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The offending cartoon by Oliphant was not and will not be published in The New York Times.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.