Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Durn That Click Button

In the followup to that vicious Oliphant caricature, the New York Times regrets web technology:

Subject: Re: Oliphant Crosses Line Between Political Satire and Incitement to Hatred
To:
From: publisher@nytimes.com
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:57:01 -0400

The offending cartoon by Oliphant was not and will not be published in The New York Times. It did not appear on our Web site either. What did appear there, by a long-standing contractual arrangement with a company called uclick.com, is an "Oliphant" button. This button on the cartoons page took people who clicked on it on March 25 to that cartoon, which is now relegated to the Oliphant archive.

Nobody at The Times, therefore, made any decision to "publish" the cartoon. But, though the click gets you to a uclick.com page, regrettably in this case, the banner on the page says "The New York Times .....Cartoons."

We are currently reviewing that arrangement.

Thank you for contacting The New York Times. We appreciate your readership -- and your taking the time to write.

4 comments:

Suzanne Pomeranz said...

"It's not my fault; I was only the baker..."

g said...

What's all the fuss about? You post much more "vicious" stuff demonizing Arabs on this blog and label them "humor".

Anonymous said...

re: galia's first comment...

...I haven't seen the "vicious" stuff he posts about Arabs, but I would be willing, sight unseen, to wager that "stuff" is rooted in truth, whereas all Arab "stuff" I've ever seen is ALWAYS rooted in paranoid fantasy. Of course, if you would care to give a specific example to illustrate your assertion, that would go a long way to making your case. And the reason it's important to do that is because invariably those whose words are false are unable to do that. So, the ball's in your court, galia. Go for it.

re: galia's 2nd comment...

Again, galia, you need to give proof of your assertions (unless you don't have it, in which case you need to shut up), other than the lies of Al Jazeera, or their ilk, in order for us to believe you. You see, those of us who aren't ignorant of international law, and who know that accusations against Israel are always false, aren't going to be fooled by your hysterical ranting.

Anonymous said...

Now, the comment I came here to make, before I was so rudely interrupted. The NYSlimes defense is the same one the Muslims would have made if they hadn't totally redone their websites after 9/11.

Almost exactly one year earlier, Arafat(y"sh) began the latest "intifada" against us. After that, I began looking at Muslim websites. What I found was that those who didn't have violent jihadi material on their websites had links to it, or links to sites with links to it. It was never more than 3 deep, and I only found a couple that didn't have it (one had no external links whatever). So, those that merely linked to it, like the NYSlimes, didn't have a lot of cleaning up to do, just removing those links and rewriting a couple of articles, and then they could say "Islam is a peaceful religion," with no one who hadn't seen them before being the wiser. But those of us who saw them BEFORE their face-lift know the truth. They are all involved in terror, even if only as silent supporters.