The Washington Submit’s Pulitzer prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes has resigned from her place on the newspaper after its refusal to publish a satirical cartoon depicting the outlet’s proprietor Jeff Bezos – together with different media and expertise barons – kneeling earlier than Donald Trump as he gears up for his second US presidency.
“I’ve had editorial suggestions and productive conversations – and a few variations – about cartoons I’ve submitted for publication, however in all that point I’ve by no means had a cartoon killed due to who or what I selected to goal my pen at,” Telnaes wrote on Friday in a web-based submit on the Substack platform detailing her choice to stop. “Till now.”
In an announcement reported by the New York Occasions, the Submit’s opinions editor, David Shipley, defended the newspaper’s choice in opposition to publishing Telnaes’s cartoon, saying he disagreed along with her “interpretation of occasions” and that “the one bias was in opposition to repetition”.
“Not each editorial judgment is a mirrored image of a malign power,” stated Shipley, whose assertion added that he had spoken with Telnaes and requested her to rethink leaving. “My choice was guided by the truth that we had simply revealed a column on the identical subject because the cartoon and had already scheduled one other column – this one a satire – for publication.”
Telnaes’s Substack submit from Friday contained a tough draft of her cartoon. Beside Bezos, who based Amazon earlier than shopping for the Submit, the cartoon portrayed caricatures of Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Los Angeles Occasions proprietor Patrick Quickly-Shiong and Walt Disney Co mascot Mickey Mouse.
“The cartoon … criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who’ve been doing their greatest to curry favor with … Trump,” Telnaes stated. “Whereas it isn’t unusual for editorial web page editors to object to visible metaphors inside a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t appropriately conveying the message meant by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case concerning this cartoon.
“To be clear, there have been situations the place sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, however by no means due to the perspective inherent within the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a gamechanger … and harmful for a free press.”
Telnaes introduced her resignation lower than three months after the Submit and Bezos confronted withering backlash over the outlet’s choice to stop its editorial group from publishing an endorsement of Kamala Harris within the presidential election of 5 November. Quickly-Shiong had additionally equally refused to permit the LA Occasions’ editorial board to publish an endorsement of Harris.
Readers met each retailers with greater than 200,000 subscription cancellations mixed, the overwhelming majority of these affecting the Submit’s bigger readership, in accordance with experiences. And commentators accused the 2 newspapers of demonstrating what has been labeled as “anticipatory obedience” to Trump after he had repeatedly accused the media of being enemies of the state and promised retribution in opposition to many within the business if he defeated Harris.
Trump then scored a decisive victory in opposition to Harris to wrest again the Oval Workplace, which he had misplaced to Joe Biden within the 2020 election.
After his victory, Zuckerberg dined with Trump on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort. His firm Meta additionally donated $1m to a fund for Trump’s second inauguration. Observers interpreted these to be conciliatory gestures after Trump throughout his first presidency had criticized Zuckerberg and his Fb platform of being “anti-Trump”.
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In the meantime, in December, ABC Information – which is owned by Disney – and its anchor George Stephanopoulos agreed to pay $15m to a basis and museum to be established by Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit the president-elect filed in opposition to the community.
Stephanopoulos and his employer additionally agreed to specific remorse over on-air statements that he made in March claiming Trump had been discovered “chargeable for rape” in a lawsuit pursued in opposition to him by the columnist E Jean Carroll.
A jury discovered Trump “had sexually abused” Carroll beneath New York regulation however stopped in need of discovering that he raped her. Trump subsequently was ordered to pay Carroll $5m. And he was additionally ordered to pay her $83.3m after being discovered liable on defamation claims.
Trump’s appeals of each these orders remained pending as of Saturday.
Telnaes received the distinguished Pulitzer for illustrated reporting and commentary in 2001 – coincidentally, whereas working for the LA Occasions Syndicate – and was a finalist in the identical class for the Submit in 2022. She additionally acquired the Nationwide Cartoonists Society’s Reuben award in 2017, turning into the primary lady to win each that prize in addition to a Pulitzer.
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