worst enemies would imagine them.
The Obama campaign has declared itself offended. Are they right? We've done a Comment Central ring round.
Daniel Finkelstein:
I see what the cartoonist was trying to do. I realise it was satire. But I quite understand why the Obama camp was not amused. While lampooning the fearmongers, the New Yorker is also spreading their message. I think, on balance, that it was a mistake.
Peter Brookes (Times Cartoonist):
It is so obviously ironic, coming from an Obama-supporting source, but it is also true that Americans just don't get irony and it's probably wasted on them.
Perfectly good, perfectly well-made point, still worth trying to make even when there are so many idiots who just don't get it and take it at face value.
Morton Morland (Times Cartoonist):
The Barry Blitt cover cartoon is a success on many levels.
It succeeds in drawing international attention to the magazine. It succeeds in causing heated public debate with passionate arguments on both (or more) sides . Most interestingly though it succeeds in prompting a response from the Obama campaign team, which above anything else shows that they are genuinely concerned about the smears against him.
So the fact that the most angry response is coming from the 'wrong side' is almost beside the point.
The fact that the cartoon probably doesn't succeed in immediately conveying the ridiculousness of the smears, because of the serious undertones, becomes irrelevant because of the ensuing debate.
When this cover is used, as it inevitably will be, by smear campaigners as proof of their long held suspicions - the cartoon will eventually succeed in mocking its intended targets.
Murad Ahmed: (Times Journalist and Comment Central Commentator)
It reminds me of the Danish cartoons furore. Everyone should calm down, it's supposed to be satire and of course the New Yorker should print it. It's main crime is that it's not particularly funny.
Ann Treneman (Parliamentary Sketch Writer):
It's hard to believe that anyone would take this cover seriously but, then again, many many things that are hard to believe do, actually, come true in the States. So, yes, many Americans will fail to get the joke but, actually, who cares? The joke is great. That turban! And that Afro! Haven't seen hair like that since Starsky and Hutch.
The bits that made me laugh out loud though are the flag burning in the Oval Office (as you do when there's an oil crisis) and the "family photo" of Osama (sounds like Obama, they must be related). My only complaint is that it all looks a little cosy - especially for ardent revolutionaries like the Obamas....
Michael Binyon (Leader Writer):
This is appalling and not even funny. It reminds me of the time The Spectator put Helmut Kohl as Hitler on their cover and had to issue a full-fledged apology. It's not a clever satire because it's not clear that it is satire. The best response for Obama is to simply ignore it.
Oliver Kamm: (Leader Writer)
It would take an obtuse reader to miss the laboured irony here - complete with portrait of bin Laden and the flag consigned to the fire. Indeed the lack of subtlety is the reason the cartoon fails. The role of Michelle Obama in the campaign and where she stands politically are matters of public interest, as were the equivalent questions directed at the Clintons in the 1990s. Obama's campaign has no ground for complaint; on the contrary, the cartoon unfairly caricatures the opposition to him.
All change at the Sunday Times.
The newspaper underwent a substantial redesign this past weekend. And we're all very keen to know what you think of the new-look paper. Drop us a line with any feedback and enjoy.
 From this morning's paper...
A man who tried to gas himself but then changed his mind and lit a cigarette, causing an explosion, has been convicted of arson. Ian Noll, 39, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, was given a 12-month community service order at Newport Crown Court and ordered to take an enhanced thinking skills course.
What is an enhanced thinking skills course? Who runs it? Why do they run it? And who should pay for it?
Most importantly, who else should go on one?
 Leonard Downie Jr. has announced that he's stepping down as Executive Editor of the Washington Post. Here are some of the great articles that appeared in the Post during his 25 Pulitzer Prize winning tenure.
The Economist has long been a status symbol for geek chic. But now it can boast of its very own rap.
Two 17-year-old Americans have composed this ditty.
I particularly like the sampling of Edward Lucas and Anthony Gottlieb podcasts. But my favourite lyrics are as follows: Of the Economist he is now an avid reader
Hopes to grow up to be a world leader
The magazine that tells the world how it should be
Cream of the crop since 1843
Sing along with us... He reads the Economist so he can get the gist
(Hat Tip: Ella)
Alice Fishburn
Today we issued this press release: THE TIMES ANNOUNCES THE APPOINTMENT OF RACHEL SYLVESTER AS POLITICAL COLUMNIST
London, April 24 2008:
The Times has today announced the appointment of Rachel Sylvester as a political columnist. Rachel is currently a columnist at The Daily Telegraph.
Commenting on the appointment, James Harding, Editor of The Times said: "Rachel is a unique voice in British politics, a columnist with extraordinary sources inside Westminster and powerful judgment on the government of the country. We are delighted that she has chosen to bring her ever informative, surprising and no-nonsense column to the opinion pages of The Times."
Anybody who reads the Telegraph columns I post in the Daily Fix will understand why I am so excited about having Rachel as a colleague. I think she is superbly talented.
What happens when you confine yourself to a windowless room for 24 hours with only two radios, six televisions and a rotating series of blogs for company?
The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten valiantly puts it to the test. AT THE START OF HOUR SIX, I realize I am doing something no one else likely has ever done before, something no one should ever do again. I am listening to both Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly simultaneously, on two radios.
So can it be done? Well, the article concludes with this desparate text message: I'll tell you it can be, but I cannot tell you how horrible it is. It rattles the very center of your being. If you care about the state of humankind, it fills you with despair. We are as a people bleak and hostile and suspicious, filled with senseless partisanship and willing to believe anything and everything about anyone. We are full of ourselves and we hate. And we do it 24-7
If you want to feel really sorry for him, you can watch the video.
Alice Fishburn
Had all the fun you can have with the Slate Delegate Calculator?
Well now you can graduate to the Washington Post's new interactive map.
It not only lets you predict November's winner state by state. But you can also annoy all your friends by sending over copies of your wonkish theories. Hours of entertainment guaranteed.
Ah, the kids today. This graphic from The Economist suggests that the world's leaders are indeed getting younger.
Some good news for the 46 year-old Obama on what might otherwise be a gloomy Wednesday morning.
Where politicians go, the media is never far behind. And not just when it comes to the news....
Yesterday, Whitehall gossiped about the hottest MPS of 2008. Today, Iain Dale gives us his list of the twenty Most Fanciable political journalists.
You can check them out here.
Dear Friends,
I understand that your newspaper of choice has asked William Kristol, the conservative commentator, to provide an opinion column for the paper.
Since I am the op-ed editor of what you Americans call The Times of London, I have followed the controversy that the appointment has caused with great interest.
And with my mouth wide open.
Apparently many of you are outraged to hear of this new columnist. You have been writing in. And the Public Editor has written a column criticising the appointment.
Excuse me, but what on earth is going on?
A quality newspaper should have columns reflecting a wide variety of opinions, even those uncongenial to the majority of its readers. While the bulk of a paper's columnists may reflect the publication's character and view, there must always be space for an alternative opinion.
Thus, for instance, while my paper supported the decision to invade Iraq (which happened to be my view too), many of our columnists (in fact probably a majority) did not concur.
It would never occur to me when selecting an individual columnist to be concerned that some readers might not agree with some of his positions.
And considering that Kristol represents a large strand of American opinion (even if it is a smaller strand of NYT reader opinion) it is entirely unremarkable that his columns should be commissioned.
A great national newspaper is not a reality television show, subjecting its columnists to a telephone vote before running their columns. Nor is being hired to write a column equivalent to being appointed to the Supreme Court, requiring Senate confirmation.
Even when the column appears, drumroll, in the The New York Times.
The most remarkable aspect of this bizarre controversy has been the performance of the paper's ombudsman Clark Hoyt. Well, it was remarkable to me at least. Mr Hoyt argued that Kristol should not have been appointed (or at least that he, Hoyt, wouldn't have appointed him) because Kristol had been a fierce critic of the NYT, and had argued, at one point, that the paper should be prosecuted for an aspect of its coverage.
The job of a reader's editor, surely is to defend the rights of its readers, all of its readers. It is not to start picking a "Fantasy Columnist" team to reflect his own politics. What of people who agree with Kristol? Do they not deserve the protection of the reader's editor?
And as for Hoyt's statement that: This is not a person I would have rewarded with a regular spot in front of arguably the most elite audience in the nation.
Isn't this the most pompous sentence you have ever read in your life?
Anyway, you are fortunate that The New York Times carries many great columns. If Kristol offends you I have a brilliant technological solution.
Turn the page.
I wish you well from this side of the Atlantic.
Daniel
Time's choice for Person of the Year? Vladimir Putin.
Worth remembering that this does not suggest any enthusiasm for him. Other Time Men of the Year include Stalin, Hitler and Khomeini.
Here's why the Russian President was picked: At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power.
Mary Dejevsky argues that Putin is the best we can expect. But I have to say that I am more inclined to Edward Lucas's view.
 Like the rest of you, I try never to miss David Blunkett's column in The Sun on Wednesdays. The combination of insight, wit and erudition makes it irresistible.
This week, I feel that towering figure has really outdone himself with his reflections on the terrible treatment of Gillian Gibbons by the brutal Sudanese government. After much thought he comments: If we ever needed a lesson in the stupidity of political correctness this was it.
Mr Blunkett goes on to compare the arbitrary imprisonment by islamofascist lunatics with the failure by "hand-wringing" town halls to send out religious Christmas cards.
He probably had this idea a week ago and has been scouring the media, worried lest another perspicacious commentator made this comparison before he did. What a relief! He turned out to be the only columnist who had thought of it.
Truly the Home Office's loss is journalism's gain.
Last night the excellent Steve Richards was interviewed on the World Tonight and added a new law of politics to my collection. He was explaining that Alistair Darling was moving from one crisis to another because he had no vision: Accident-prone politicians are never accident-prone by accident
Brilliant.
Last Thursday, the left-wing idealogue and pundit Seamus Milne wrote this: In an increasingly Islamophobic climate, the support given by some ministers to those in the media and rightwing thinktanks arguing against engagement with representative organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain and non-violent Islamist groups is bound to backfire.
Last week, for example, the Blairite cabinet minister Hazel Blears championed the former Islamist Ed Husain - who follows the neocon line on "Islamofascism" and criticises MI5's boss for "pussyfooting around" - as a "new voice" who "understands what needs to be done".
Picking people who are off the map of Muslim opinion to speak on British Muslims' behalf is a dangerous game that will do nothing to increase public safety.
Then last night in the Lords debate on the Queen's Speech Tory Shadow Cabinet member Baroness Warsi had this to say: We must appreciate the nuances of communities and not treat them as homogeneous blocks represented by self-appointed community leaders. We need to engage on the issues that face communities and not on the basis of their race or religion.
We need to go beyond the obligatory handshakes outside places of worship, and we must be wary of those who claim to speak on behalf of many. As Milne warned in the Guardian last week:
“Picking people who are off the map of Muslim opinion to speak on British Muslims' behalf is a dangerous game that will do nothing to increase public safety”.
Did Baroness Warsi intend to echo Milne's attack on Ed Husain? If not, why quote Milne with approval?
Meanwhile, Simon Heffer's Telegraph colleague Janet Daley hits the nail on the head this morning with a first class defence of liberal interventionism.
She has some trenchant criticisms to make of David Cameron's German foreign policy speech and some strong positive arguments. Her piece shouldn't be missed.
Times are tough in journalism. Shrinking budgets, layoffs, empty desks. Just yesterday, The New York Times announced imminent cuts of $2 million from their staffing budget.
But at least, according to this nugget from New York Magazine, they've found the obvious way to cope.
How? By opening Manhattan's first fresh-air birch and moss garden of course. They're importing several tons of moss and seven 50-foot birch trees from New Jersey this weekend and will employ several large cranes to hoist them over the 70-foot glass wall that surrounds the area. Wow! That must be expensive, right? The trees alone cost $10,000 each, the nursery tells us, and the Times bought eleven of them. We don't how much the moss and labor and gas and trucks (which only carry two trees at a time) cost — guess that's something for Times staffers can contemplate in their new Zen garden! The remaining staffers, at least.
Well, exactly.
Alice Fishburn
The Onion's satirical approach to news have produced some of the best headlines in the business. Who could forget the following?
Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: "We'll Go Through Iran."
"God Angrily Clarifies "Don't Kill" Rule."
But the publication has never been taken seriously by the traditional media. This may now be changing. A new Reason article argues that The Onion should be regarded as one of the most intelligent papers out there. And, in a time of dwindling circulations, it's certainly among the most successful. The Onion stands as one of the newspaper industry’s few great success stories in the post-newspaper era. Currently, it prints 710,000 copies of each weekly edition, roughly 6,000 more than The Denver Post, the nation’s ninth-largest daily. Its syndicated radio dispatches reach a weekly audience of 1 million, and it recently started producing video clips too. Roughly 3,000 local advertisers keep The Onion afloat, and the paper plans to add 170 employees to its staff of 130 this year. Online it attracts more than 2 million readers a week. Type onion into Google, and The Onion pops up first. Type the into Google, and The Onion pops up first.
Who's laughing now?
Alice Fishburn
An important moment in online comment and for readers of this blog - The New York Times has ended its Times Select subscription service and is opening up all its comment for free.
The paper says that it believes it can make more money from advertising than subscriptions. American Express is the first sponsor to climb onboard.
Why is this important to Comment Central readers?
First because it opens up again a range of very impressive columnists to non-paying readers, columnists like Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, David Brooks and Nicholas Kristof.
I'll be linking to articles you shouldn't miss on the Daily Fix. Or you can go straight to the source by clicking here.
The second reason it is important is that it settles a debate about the future of comment journalism. If the NYT concludes it's right to go free with comment then it suggests that free access backed by advertising is the way things will be going.
Tony Blair's speech on the media contains some interesting thoughts, although he doesn't reflect long enough on the contribution of his own media operation to the problems that he outlines.
I was struck, however, by one sentence. It comes when he is describing the idea of a two day cabinet as risible nowadays because: You can't let speculation stay out there for longer than an instant.
Why?
Obviously, his reply would be that the resulting coverage would be awful. But does this matter? Nowhere near as much as he thinks it does.
This was the key sentence in the entire speech, because interesting though it was, it shows a weakness in Mr Blair - a tendency to take one's own press cuttings too seriously.
One of the most irritating and boring whines of Left-wing and Right-wing activists is that the media is biased against them. The BBC is a vast Left-wing conspiracy. Boo hoo. Plutocratic press barons brainwash their readers. Boo hoo.
Adam D Thierer gets it right in a lively article in the Spring issue of the City Journal. He argues that we are living in a golden age of media diversity. Becoming an informed citizen has never been easier. You can get up in the morning and still read your (probably liberal) local paper and several national ones, say, the Wall Street Journal (right-of-center editorial page) and USA Today (more or less centrist). Walk to the newsstand and you've got political magazines galore, from the Marxist New Left Review to the paleoconservative The American Conservative. On cable and satellite television: CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, PBS, local news, the big networks (at least for now), the BBC, C-SPAN, community access shows all offer a wide variety of news and information options, some around the clock. Turn on the car radio and Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity booms out at you from the right; or maybe you can tune in to Sirius Left on satellite.
But Thierer worries that elements of the Left don't understand the realities of this media cornucopia. Sure enough Lefties are reaching for their regulatory sticks. When Rush Limbaugh has more listeners than NPR, or Tom Clancy sells more books than Noam Chomsky, or Motor Trend gets more subscribers than Mother Jones, liberals want to convince us (or themselves, perhaps) that its all because of some catastrophic market failure or a grand corporate conspiracy to dumb down the masses. In reality, it's just the result of consumer choice. All the opinions that the Left's media critics favor are now readily available to us via multiple platforms. But that's not good enough, it seems: they won't rest until all of us are watching, reading, and listening to the content that they prefer.
Seems a spot-on analysis to me.
Robbie Millen
At some point I'd like to put a stopwatch on Spectator editor Matthew D'Ancona and find out how he fits it all in. Even finding the time to read all of his journalism is challenging.
Always worth the effort though.
Matthew latest important offering is this excellent lecture on the media and the war on terror. He makes numerous telling points on both the conduct of the war and the coverage. I recommend reading it. If you've got a moment, that is.
A Belgian court ruling forbids Google News from linking to certain news articles. I can make it through the day without updates on happenings in the corridors of Belgian power, but I wonder if the ruling might be a small cloud on the horizon of blogging.
Daniel Finkelstein
is Chief Leader Writer of The Times and writes a weekly column. Comment Central is his rolling guide to the best opinion on the web. Click
here for more information on the blog. Alice Fishburn, the Online Comment Editor, will also be posting.
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