PENSACOLA, Fla. — The International Association of Fire Fighters and one of its Fla. locals are demanding that a Pensacola newspaper apologize for a Saturday editorial cartoon they say is racist.
The cartoon, printed in the Pensacola News Journal, depicts two firefighters hosing down two black characters with the caption, “Don’t worry, since they laid off all the journalists in Alabama we can get away with this kind of stuff again.”
The cartoon reflects a photo taken in the 1960s in Birmingham, Ala., in which firefighters were spraying their hoses on civil-rights demonstrators, said WEAR.
Editorial cartoonist Andy Marlette said the image was inspired by recent news that Advance Publications, which owns a number of publications in Ala., plans to lay off hundreds of employees and cut publication this fall.
“We rely on the sound, unbiased work of real reporters and editors to bring us the news,” Harold Schaitberger, general president of the IAFF, said in a news release,” but on June 16, Andy Marlette and the Pensacola News Journal violated that standard by printing a senseless, confusing and bigoted illustration that should never have reached print.”
“The massive layoffs last week at newspapers owned by Advance Publications in Alabama that threw hard-working journalists and editors into the streets and out of jobs during a terrible economy is deeply disturbing,” Schaitberger continued. “But none of that is an excuse to insult firefighters — and it’s time for the illustrator and editors at the paper to stand up honorably and apologize for their ignorance.”
The News Journal’s Executive Editor Richard A. Schneider said the publication will not apologize because the cartoon was a “historical metaphor that fits squarely with the mission of the editorial page,” but the IAFF is not convinced.
“I feel that it was very disrespectful to that event to portray it like they did,” President of Pensacola Professional Firefighters Local 707 Philip Hoffman told WEAR. “I mean, we’re doomed to relive our history if we don’t remember our history and I agree with that. But to use that cartoon to show the demise of the print media, that’s despicable, absolutely despicable.”