'As the Public Editor for The Dallas Morning News, I act as the bridge between our newsroom and our audience to help build trust through transparency and accountability. The Dear Public Editor feature spotlights some of the common questions I receive from readers. When they contact me, I reach out to colleagues in the newsroom -- and sometimes offer my own analysis -- to provide answers. Emails here are edited for clarity and brevity.
Dear Public Editor: I've noticed that in the past six weeks or so, three Sunday Doonesbury comics that ran in The Dallas Morning News differed from the version run in The Washington Post. In each case, the comic in The Post was critical of presidential candidate Donald Trump, while The News' comic was on a neutral topic.
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I know in the past The News has subbed in a rerun Doonesbury comic due to a particularly sensitive issue, but Doonesbury has been frequently critical of Trump and has not been substituted in the past that I can recall. Is there a change in the editorial policy driving these substitutions, or is something in these specific comics causing the comics editor to replace them?
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Chip Gorman
Opinion
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Our response:
Several observant readers have contacted us in recent weeks to ask the same question: How come The News' version of Doonesbury on Sundays sometimes differs from the one that appears in other publications?
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For context, Doonesbury has long attracted controversy for its provocative takes on politics and culture, and in 1975, its creator, Garry Trudeau, even won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. (In fact, over time some newspapers have moved the strip from the comics section to the editorial page.)
One mainstay character since those early years has been Donald Trump, whom Trudeau once described as "pure, juvenile id." Not surprisingly, Trudeau's focus on Trump has only heightened in recent years. And during this election season, The News has decided that some of those attacks have gone too far.
On those occasions, the newspaper re-publishes other, less politically charged Doonesbury strips. Christopher Wynn, assistant managing editor for specialty reporting and innovation, oversees comics as part of his portfolio. He confirms that The News has switched out at least three Doonesbury comics on recent Sundays because they were not "up to our standards."
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"We judge it based on fairness and balance," Wynn adds, explaining how The News decides when to replace the strip. "If it's both those things, we run it."
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In addition, he says, editors at The News have been conducting a review of Doonesbury, and that work "is ongoing."
We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at [email protected]