I do love writing about the print world shooting it’s own foot. There are two very important stories which most news organizations seemed to have either glossed over or ignored all together.

The first story has so far culminated in what has been dubbed “Black Ink Monday” by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. This is an attempt to spotlight the declining use of editorial cartoonist throughout the country. Of particular note are the release of two prominent editorial cartoonists recently let go by the Tribune Company. Of course the caveat of the whole occasion is to get those very same newspapers to print these cartoons but they are being collected by the AAEC.

The second story is by far the more interesting. It all started when the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten went against the unwritten rule that there be no caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. I say unwritten but it in reference to Denmark as 11 Islamic nations actually have this law on their books and these are the very same nations which sent a letter to the Danish prime minister complaining about the cartoons and demanding apologies from the newspaper. Why should we care? Because there is a newspaper out there standing up for both the free speech of cartoons and they haven’t fired their artists.