At the New York Post: Outraged Employees and An Apology

Phones were ringing off the hook as employees at the New York Post fielded calls from outraged callers, denouncing the cartoon that appeared in the New York Post, featuring a dead chimpanzee, blood pooling around the lifeless body, two police officers, one poised with a smoking gun, with a caption that reads, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill".

From the outraged employees article:

On Wednesday, an employee of the paper told the Huffington Post that the phone lines had been inundated with complaints over what was interpreted as a racially charged jab at Obama. "As they f--king should be," said the source.

Today, meanwhile, the Post's Associate Editor, Sandra Guzman, sent out an email to other reporters distancing herself from the paper's cartoon and acknowledging that she has talked to management about her disapproval.

From the apology offered by the New York Post:

It shows two police officers standing over the chimp's body: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," one officer says.

It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period.

But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

Employee Outrage

New York Post Apology