Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote that her editor prevented her from doing the “critical job” of holding “powerful people and institutions accountable.” Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote that her editor prevented her from doing the “critical job” of holding “powerful people and institutions accountable.”
Washington Post editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes on Friday revealed that she was quitting the newspaper after it rejected a sketch depicting its billionaire owner, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, on bended knee for Republican President-elect Donald Trump.
“I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now,” wrote the Pulitzer Prize winner on the platform Substack.
Telnaes — who began working at the Post in 2008 — shared a rough draft of the cartoon, which also depicts Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the character Mickey Mouse — a stand-in for The Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC News.
Some of them appear to be holding up bags of money toward a large figure with a long tie and small hands whose face is out of frame — the apparent representation of Trump — while Mickey Mouse is seen bowing to him.
Telnaes wrote that the cartoon criticizes those “who have been doing their best to curry favor” with Trump.
“To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary,” Telnaes wrote. “That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.”
David Shipley, the Post’s editorial page editor, said in a statement to The New York Times that he respects Telnaes and her contributions to the newspaper “but must disagree with her interpretation of events.”
“Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force,” he said. “My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition.”
The cartoonist’s announcement comes after the Post faced backlash over its decision to not endorse a candidate in last year’s presidential election.
The paper’s editorial board had reportedly drafted an endorsement of the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, before Bezos reviewed it and the endorsement was scrapped.
The Post had regularly endorsed candidates for decades before the move, which led to a drop in subscribers and a number of staff resignations.
But Bezos, in remarks last month, said the paper had made the “right decision.”
Telnaes, who recently reshared a 2019 visual essay in which she described editorial cartoonists as “democracy’s canary in a coal mine,” wrote that her job as an editorial cartoonist is to “hold powerful people and institutions accountable.”
“For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job,” she wrote.
“I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist,” she added, before going on to reference a slogan used by the Post. “But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, ‘Democracy dies in darkness’.”
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