According to a Thursday report by Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab, Apple’s App Store last December rejected the NewsToons app which had been submitted Mark Fiore, the California-based political cartoonist who won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize this week.

The NewsToons app was barred by Apple because it apparently violated sacrosanct section 3.3.14 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which reads thus: “Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind, or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

As per Neiman Journalism Lab’s Laura McGann, the NewsToons app – featuring Fiore’s work – was found “offensive or defamatory” by Apple’s hypercritical staffers because his cartoons made fun of the Balloon Boy prank and the pair that famously crashed a White House party.

With news of Apple’s rejection of Fiore’s iPhone app making rounds, it is likely that Apple may take a U-turn on its December decision – earlier too, in November last year, the company gave its approval to a rejected app that featured a cartoon of a Nancy Pelosi bobblehead.

Nonetheless, the rejection of Fiore’s app will be particularly distressing for news and media organizations, most of which are banking on iPad apps as a means to get users to pay to read magazines and newspapers, as well as to get advertisers to pay print-ad prices for online content.