The Globe and Mail
On Friday, the biggest news of the day was the statement by French prosecutors that a Germanwings co-pilot deliberately flew his plane into the French Alps, killing everyone aboard.
On that same day, deep inside the A-section of The Globe and Mail was an editorial cartoon by Brian Gable referencing the crash. The cartoon showed a car driving off a mountainside into the air with an oblivious driver at the wheel, feet up, hands off the wheel texting, "#Germanwings crash: Commercial air travel! It's a dangerous world out there…"
The cartoon hit a nerve with some readers.
"I was appalled by the tastelessness of the Friday editorial cartoon referencing the Germanwings tragedy. How could there ever be humour in such an event?" a Toronto reader said.
Another letter to the editor said, "To use a tragedy of this magnitude and compare it to the perils of texting while driving is demeaning to those who are suffering unimaginable grieving."
I had a call late Friday saying the same thing: "You are using the crash of the Germanwings aircraft as an attempt to make people laugh with humour."
There were a handful of others who said shame on The Globe and Mail for its insensitivity to the grieving family members.
Mr. Gable, the cartoonist, had an article published on Saturday in which he noted that "even as satirical talk-show hosts such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have redefined the genre of biting social commentary, traditional newspaper cartooning continues to be a powerful communications tool."
His point is an excellent one. Even though editorial cartoons are drawn as cartoons, they are not meant for children. They are drawn for adults who are familiar with news events and who will read them on many levels. It is a single image that often will capture you, amuse you, shock you or make you angry. They aren't all meant to be amusing, and at times, as with this particular cartoon, they are serious and biting social commentary. Sometimes satire offends.
When I saw Friday's cartoon, I viewed it personally as a strong social commentary that even while the world mourns those who died on the mountain, humans continue with careless and extremely dangerous abandon in their own lives. I saw it as a moment to stop and think about our own actions.
Mr. Gable told me that he had just read an article about the 6,000 teenagers who died this year from distracted driving accidents in the States (more than drunk driving deaths for that age group). "The cartoon wasn't meant in any way to 'laugh' at the Germanwings tragedy but in an oblique way to focus back on how 'we' are more often responsible for tragedies than we might naturally care to admit."
He noted that, in his experience as an editorial cartoonist, "I have learned that the world brings a myriad of interpretations to a cartoon, each valid for the person who reacts in their own way to an image."
Mr. Gable's editor saw it the same way, that it was a very serious cartoon, not flip or amusing at all.
Of course, you may have seen it differently and reacted differently in the moment. I would be pleased to hear any comments from you on this or any other subject in the news coverage. You can e-mail me at publiceditor@globeandmail.com.
Sylvia Stead