North Carolina newspaper editor and publisher resigns over racist cartoon
The editor and publisher of the Roxboro Courier-Times resigned Tuesday, a day after apologizing for a racist editorial cartoon the paper published last week.
The Person County newspaper published a story on its website Tuesday that said Johnny Whitfield had resigned, effective immediately. He confirmed his resignation in a text message to The News & Observer.
Whitfield was previously editor of the Eastern Wake News and the Garner-Cleveland Record, former community newspapers owned by The News & Observer.
On Monday, Whitfield apologized in a column, writing “my judgment fell short” when a syndicated cartoon depicting a Black man, wearing a face mask while stealing a white woman’s purse, was printed on June 11. In the cartoon, when the woman calls for help, the man is saying “Good luck with that lady. We defunded the police.”
Whitfield also wrote that he bears “responsibility for having selected the cartoon for publication.”
The newspaper also is cutting ties with the Philadelphia-based editorial cartoonist, Tom Stiglich.
“The image depicting a black man stealing the purse of a white woman was insensitive and leads some to the belief that this newspaper supports racist views,” Whitfield wrote Monday. “That is not the case. In fact, we believe quite the opposite. People in Roxboro over the past few weeks have taken the high road in discussing issues of race and community relationships with police in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis. We have reported on, photographed and interviewed a number of people who organized and participated in those events and it is my expectation that we will continue to do the same going forward.”
A Missouri newspaper ran the same cartoon last week. Three employees of The Missourian, located in Washington, Mo., apologized for publishing it and resigned.
St. Louis television station KSDK posted a statement from Stiglich that said, “First and foremost, may George Floyd rest in peace. He did not deserve to die like that. I do not condone racism or police brutality of any kind. It’s such a hostile environment we’re living in right now, one that needs more law and order, not less. The rioting and looting was extremely disheartening. That cartoon was based solely on violent crime numbers here in the US. To ignore that would be doing a disservice to the reader.”
Whitfield said the cartoon’s racial implications should have prevented him from publishing it in the Roxboro paper.
“I should have seen beyond the printed words in the editorial cartoon and considered the racial message that cartoon sent,” Whitfield wrote in his column on Monday. “I did not and I am sorry. In talking with a number of people this week, it is clear to me that I failed to do my job adequately.”
This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 3:56 PM with the headline "North Carolina newspaper editor and publisher resigns over racist cartoon."