Mac VerStandig
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[edit] Bio
Mac VerStandig (1984-) is an American journalist and political pundit. He was raised in the Washington, D.C. area, is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and currently resides in Florida.
[edit] Controversy
VerStandig is the former editor-in-chief of The Badger Herald, the largest independent student newspaper in the United States. On February 13, 2006, he, along with his editorial board, elected to republish a controversial cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The cartoon had been previously published in a Danish newspaper and led to tremendous protest and occassional riots abroad.
The publication placed The Badger Herald in the national spotlight alongside the few other American newspapers that had printed the image. VerStandig defended the decision publicly, granting interviews to The New York Times, Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and numerous other media outlets. He ultimately managed to retain his job by framing the decision as a First Amendment issue, despite protests calling for his termination. Another Big Ten school, The University of Illinois, had seen its student newspaper publish six of the cartoons earlier that month, and its editor, Acton Gorton, was ultimately fired for doing so.
[edit] Career
Before becoming editor of the University of Wisconsin student newspaper, VerStandig was briefly one of the Internet's first dot-com film critics in the late 1990s. He ran a now-defunct film-themed website and syndicated his work to numerous other outlets.
VerStandig became editor-in-chief of The Badger Herald in 2005, serving a traditional one-year term at the helm of the student newspaper. He was previously a writer for the newspaper and controversial conservative figure in the Madison, Wisconsin community. Then a student at the University of Wisconsin, he graduated in 2006.
