Last month The Guardian published a cartoon of BBC chairman Richard Sharp, pictured, following his resignation. The caricature was widely condemned as anti-Semitic and the paper withdrew it, citing “failures in our editorial processes”. The cartoonist, Martin Rowson, apologised for “carelessness and thoughtlessness”. But last night Henny Beaumont, a fellow cartoonist at The Guardian, criticised Rowson and the newspaper.
Speaking at an Islington Art Society event in Stoke Newington Town Hall, Beaumont said carelessness was not a sufficient excuse. She also queried why The Guardian chose that cartoon. “You pitch three ideas ... It will have to go through quite a stringent editing process before they choose it, so in relation to Martin Rowson I’m curious about how that happened, how the cartoon got through,” Beaumont said.
