'Simpsons' Creator Hits an Award 'Homer'

By: Dave Astor "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening received another honor his father -- the real-life Homer -- wouldn't have predicted: The Reuben Award as cartoonist of the year during the May 23-25 National Cartoonists Society (NCS) meeting here.

"This is not how my life was supposed to turn out," said Groening, recalling the time two decades ago when his father told him "you can't draw."

Groening -- whose newspaper connection includes a Universal Press Syndicate-distributed comic based on his long-running Fox TV show, and the "Life in Hell" strip for Acme Features Syndicate -- added: "Thank you so much for this beautiful but crazy-looking award."

The statuette of naked figures was jokingly described as a "decorating problem" by Reuben emcee Dan Piraro. It was designed by cartoonist/sculptor Rube Goldberg, who helped found the NCS in 1946 and served as its first president.

This year's other Reuben finalists were Pat Brady ("Rose is Rose"/United Media), Greg Evans ("Luann"/United), and Piraro ("Bizarro"/King Features Syndicate).

Among the 13 category-award winners were Clay Bennett of The Christian Science Monitor and Christian Science Monitor News Service (editorial cartoons), "Get Fuzzy" creator Darby Conley of United (comic strip), "Speed Bump" cartoonist Dave Coverly of Creators Syndicate (comic panel), NCS President Steve McGarry (newspaper illustration), and Web political cartoonist Mark Fiore (new media). "The Duplex" creator Glenn McCoy of Universal won two-non-newspaper categories (greeting cards and gag cartoons), while "Wee Pals" cartoonist Morrie Turner of Creators received the Milton Caniff Award for lifetime achievement.

"It's about time," said "The Family Circus" creator Bil Keane, who presented the honor to Turner. "Wee Pals" broke ground as the first comic with a multicultural cast of characters.

Keane emceed the Reuben evening for many years before Piraro took the reins. But the King cartoonist did contribute his share of one-liners, including: "Dan gave me an original cartoon for my grandchild. It's not often you can make a trade like that!"

For more coverage of the Reuben weekend, see next month's "Syndicate World" columns and E&P magazine issues.

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Seven Ups the Mood At LAT-WP

All Those Pulitzers Help the News Service

Last year, The New York Times won seven of the 14 journalistic Pulitzer Prizes. This year, the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service pulled off the same 50% showing.

It took three LAT-WP contributing newspapers -- the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Sun of Baltimore -- to achieve this, but the feat was still impressive.

"We're really pleased that the various journalists were recognized," said Al Leeds, president of the news service. "We think they had a really good year."

Leeds expects the Pulitzer performance to help attract new LAT-WP clients and keep existing ones in the fold, though it's still too early to tell what the exact impact will be. The news service currently has 632 clients worldwide -- 398 domestic and 234 overseas.

LAT-WP's 24-person staff was obviously pleased with the Pulitzer honors. "We always feel pretty good about the product, but we felt very happy about the seven prizes," said Kate Carlisle, managing editor-Washington, adding: "I was recently visiting editors in Europe, and they all mentioned the number of Pulitzers."

The news service, whose contributors also won five Pulitzers in 2002, has 10 newspapers providing content. Each day, LAT-WP distributes more than 100,000 words of news, feature, sports, and other material -- plus photos and graphics. About 130 columnists are on the roster.

LAT-WP (http://www.newsservice.com) turned 40 last fall.

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TMS Puts Editors' Advisory on Column

Cal Thomas Piece Discussed Muslim 'Threat' in U.S.

Tribune Media Services (TMS) placed an editors' advisory on a Cal Thomas column before sending it to his 550-plus newspaper clients.

In the May 19 piece -- "The Threat Among Us" -- Thomas wrote: "Suppose our enemies have invaded the United States through immigration for the express purpose of organizing themselves politically? Suppose they present themselves as benign and seek to register voters, becoming politically active in order to elect their people to office and change U.S. policy in the Middle East? What if their intentions are the eventual destruction of this nation through its democratic processes and the imposition of a theocratic state? Would that be enough to get our attention? In at least 16 states, Muslim groups, by their own admission, are organizing voter-registration drives and political consciousness-raising events for this express purpose."

Later in the column, Thomas added: "When Muslims gain political power, the historical and contemporary record is not encouraging for people who hold democratic values and are of the 'Judeo-Christian' persuasion."

The TMS advisory on top of the piece read: "Please be aware that the following Cal Thomas column contains material that some readers may find sensitive."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) certainly was sensitive to the column. Ibrahim Hooper, the organization's communications director, stated that the piece "would have been more at home in the Nazi-era publication Der Sturmer than in a respectable American newspaper." He added that Thomas "decried the fact that Muslims 'are organizing voter-registration drives and political consciousness-raising events,' as if these otherwise praiseworthy efforts are made nefarious solely by Islamic involvement." And Hooper concluded: "The United States is a multi-religious, multi-ethnic society. That is the American heritage Thomas seems determined to reject."

Thomas said response to the column "has been very positive" so far. He e-mailed E&P Online one letter in which a reader told him that the piece "is the most profound and most badly needed warning I have ever heard you sound. As you so aptly noted, Americans prefer the short-term comfort of denial." Thomas added that he does expect to get many critical e-mails from readers who are encouraged by CAIR to write him.

A number of readers have complained about the column in letters to the editor. One person wrote in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans: "Muslims are not our enemies. Terrorist groups that promote violence and hatred, some of which claim to operate under the banner of Islam, are our enemies. But they comprise a tiny percentage of Muslims worldwide."

A TMS spokesperson reported no cancellations of Thomas' feature because of the May 19 column.

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NSNC President on Jayson Blair Scandal

Says Reporter's Actions Could Hurt Columnists, Too

Jayson Blair was a reporter, but the actions that cost him his New York Times job may have an impact on columnists.

"Blair's dishonesty stains us all," National Society of Newspaper Columnists President Mike Leonard told E&P Online. "For columnists there could be greater scrutiny and efforts from editors to have us list sources and attribute quotes. The result could be choppier and less interesting writing."

Leonard added that he's "appalled" at Blair's transgressions. "What he did is so contradictory to what we learn in journalism school and the very basic ethics of our profession," said the columnist for The Herald-Times in Bloomington, Ind. "Based on the reporting of this issue, it appears Blair took great pains to cheat and deceive, when he could have put his energy into doing his job the right way."

But Leonard did observe that media reaction "has been a little over-the-top, compared to what we write about corporate scandals and the fleecing of shareholders and pensioners. ... It all looks a little like we're furious he made us look bad. I suspect a lot of readers will surmise: 'Well, no one got hurt and no one lost any money.'"

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UPI Making Various Changes

Layoffs, Hirings, and New Content

United Press International announced a restructuring that includes layoffs, hirings, and changes in the content it distributes.

UPI laid off 16 editorial employees while starting to add what may end up being 10-15 new sales, marketing, and IT staffers, a spokesman told E&P Online. UPI now has 140 employees worldwide, including about 80 editorial ones.

Changes include more content for electronic formats such as wireless devices and digital kiosks, expanded photo coverage, the launch of a Spanish-language news service focusing on issues relevant to Hispanic-Americans, more Arabic-language coverage, and more analytical and in-depth content.

"The world has become saturated with breaking news from many, many sources and we believe the value of our products is not simply in reporting the news, but in telling readers what impact the news will have on them," said Bill Creighton, UPI vice president for global sales and marketing."

The 1907-founded UPI has 100-plus clients, including a handful of newspapers in the U.S., a number of papers abroad, and customers such as Web sites. It also reaches other clients via partnership arrangements.

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Et cetera ...

"BattleLines" will be relaunched -- possibly in June -- on the Poynter Institute site (http://www.poynter.org) under the new name of "The Persuasive Art," according to Poynter faculty member Howard Finberg. The weekly feature originally focused on the creative process behind editorial cartoons about the war in Iraq (E&P Online, April 3); the new version will spotlight cartoons about various subjects. ...

In a May 20-30 "Zits" series, the teen Sara character donates her hair to Locks of Love -- the organization that makes hairpieces for children who are bald due medical conditions. Jerry Scott, the comic's co-creator, said many newspaper stories about teens put them in a negative light. "But it's my belief that person for person, teens have a larger sense of compassion and justice than most of us adult-types," he added. "Zits," which Scott does with Jim Borgman, runs in more than 1,100 papers via King Features Syndicate. Also, a "Zits" collection called Supersized has been released by Andrews McMeel Publishing. ...

WittyWorld International Features Founder/President Joseph Szabo will be North America's representative at the World Comics Summit scheduled for this October in China. Also, his syndicate (http://www.buy.wittyworld.com) signed two Chinese cartoonists and another from Russia. ...

Dan Carino of San Diego State University's Daily Aztec paper won the John Locher Award for student editorial cartoonists. Carino gets an all-expenses-paid trip to the June 18-21 Association of Editorial Cartoonists convention in Pittsburgh, where he'll receive the honor. ...

A sculpture the late Bill Mauldin created of perhaps his most famous cartoon will be placed in an Albuquerque park when the United Veterans Council of New Mexico raises $27,000 to buy it, according to the European-Pacific Stars and Stripes Association. The sculpture shows an Army sergeant "mercy-killing" his broken jeep. ...

Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services is offering the consumer-oriented "News 2 Use" feature (which originated in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram), adding Mark Montano's "Make Your Mark" decorating column to its "KRTeens" package, and offering columns about cheese (by Annie Rush and Laura Werlin) and desserts/baked goods (by Ed Murrieta). Also, KRT's "The Bond" pet columnist Dr. Marty Becker launched two syndicated radio shows. ...

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (http://www.moccanny.org) is holding a festival June 22 in New York. ...

"Supermarket Shopper" columnist Martin Sloane of United Media wrote a two-part series about how shopping carts can carry infectious diseases. ...

Religion News Service has won six awards from the Associated Church Press.