Unfit for The Times’ comics pages?

Last week, The Times moved Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” strip from the comics page, where it usually resides, to the Op-Ed page, where it ran for six days. The reason, according to Assistant Managing Editor Alice Short, was that its story line about Texas’ new law requiring women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before receiving an abortion was “a little bit over the top for the comics page” and more appropriately the subject of the opinion pages.

This week, as “Doonesbury” returned to the comics page, other strips on that page dealt with serious and controversial political issues and no move was made to reroute them to Op-Ed.

Some readers saw an inconsistency in that. Pat Beattie of Santa Barbara, for instance, wrote in noting that last week’s decision sent one message while this week’s comics sent another.

“This week we have Alcaraz’s ‘La Cucaracha’ and Bell’s ‘Candorville’ both referencing [Rush] Limbaughand published on the comics page,” she wrote. “Double-standards?”

Times Editorial Page Editor Nicholas Goldberg responds:

Last week’s “Doonesbury” strips were not moved because they made brief reference to controversial political issues but because they dealt graphically with sensitive material that was deemed inappropriate for the comics page, which is read by many children. In one panel, a woman seeking an abortion receives a transvaginal ultrasound, as required under Texas’ new law. A doctor in the strip says the procedure will be conducted with a “10-inch shaming wand” and calls it a rape.

It’s true that “Candorville” and “La Cucaracha” made reference to Limbaugh’s recent controversial comments, but neither strip dealt so straightforwardly or graphically with such mature material. So I don’t see any hypocrisy or double-standard in the decision to leave them on the comics page.

Over the last week, The Times has received dozens of letters about the decision to move “Doonesbury” to the Op-Ed page for the week. Overall, readers were supportive of The Times’ decision to run the strip, but they were far from consistent in their view of how it was done.

Of 57 emails reviewed by the Readers’ Representative, 14 agreed that the strips should have been moved to Op-Ed; 18 thought they should have stayed on the comics page; 11 supported running the strips generally, regardless of where they appeared; 4 thought they shouldn’t have run at all.

And my personal favorite: 10 people thought the paper had refused to publish the strips and were angry, even though that wasn’t the case.