Editorial Cartoons And Free Speech

My friend Ann Telnaes' stand

It’s been on my mind to write about my friend, cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who quit her job at the Washington Post in protest a few days ago. Here is her Substack piece about her decision to leave. It is a very sad thing, and the Post is losing a great cartoonist, when they didn’t have to.

Ann decided to resign from her job as online editorial cartoonist because the editors would not run a cartoon she drew that was critical of owner Jeff Bezos; it’s an illustration of Bezos bowing to a Trump statue, offering a sack of money. David Shipley, WaPo Editorial Page editor explained that he “nixed the cartoon because it was too similar to the theme of a previously published column, as well as a satire piece that was being drafted.”

“Yet another piece in the span of a few days struck me as overkill,” Shipley wrote.

“This is a subjective judgment, but it is a subjective judgment in sync with a longstanding approach,” he continued. “In my time here, we have focused on reducing the number of articles we publish on a given topic and from the same point of view within a given time frame—all as a way to improve the overall quality and variety of our report."

“To that same end, I did not feel the cartoon was strong. Could it have been made better? Possibly,” Shipley went on. “In fact, we’d recently worked with Ann on a cartoon that had gone through edits and was published after she and editors had finished working together.”

Shipley also said that before deciding not to publish, he didn’t consult Bezos or publisher Will Lewis, CEO of the Washington Post.

Ann responded to this by saying she believes the cartoon was killed because of its content, and who it was aimed at. Shipley disagreed, and restated his view that his decision was based on repetition.

There’s no doubt that visual humor can often have a larger impact than the written word. That may be the case here, that Ann’s drawing of Bezos was considered too degrading, whether the editors would admit it or not. It really wasn’t, Ann’s opinion as expressed in the drawing is one I agree with. We will never know what went on in Shipley’s mind. Apparently he asked Ann to reconsider over the weekend, but she chose not to.

We already know that the WaPo is compromised; sadly, it can’t be trusted as a pillar of free speech anymore—until it has a new owner. I ended my subscription to my hometown paper when Bezos refused to run the editorial department’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Ann’s departure the other day was not a surprise to me (although I have not spoken to her in a while), and I half expected her to leave when that happened.

The Wapo is struggling, as so many papers are. These two incidents have really hurt it, and with good reason. Loss of subscription and talent jumping ship.

I mourn editorial cartoons in general. I have written about this many times: there are so few papers, and because of social media there are too many opinions in cyberspace. Staffers from the late night talk shows share clips on social media of their host’s political humor from the day, this is what cartoonists used to do in a single panel or strip. I believe this has replaced editorial cartoons for the public. But those are only two reasons, there are many more that I won’t go into now.

It’s really sad. My editorial cartoonist colleagues will continue to be witnesses to power. I know we will.

Cartooning for Peace, 2005. Ann Telnaes in the front in green, and I am in the back. Secretary General Kofi Anan knew the power of cartoons and invited us, and other international political cartoonists, to speak at the UN about our work

Cartooning for Peace, founded by Kofi Anan and Jean Plantu in 2005.

Thanks for being here.