Former school board candidate sues Missouri newspaper over cartoon

By The Associated Press

07.25.02

Printer-friendly page

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A former candidate sued the Columbia Daily Tribune, alleging he was defamed by a cartoon that appeared in the newspaper days before he lost his third unsuccessful bid for school board.

The lawsuit filed July 15 in Boone County Circuit Court by Henry G. Lane seeks at least $25,000 in actual damages and an unspecified amount in punitive damages.

In addition to the newspaper, cartoonist John Darkow is named as a defendant.

The Tribune's managing editor, Jim Robertson, said July 19 the lawsuit is without merit.

The newspaper has 30 days to file a response with the court. No hearing has been scheduled.

The cartoon ran March 30, 2001, a few days after Lane said at a candidate forum he supported a return to spanking as a discipline method in public schools.

Columbia schools have a longstanding policy barring corporal punishment, though the practice is legal under Missouri law.

The cartoon had two frames. The first showed Lane's face up close, saying, "I'm Henry Lane and I'm running for the school board to bring back spanking."

The second frame had a full-body caricature of Lane wearing women's underwear, long gloves, high heels and holding a whip. In the second frame, he said, "Not that I'm necessarily into that stuff."

Lane's lawsuit said the cartoon portrayed him as "a sadomasochistic transvestite who engages in deviant sexual activity."

After the cartoon ran, the Tribune filled most of an editorial page with reader reactions, most of them critical.

But the Tribune's publisher, Henry J. Waters III, wrote in an April 26, 2001, editorial that Darkow simply "saw wild humor in the contradiction between the real Henry Lane and the ridiculous image in his cartoon."

"The Lane cartoon was effective," Waters wrote at the time. "It was a comment on a live political issue."