Apple App Store Backs Off Rejection of Pulitzer-Winning Political Cartoonist

Apple has asked the political cartoonist Mark Fiore to resubmit an application for his iPhone app "NewsToons" after a controversy erupted over the company's earlier decision to reject the app. The initial rejection suggested that Apple put political satire in the same unacceptable category as pornography. Earlier this month, Fiore created history by becoming the first online-only cartoonist to win a Pulitzer for his editorial cartooning on SFGate--the San Francisco Chronicle's news Web site. While the cartoonist impressed the Pulitzer jury sufficiently to grab journalism's highest award, his work apparently didn't charm the gatekeepers at Apple's app store. In December, they rejected Fiore's bid to offer iPhone users the NewsToons app, an app based on his editorial works. In its rejection letter, Apple said Fiore’s satirical work "ridicules public figures" and was in violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which bars any apps whose content that in “Apple’s ...