Cartoonist Discovers Apple Is Missing a Funny Bone

App store rejects Mark Fiore for making fun of public people

A Pulitzer Prize doesn't carry enough credibility to get past the Apple censor board.

Political cartoonist Mark Fiore won journalism's most prestigious honor Monday and just a few days later comes word that Apple rejected an app featuring his flash animations because the vector characters ridiculed "Balloon Boy" and the Salahis. The Bay Area cartoonist's work is featured on SFGate.com as well as various other publications across the country.

Wired.com reports that Apple rejected Fiore's NewToon in December because the app:

...contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states: Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.

News of Fiore's app failure should send shudders down the print industry's spine. Some publishers have looked to the iPad as the great savior of a dying industry. Some news organizations even developed fancy video teases

before the iPad was even publicly released, showing how Steve Jobs' wonder toy would change the industry.

But how much can a device whose gatekeepers censor political cartoons really change an industry that prides itself on controlling its own editorial content and who has already been told by Apple that its investment in Flash was a waste of money?

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