I refer to the cartoon in your August 16 edition.
Although I regard the South China Morning Post as one of the best English-language broadsheets in the world, standing comparison even with the UK's The Independent (probably the current No1 in liberal intellectual journalism), there are times when your newspaper shoots itself in the foot.
In the above edition, there was as blatant an example of casual racism as I have seen in a long time.
The cartoon by 'Ming' showed who I assume to be Osama bin Laden observing the chaos in New York during the recent North American power cut and rueing the fact that he had not thought of inflicting it himself.
However, that is irrelevant. What was disappointing in a quality newspaper was the depiction of the heroic firefighters as obviously white while the looters running with their spoils from a broken-windowed TV store were depicted as being obviously black.
This kind of stereotyping is clearly wrong and has been unfashionable, and possibly even illegal, in most European countries for decades. Were it in Britain, I believe the South China Morning Post would receive a severe reprimand from the Press Council for the composition of this cartoon.
