Dan's Papers - February 15, 2008 - Three Bias Groups Call On Editor To Resign

"The so-called satiric articles he has written recently are racist, sexist and homophobic - they are disgusting and despicable," said Lucius Ware, president of the Eastern Long Island Branch of the NAACP, at a community gathering of about 50 people at Hayground School in Bridgehampton.

Meeting organizers said Murphy was unable to attend the gathering Friday because his wife had just had surgery. But in a phone interview the following Monday, Murphy said that he wasn't invited to the meeting and that his reporters were barred from covering it. (The organizers asked members of the press not to take notes during the meeting, but said they were free to interview people afterward. The reporting in this article was based on those interviews.)

The articles under fire include two "Low Tidings" columns written by Murphy. The articles, disparaging "parodies" ostensibly written by Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, appeared last month in the Independent along with a cartoon by Murphy's wife, Karen Fredericks. The cartoon, depicting Oprah Winfrey, has also been called racist and sexist by the critics.

Ware and many other community leaders and residents at the meeting demanded that Murphy resign or that his boss, co-publisher of the Independent, Jerry Della Femina, fire him.

"I can't fire him. But if he does it again, he's out," Della Femina told the gathering, a response that elicited cat calls from the audience and prompted some to accuse him of "whitewashing" a serious matter. Della Femina, however, did not defend Murphy's columns and has referred to them as a "disaster" and described himself as "ashamed" that they were printed. He also said he has Murphy on a "short leash" and is now personally reviewing all of his copy.

On Monday, Murphy said, "I'm not resigning and I haven't been asked to resign." He called the furor over the columns "old news" and declined to elaborate.

Town Supervisor Bill McGintee and actor Alec Baldwin also reiterated their calls for Murphy's resignation at the meeting, which was organized by the East End Gay Organization (EEGO), the East Hampton Anti-bias Task Force of East Hampton, the Southampton Anti-bias Task Force, the Riverhead Anti-bias Task Force and the Eastern Long Island Branch of the NAACP. The sponsors said the meeting was an effort to air grievances about the articles and to try and pull the community together in calling for Murphy's resignation. "I know when satire runs to racism," McGintee said, noting he was speaking as a citizen and not as supervisor.

The controversy over the columns has created a firestorm of public rage, played out in the letters pages of local newspapers, in online forums on Forbes.com and the Huffington Post, on WABC-Channel 7, Newsday and USA Today, which have all covered the story.

James Brady, a local resident, wrote in his column on Forbes.com, "The [column on Obama] was crude, not funny, racist and appalling." Newsday also criticized Murphy's "attempt to parody Obama."

At the meeting, some called for a boycott of the Independent and even Mr. Della Femina's restaurant in East Hampton. But others, like Baldwin, said it would be unfair to punish Della Femina's employees.

In public statements, Murphy has apologized for the columns, calling them "ill-conceived and offensive." He has said he intended them to be satires and admitted he made a mistake in publishing them. But in letters to the editors of two local newspapers last week, Murphy attacked McGintee and Baldwin, saying their criticism of the columns was spurred by past grievances.

Della Femina, who had not read the columns until they were in print, told the gathering Friday night that he would reserve plenty of space in the paper for community anti-bias organizations and others to write positive stories about race and gender relations.

At the meeting, members of Shinnecock Nation said the recent columns were part of a pattern of Murphy's racist writings, and cited an article that they claimed "ridiculed" the Nation in 2003. Nation members picketed the Independent when the article was published.

"His hurtful commentaries trashed the Nation in a way that affected the wide community," Lance Gumbs, a Nation trustee said after the meeting. "And the sugar coating that Jerry did tonight is unacceptable. This is going to be an ongoing issue."

Ken Allan of EEGO agreed. "We appreciate the fact that Jerry came tonight, but the situation is not healed. Jerry needs to reconsider his decision to keep Rick on as editor."