It was more than 20 years ago. I had just begun writing a regular opinion column, and I had unnecessarily offended a public official. An apology was in order, and I didn’t hesitate to offer it.

After admitting my mistake in the opening lines, I proceeded to explain how I had come to make it.

“Next time, don’t do it that way,” counseled Bob McCord, my editor and a veteran newsman with decades of editorial writing under his belt. “People don’t want to hear your excuses. Just say, ‘I’m sorry; I was wrong,” and let it go at that.”

The editors of The New York Post could have used McCord’s good counsel last week, when they penned what began as an apology but ended as a scolding about its preposterous cartoon in which two police officers gun down a chimpanzee and one says, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

“It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period,” read The Post editors’ post-mortem. “(T)o those who were offended by the image, we apologize.”

Part of an editor’s job is to protect his or her newspaper’s integrity and credibility while, at the same time, honoring and upholding age-old tenets of free expression. It can be a tricky walk – and headachy – but that’s why they get paid the big bucks.

Any editor so socially lacking that it would not occur to him how the chimpanzee cartoon might be read is either too unfamiliar with the national story to be editor of a major newspaper - or he knew how it might be taken and liked it that way.

The Post’s editorial response to the outcry over the cartoon read like it was written by someone who had been forced to apologize against his will. After that tepid beginning – “to those who were offended by the image” – the thing went stone cold.

“There are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past,” the editorial noted, “and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback. To them, no apology is due.”

Resentment and hubris, short-temperedness and sucker punches are not appropriate undertones for apology, which is supposed to come from humility. The truly apologetic don’t have to be coerced and do not litter the process with excuses or blame-finding.

What that reeking piece of editorial malpractice did was not unlike someone stepping on several folks’ feet; saying he’s sorry to those who found it painful and excoriating those who he thinks always have their feet in the way.

The offender fails to recognize the real possibility of being both injured and having your feet in the way too.

But this is not complicated. The conventional wisdom is that the paper’s owner, the irascible Rupert Murdoch – said to be something of an Obama fan – demanded that his hirelings make some sort of atonement for a cartoon that, in many views, was a sneak and racist attack on the country’s first black president.

It was, therefore, an empty gesture that suggests that certain people don’t mean a hoot to the editors.

Otherwise, the piece would have been short and sweet: “We’re sorry; we were wrong.” That might have bought a little good faith. Instead, The New York Post becomes the big city tabloid with not only a racist streak, but a racist streak it is determined to defend.

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the cartoon in the ny post was senseless
african-americans has been fighting ,struggling,and being slaved all our lives. when we see change inwhich a black man or woman is in leadership,their is always a problem or fault. we are in the situation now because of the white man greed & corruption.the republicians did not want to pass the stimulus bill ,because there dirty hands cant pocket taxpayers money like they want to. so america ,give president barack obama a chance to get us out of recession,

by   
Sandra d. carey
February 25, 2009, 8:38 am
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Jiggy you have no clue as to how many blacks read the paper online.


On-line readers don't pay a dime bro-bro. Let them leave.

by   
Jiggy5
February 24, 2009, 12:07 pm
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rupert murdoch a.k.a mr nypost: news corp owns, myspace, fox, fox news foxsports, and a whole host of stuff we as black consumers need to know what we watch and subscribe too.

by   
Lorettam5
February 24, 2009, 11:48 am
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The picture was offensive. A chimp didn't write the stimulus package. I am tired of white people and not all! But the one's that are out there who find this kind of indirect racism funny. The guy who put it out there wasn't an ignorant man. He was a dumb racist.

by   
Skyy37
February 23, 2009, 6:41 pm
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Spercy, the northeast is a racist as the rest of the US, no more, no less. The Republican south has "logically" seceded from the Union (once again). If you want to effect change, boycott the advertisers of the NY Post. Jiggy you have no clue as to how many blacks read the paper online.

by   
Laj1125
February 23, 2009, 12:41 pm
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Please.....the only subscriptions blacks have enough readership to effect are Ebony and Jett...and maybe NBA Insider with Amhad Rashad

by   
Jiggy5
February 23, 2009, 11:54 am
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boycott the paper, its sponsors. This is all people like this understand.

by   
StreetKitty
February 23, 2009, 10:06 am
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the post proves to me that the east coast is more racist than any part of the south or midwest.

by   
Spercy
February 23, 2009, 9:28 am
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