How did Andrews McMeel Syndication and major newspapers publicly explain their decisions to drop Dilbert in 2023?
Executive summary
Andrews McMeel Syndication and a raft of major newspapers publicly framed their decision to drop Dilbert in 2023 as a response to Scott Adams’s on‑camera remarks about Black people — statements they characterized as racist, discriminatory, and incompatible with their values — while Adams and some commentators framed the fallout as censorship or taken‑out‑of‑context controversy [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. The immediate trigger: a viral livestream that crossed the line, in publishers’ telling
The corporate and editorial decisions followed a February 22, 2023 YouTube livestream in which Adams advised white people to “get the hell away from Black people” and labeled Black Americans who disagreed with a poll as a “hate group,” remarks that were widely reported as the proximate cause for cancellations [1] [5] [6].
2. Andrews McMeel’s statement: values, free speech, and a firm corporate cut
Andrews McMeel’s leadership announced it was “severing our relationship” with Adams and said while the company supports free speech it would not “support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate,” language posted as a joint statement by chairman Hugh Andrews and CEO Andy Sareyan on the company website and social channels [2] [7].
3. Major newspapers: editorial standards and specific language used
Newspapers including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today–affiliated papers, and others publicly cited Adams’s “racist comments,” “promoting segregation,” or “discriminatory comments” as reasons for pulling Dilbert from pages, with some outlets noting logistical limits on immediate removal of preprinted Sunday comics [3] [2] [1].
4. Outlets framed the move both as moral stance and as standards enforcement
Publishers framed the discontinuations not merely as punitive gestures but as enforcement of editorial or content standards — for example, the Los Angeles Times referenced prior instances where strips “did not meet the newspaper’s standards” and said the most recent comments crossed those lines, signaling an appeal to institutional norms beyond momentary outrage [5] [2].
5. Context: a pattern of previous controversies that made decisive action more likely
News coverage and historical accounts noted Dilbert and Adams had sparked earlier disputes — including previous strips and comments that drew criticism and even prior removals by some papers — which reporters and some editors cited as context that the 2023 remarks were the latest in a pattern, not an isolated shock [5] [8].
6. Adams’s counter‑narrative: out‑of‑context, censorship claims, and social‑media defiance
Adams disputed the framing, tweeting that his syndicate “canceled me” and asserting he was being “canceled” for comments he said were taken out of context or agreeable to some audiences; he characterized the reaction as censorship and later relaunched the strip independently, positions chronicled in contemporaneous reporting [4] [9].
7. Interpretation: ethics, brand risk, and the calculus newspapers publicly signaled
Taken together, the public explanations from Andrews McMeel and major newspapers emphasized an alignment of moral language — rejecting hate and discrimination — with pragmatic brand and audience considerations, while also exposing tensions over free‑speech claims and past tolerance of provocative creators; outlets repeatedly presented the removals as decisions grounded in company or editorial values rather than solely commercial pressures, even as some critics argued the removals reflected marketplace consequences for controversial speech [2] [7] [3].