Apple rejects app by Pulitzer winning cartoonist

The whole point of editorial cartoons is to humorously mock public officials and politics, but Apple doesn't get it.

Last December, Apple put the kibosh on NewsToons, an iPhone app by SFGate editorial cartoonist Mark Fiore. We're hearing about it now because this week, Fiore became the first Web-based cartoonist to receive a Pulitzer prize, and he revealed in an interview with Nieman Journalism Lab that Apple rejected his compilation of animated cartoons.

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Fiore even furnished the letter Apple reportedly sent him. It states, in part: "We’ve reviewed NewsToons and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures ... Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials ... that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

Included with the letter were several screenshots from Fiore's cartoons, including images of the couple who crashed a White House party, the Balloon Boy and torture references. In other words, nothing you can't already find on the Internet.

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Still, this isn't the first case of cartoon apps being rejected by, as Neiman's Laura McGann calls it, "Apple's satire police." Apple previously rejected an app with caricatures by Tom Richmond and another by Daryl Cagle's cartoon syndication site, but both were eventually allowed to pass. Fiore's hoping Apple will change its mind on his cartoons as well. "They seem so much more innovative and smarter than that,” he said.

The sad thing is that I'm not even surprised. After seeing the porn app purge in February, which banned most sexually-themed apps but gave preferential treatment to large companies, trying to define the logic of the App Store seems pointless. Instead I just accept that Apple does what it pleases, even if it means crossing the line into editorial content, and hope that eventually other app marketplaces become superior.

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