I Vote for Retail
It's timely, funnier than the others

Nick,

In some ways this small question of yours about comics speaks to the larger issue of the recent movement away from pre-digested news (with an editor making the decisions,) which dominated the newspaper and network TV era, to peer news, like blogs and personalized news filters, that are coming to dominate the current era.

A couple years ago you asked your readers which comics should stay and which should go. One result was that they strongly said Doonesbury should go. You replied that you were keeping it anyway, and I believe that your reasoning was that you were, after all, "liberal weenies" (your words) and you thought some people like yourselves really wanted to keep it, so you were keeping it, regardless of what your readers asked you to do.

Asking a newspaper editor not to decide for readers what they should and should not see makes little sense. That's why s/he worked all those years to become editor!

But if you are going o do that, I'd suggest you just make the choice and be straight about it. It's not Dad choosing the restaurant that's so irritating. It's Dad asking where you want to go and then going where he want to go anyway that annoys.

Hi, Michael:

First things first: Let me set the record straight on the 2005 reader comics poll you referred to as it relates to Doonesbury based on the June 5 column by Sunday/Features Editor Marty Karlon.

-- Doonesbury finished No. 28 of the 33 comics in the poll.

-- The only comics that finished lower were "Tank McNamara," "Boondocks," Six Chix," "Marmaduke" and "Cathy."

-- The reason "Doonesbury" was kept was NOT because we're a bunch of "liberal weenies," but rather because of the strong "love/hate" relationship readers have with this comic.

As Marty said in the column:
"The answer to the second question isn't that we're a bunch of liberal weenies. Really. The actual reason is that 'Doonesbury' is one of our few 'love-hate' comics. Unlike most of the comics in the poll, which display a steady progression between 'always read' and 'never read,' 'Doonesbury' had a high number of 'always read' votes – 110 – as well as a lot of 'never read' votes – 149. ('Six Chix,' for example, had only 67 always and 134 nevers."

Now, that said, you make a reasonable point. Ultimately, the editor is always responsble for what runs and what doesn't run in the newspaper on any given day.

But that doesn't mean we have to make decisions in a total vacuum. Besides, we're talking about comic strips here, and I can assure you there is nothing I have learned in this business in the past three decades that makes me any more qualified to pick a funny strip than you.

(Remember: I'm the genius who thought nobody read Dr. Gott.)

So while I appreciate your sentiments -- and the restaurant analogy -- I don't see anything wrong with asking our readers to state their preferences on the addition of a new strip.

As for me, not only am I not going to pick the restaurant, I'm not even going to drive the car.

Nick

Nick,

Well, now I think you've gone too far in the other direction. Not driving the car? I'm guessing your readers actually want you to do that.

There are more and more point sources of news and places that collect them. They will become more popular, since a lot of people want to choose their own news, dig deeper where they want to dig rather than where someone else wants to stick the shovel. The Telegraph, the paper version especially, can't compete that way.

But, lucky for you, people want your local news, and I think they also want your point of view. If you drive, some may not ride along, but others will.

So you need to decide: homicide bomber or suicide bomber, illegal alien or undocumented worker, and more importantly which stories to write and not to write, from a reasonably stable political perspective. Do Globe readers or Union Leader readers want their paper to be free of any predictable perspective? I don't think so, even if it were possible.

So drive. Enjoy. My little nit is that although he protests much, I feel pretty certain Marty made the decision on Doonesbury because he agrees with it politically and he wants to convey its message to the readers. I don't know him, but let me take a wild guess -- he is a liberal weenie, and he is proud of it.

I'd have preferred that he'd said: This one's our choice; consider it a staff pick. But hey, not a big deal. Hope you're having fun.

Michael Q.

Michael:

My use of the restaurant/car analogy was limited only to this discussion about the selection of a comic strip.

I have written a column for the Sunday Telegraph for 5+ years. Marty has been my editor for that entire period.

My politics are clearly conservative. Claudette Durocher once told me that they got phone calls regarding one of my columns in which the callers complained about the Telegraph being too conservative! "We are not used to calls like that," she said.

Marty has always been very supportive of me and has never tried to influence my writing. Frankly, I do not know what his politics are. That is probably the sign of a good editor.

That being said, I would never ascribe "liberal weenie" to him.

Michael, I think you are off base on this one.

Now, back on track. I think that "Rhymes with Orange" is pretty lame. I am anxiously awaiting the others.