Freedom of speech must be preserved. What did come from this was that several papers refused to run the cartoon and it was these editors who became the gatekeepers for taste. If we continue to diversity our newsrooms and educate newsroom staffs, we can avoid diseminating offensive headlines, stories, cartoons, etc., without censorship or over reaching policies. As journalists I believe it's one of our responsibilities to educate people by giving them enough information so that they may critically assess it and form an opinion of their own. The way that the cartoonist draws his figures is one thing.
Cartoonists exaggerate all sorts of people's physical features to make a point.
I don't have a problem with that. I have a wide flat nose, there is nothing I can do about it but embrace it. Honestly, I chuckled a bit first and then got offended. I thought about it and realized that that is not what I thought had happened in Hainan. It makes me wonder whether Americans understand what really happened during this whole conflict with China.