His apology coincides with critics calling for the Federal Communications Commission to cancel a waiver allowing Murdoch’s News Corp. to run two newspapers and two television stations in New York City. At the same time the NAACP is calling for the editor of the New York Post and the cartoonist to be terminated. Still, it’s an apology that reads, “We didn’t do it and we’ll never do it again.”
This “STATEMENT FROM RUPERT MURDOCH” appears in today’s edition of the New York Post.
As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.
Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.
Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you – without a doubt – that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.
We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.
More on the call for FCC action at the NY Daily News.
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TheZoo 
“Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people.”
It didn’t offend me, but apparently it offended other people
” Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.”
After it became clear that the Post could lose circulation and money as a result of the cartoon.
So I want to personally apologize to the many offended people, and I’ll just assume that includes the “author of the stimulus bill” and any other chimpanzees.
“I can assure you – without a doubt – that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation.”
Because you know, a berserk chimpanzee being shot for writing a bad economic bill that still went into effect is a classic comedic device that transcends politics and prejudice—just like the cream pie to the face! .
“It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such”
Who knew NY Post readers were so sensitive?
After all they never complained about all the other cartoons we’ve published by this cartoonist before, and looking back on them they seem all just as hilarious, or supposedly ‘racist’, as this one. Go figure!
“We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.”
We all hold the investors of NewsCorp in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the financial sensitivities of our community, and keep our racism, bigotry and ignorance more private in future,
And from Politico: Rupert Murdoch’s apology — the first I can recall him making, for anything — for printing a cartoon that offended many is a seismic event at the New York Post and News Corp., and comes at an unsettled time: Yesterday, the company’s stock fell more than 4% on news that his longtime number two, Peter Chernin, is leaving.
Falling stock prices and FCC investigations. The thick plottens.
Shayne, I also heard (was it on Keith or Rachel?) that the editor responsible for letting it go to print was also on his way out – and apparently knew it before he let it go by… I don’t remember now if it was by choice or not.. I believe he was an Australian and wanted to go back to Australia (or something like that..)
There’s a great article at Variety about Peter Chernin’s decision to leave Fox which was announced yesterday. It includes this little tidbit:
Chernin also was known to have disagreed strongly with Murdoch’s drive to expand the company’s newspaper holdings with the acquisition of Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones in 2007 for $5 billion. The New York Times is widely believed to be Murdoch’s latest object of pursuit.
And there’s much more here: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000474.html?categoryid=18&cs=1
“The New York Times is widely believed to be Murdoch’s latest object of pursuit.”
If he was going to get it, he should have done it before Bush left office. What Al Sharpton is upset about is explained in the NY Daily News article in the link above.
“The Rev. Al Sharpton and several City Council members riled by a cartoon perceived as racist want the Federal Communications Commission to yank a waiver allowing Murdoch’s News Corp. to run two newspapers and two TV stations in the city.”
See, he’s already under a waiver, to go beyond what the law allows now. And he wants ANOTHER paper? It’s almost as if he’s doing this to challenge the FCC directly over any limits at all. He might be able to do it, too. Chief Justice John Roberts is sympathetic to big media, having worked for them in the past.
Could be the breakup of big media we’d like to see, or affirm their right to gobble up all broadcast outlets, and further stifle their opposition.
This still sucks as an apology. 🙄
Read the Variety article House, it’s really good although a bit confusing since I didn’t understand a lot of the media insider stuff.
Shayne,
All I got was that Chernin, is leaving to run his own movie production company, with a contract to sell them movies for six years. He stays in Hollywood where he wanted to be anyway.
The Murdoch children moving up in the company was a given already.
The figures on the losses at News Corp make me wonder then, how could they afford to BUY the New York Times.
The issue with Murdoch and his waiver was he needed to cross-own between TV and newspapers, because the newspapers were losing money. Lost in the argument is the fact that Murdoch can afford for them to lose money if it keeps out competition or more precisely, keeps out opposing views.
The same principle holds with all the media companies, they would rather lose money on smaller stations in the same market, than have them end up broadcasting progressive shows. So they stifle free speech by owning all the frequencies available in a given market. I don’t think they took progressive talk radio seriously until it was too late to affect the outcome of the elections. Now they are on a mission to ban it from AM Radio altogether.
Lou Dobbs has Sharpton on his show tonight. Dobbs was all indignant last night claiming Sharpton was for censoring free speech, but he’s completely docile with Sharpton in his face tonight.
Dobbs runs at 8 and 11 central on CNN Headline. If you care to watch it, the interview starts after a break at about the :27 mark in the show.