The seemingly innocuous activity of being a newspaper cartoonist can, at times, be dangerous or controversial. Over the past month I have been focused on the work of cartoonists, starting with the resignation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes after her proposed cartoon was blocked.
She wrote a 4 January Substack piece, ‘Why I am quitting The Washington Post’ in which she described the cartoon’s content:
“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-Lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.”
A matter of democratic principles
She concludes, “As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, ‘Democracy dies in darkness’”.
Well, she was wrong about her resignation not causing ‘much of a stir’. In the context of the Washington Post decision in October 2024 not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years, her action, and the blocked cartoon, prompted a wide-ranging, and continuing discussion about the issues it raised.
The ghost of McCarthy
Some comments referenced back to another distinguished Washington Post cartoonist, Herbert Lawrence Block (Herblock). He worked for the paper when Senator Joseph McCarthy was able to exploit weaknesses in the US media to launch his campaign against communism in April 1950. Alan Barth, an editorial writer for the Post at the time, wrote about McCarthy’s technique of “punishing by publicity” and “the American press must forever carry on its conscience the elevation of Jumping Joe to the status of National High Inquisition”.
Senator McCarthy was a recurring target of Herblock’s cartoons, one of which introduced the term ‘McCarthyism’. He always insisted on total editorial independence, regardless of whether or not his cartoons agreed with the Post’s stance on political issues.
‘Do not obey in advance’
The Ann Telnaes cartoon also stimulated discussion more broadly about the impact of a Trump administration on the media. Yale Historian Timothy Snyder describes the process as ‘anticipatory obedience’. In On Tyranny, Snyder writes:
“Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked.”
Her cartoon captures exactly that process of anticipatory obedience by the tech oligarchs.
And the same is true of the Disney decision to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump for $15mn. As Democratic Party lawyer Marc E Elias commented: “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.”
A grim anniversary
7 January was the tenth anniversary of the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine on 7 January 2015. A devastating terrorist attack was made upon those present at the magazine’s offices in Paris, leaving a dozen people dead, including staff and contributors as well as police officers. The attacks spurred an outpouring of sympathy expressed in a hashtag, ‘I Am Charlie’.
A tenth anniversary statement by Cartoonists Rights was clear about the cartoonists’ role in society:
“Their work pushes boundaries, questions power and forces us to confront uncomfortable truths. While their art can spark controversy, it is precisely this ability to provoke debate that makes satire so vital to a free and open democracy. Silencing cartoonists – or any form of critical expression – isn’t just an attack on the individuals; it threatens the values of dialogue, tolerance, and the right to dissent.”
Included in the statement is a visual essay by Ann Telnaes on the tenth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo killings, and on cartoonists’ freedom of expression.
‘The Art of Class War’
Another, very different, cartoon focus for me has been preparing a book for publication which looks back at the year-long miners’ strike through the imagery of news cartoonists and offers a vivid interpretation of an industrial dispute which tore the country apart.
Journalist and broadcaster Nicholas Jones explores the impact of the news cartoonists in The Art of Class War: Newspaper Cartoonists and the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. He reported the strike for BBC Radio and amassed scripts, notes and press cuttings which included cartoons and illustrations from both the pro-Thatcher national press and a wide range of newspapers and magazines published by trade unions and organisations on the left.
Steve Bell, who has written the foreword to the book, produced the daily strip If… in The Guardian newspaper from 1981 until 2021, and was also the newspaper’s principal editorial cartoonist until 2023.
Both Jones and Bell will speak at the book launch in City Room Leeds Playhouse on Saturday 1 March at 2pm. You can book for the event here.
An uncertain future
Editorial cartoons have long been a staple feature of newspapers, but they face extinction. For example, in July 2023 McClatchy, which owns 30 US newspapers, said it would no longer publish editorial cartoons. It follows decisions by other publishers like Gannet and the New Yorks Times to do the same.
The last word should go to Ann Telnaes for her cartoon strip ‘The canaries aren’t doing well’ which you can view here.
