Public broadcasting giant WNET doesn’t want you to see this Art Spiegelman cartoon

WNET, the New York public broadcasting giant, doesn’t want you to see this cartoon — at least not on public television.

The New York Times reports (gift link) that 90 seconds have been butchered out of a documentary about the artist Art Spiegelman that is scheduled to be shown as part of the “American Masters” series on PBS. It is, as you can see, wildly unflattering to President Trump, and it comes at a moment when Trump is trying to eliminate all funding for public media.

WNET vice president Stephen Segaller told Times reporter Marc Tracy that the 9-year-old drawing of Trump, with feces and flies on his head and a swastika superimposed over the image, was a “breach of protocol,” adding, “I don’t think we’d have made a different decision if it had been a year earlier.” Yeah, probably not. Last year at this time, Trump was leading President Joe Biden in the polls, so the incentive not to antagonize him was just as strong then as it is now.

Spiegelman was quoted as saying, “It’s tragic and appalling that PBS and WNET are willing to become collaborators with the sinister forces trying to muzzle free speech.”

But at least you can see Spiegelman’s cartoon in the Times. And here.