From The Register.

This week, a California political cartoonist was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Last December, Apple’s App Store police barred his work from its hallowed online halls.

As reported Thursday by Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab, Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Mark Fiore submitted his cartoon app NewsToons to the App Store Police, only to have it rejected.

Fiore’s sin: violation of the sacred section 3.3.14 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which reads:

Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.

We’ll gloss over that risible ‘reasonable judgement’ bit and instead pose a simple question: Keeping in mind that Fiore is a political cartoonist, might that “offensive or defamatory” judgment be solely in the eyes of the beholder?

Meaning, are the App Store police censoring commentary based upon their own tastes? Well, of course they are.

LATER: It seems that the ban has been rescinded. Amazing what a firestorm of bad publicity can achieve.