Credibility not subject to caricature.

When I settled in with my New York Times on the morning of January 15, I never imagined that what I was about to discover would touch off a debate in two professional organizations and tick off many of America's editorial cartoonists, some of whom doubtless remain convinced I am evil incarnate. Still, I think it was a debate worth having.

Let me explain. What I found in The Times was a full-page ad for Northwest Airlines, half of which was a cartoon by Pat Oliphant. The gist of the ad was that the United States must lean on Japan to open its aviation markets. It was pretty clear that the accompanying cartoon had been drawn specifically for Northwest. How else to explain a cartoon character who utters such fluff as "U.S. airlines are strong and competitive. Open skies will hurt Japan's inefficient, bloated airlines . . . ."

The ad ran again in The Times, three days later. One of the editorial cartoonists for my paper confirmed that Oliphant had done several such ads.

To say I was appalled is an understatement. Oliphant apparently was in the pay of a huge corporation that advertises in newspapers around the country, even as he was continuing to draw editorial cartoons for many of those same newspapers. In my view, journalists forfeit their credibility once they start accepting money from advertisers. After all, the Journal Sentinel, like many other newspapers, criticized David Brinkley when he began doing commercials for Archer Daniels Midland. How could we not draw the line at similar conduct by Oliphant?

So we did just that, canceling Oliphant. Meantime, I posted a message on NCEW's listserv soliciting other members' reactions to the ads.

Here the stow takes a weird turn. A few days later I received a phone call from an editorial cartoonist, Chip Beck, of The Real Washington. He wanted to discuss my message. Huh?

I was mystified as to how a cartoonist knew about the posting. According to Beck, someone with access to NCEW's listserv showed my message to a cartoonist, who forwarded it to the listserv for the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. And the cartoonists were - how shall I put this? - a mite peeved.

Here's a sample of their messages on the AAEC list, which were forwarded to me, courtesy of Beck:

* "Who is Sue Ryon? . . . And why should she care how or who pays [Oliphant] for his work ????????????????. . . Especially with cartoonists being fired?????. . . This just makes me sick."

* "If he chooses to do outside work, so be it."

* "When are these editors - who hate editorial cartoons so much they're intentionally murdering the profession by refusing to make new hires - going to make up their minds about us?"

Yikes. I have been accused of many things in the past, but never murder. I decided it was time to introduce myself to the AAEC, so I sent such a message to the cartoonists' list. In it, I also explained my opinion about the Oliphant matter.

I was pleased that a couple of cartoonists actually agreed with me. Wrote one: "I think Sue Ryon . . . is right. . . . It is my opinion that you either get to be a journalist or a commercial artist."

Meantime, Editor & Publisher started nosing around, and covered the flap in its February 7 issue. And Notebook, AAEC's professional journal, devoted four pages to the controversy in its winter edition.

Well, the cybershouting's all over; the aviation dispute has been resolved to Northwest's benefit; the ads have stopped running. Still, I believe in the fundamental correctness of my position: You can be a journalist or a corporate spokesman, but you can't be both and expect your credibility to go unscathed.

The dust-up taught me two things:

* A healthy respect for the power and reach of the Internet, thanks to one brief message, innocently posted, that spread far beyond its intended recipients.

* A healthy respect for editorial cartoonists, who have much in common with us. That point was driven home when one AAEC member spoke for us all: "Let's stop all this nonsense and start wallowing like hogs in this here Clinton scandal."

Soo-ey!

NCEW's immediate past president Sue Ryon is deputy editorial page editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her e-mail address: [e-mail]