A look at Monday's front page:
CHRIS WENT TOO FAR - @ShaunKing: Lynching jokes appallingnydn.us/1oIoiz5
Perhaps that was at least partly due to the host, the no-holds-barred Chris Rock.
Rock wasted no time in taking on #OscarsSoWhite and diversity issues that had been in the news since the nominations were announced in mid-January.
After the obligatory montage of the year's movies, Rock came out and said he'd counted at least 15 black people in the video -- and, just like that, he was off.
Chris Rock: 'You're damn right Hollywood is racist'
"If they nominated hosts, I wouldn't even get this job," he said. "You'd be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now."
Noting the lack of black nominees through most of Oscar history, he pointed out that in the '60s, "black people did not protest because we had real things to protest at the time. We were too busy being raped and lynched to worry about best cinematography."
And "In Memoriam," the yearly segment of people who had passed away in the previous year, would get an addition, Rock said.
"In the In Memoriam package, it's just going to be black people shot by the cops on the way to the movies."
Some of his lines earned gasps from the audience, and the New York Daily News believed he had gone too far.
But his stint appeared to have gone well overall.
Rock went back to the Magic Johnson Theaters in Compton to ask African-American moviegoers about the year's nominated films. Almost none of the patrons had seen them.
And he even helped his daughter sell Girl Scout cookies.
