Newspaper Editor Edits Doonesbury

Garry Trudeau's newest anthology of Doonesbury strips is titled Give Those Nymphs Some Hooters. But if Tom English, managing editor of The Fayetteville Times in North Carolina, had his way, the book would probably be called Give Those Nymphs Some Pizzaz.

Before the original Doonesbury strip with this line appeared in The Fayetteville Times in March 1989, English changed the word "hooters" to "pizzaz," without notifying Trudeau, because he found the original "not in keeping with the family newspaper setting." " In recent interview, English told the Journal he continues to "monitor" the comics -- particularly Doonesbury -- that appear in The Times. While he's never pulled a Trudeau strip -- because he believes that would be censorship -- English said he alters Doonesbury on the average of once every two weeks, taking out or changing words he considers "obscene" or "cursing." In English's view, "hooters" is an "obscene reference to the female breast."

Albert Zaranka, a music teacher and president of the Fayetteville Music Teachers Association, noticed English's alteration of Doonesbury when he compared his morning newspaper with The Raleigh Observer, where Trudeau's strip ran "hooters" intact. Zaranka wrote a letter of protest to The Times and also contacted the National Coalition Against Censorship, a non-profit educational organization founded in 1974 to protest book-banning and other forms of censorship. The NCAC subsequently featured Trudcau's "hooters" and English's "pizzaz" in its Censorship News.

According to Lee Salem, editorial director of Universal Press Syndicate, Doonesbury runs into censorship problems "two or three times a year." English believes this is because Trudeau should be more "sensitive to the American audience." For Zaranka, however, there's a greater principle at stake here.

"Political satire," he says, "is every bit as sacred as the American flag."

In his letter to The Times, Zaranka complained that English had not only changed a word but had altered the entire meaning of the strip. As a result, Donald Trump, the object of Trudeau's satire, "says something 'tasteful' instead of tasteless in the last frame of the strip."

In a letter responding to Zaranka, English defended his alteration as an editorial -- decision and not censorship - made "painstakingly with sensitivity."

English now concedes that his pizzazed-up version of the cartoon "didn't get across the total point." Admitting that "pizzaz" wasn't even his word but a group effort by his staff, he nevertheless maintained that "pizzaz is a good word."

"Too bad Mr. Trudeau didn't think of it," he added with a chuckle.