“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost” — Thomas Jefferson, 1786
From 2008 until this week, Ann Telnaes was a sublimely incisive editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post. The subjects of her skewering were the same puffed-up, venal, egocentric, power-mad public personas who have had their balloons popped by political cartoonists since Thomas Nast (the father of the form) started skewering the vainglorious in Harper’s Magazine in 1858.
On Friday, Telnaes quit her position at WaPo. Her reason? She could not brook the paper’s editorial board spiking a cartoon — not because of a lack of merit — but because of its content. A rough of the cartoon in question shows several kowtowing men and a cartoon character offering bags of cash to the bottom half of an obese, long-tied, baggy-suited, small-handed man on a pedestal.
The object of veneration is unmistakably Trump. The supplicants are American oligarchs (both native and foreign-born) and a mouse. The rodent represents the Disney Company/ABC News. The men are Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.
Telnaes has the successful cartoonist’s talent of telling thousand-word stories in a few pencil lines. The message of this drawing is clear. Plutocratic media barons are kissing the ring and forking over cash to an incoming President eager for an ass-licking and bags full of the foldable. They want to buy favor from a man willing to sell anything not nailed down, regardless of who owns it.
Bezos’s editorial team quickly ran interference to protect their sensitive owner’s fragile ego. They told Telnaes her work did not pass Orwellian muster in this brave new world of press censorship. They axed her effort. Ann quit.
On her Substack page Open Windows, Telnaes explained why she could no longer contribute to WaPo.
While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon.
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. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.
Telnaes anticipated criticism and rebutted it.
There will be people who say, “Hey, you work for a company and that company has the right to expect employees to adhere to what’s good for the company”.
That’s true except we’re talking about news organizations that have public obligations and who are obliged to nurture a free press in a democracy. Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press— and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press.
Just in case anyone missed the point, she added:
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.
Before electronic mass communication, Americans got their news from newspapers. A medium that matured into broadsheets giving the facts up front and commentary in the back. It was an arrangement that, in reputable publications, built a wall between the hard news and opinion. Journalistic ethics demanded that reporters reported without fear or favor. And publishers were granted no editorial voice.
In the 21st century, that arrangement is crumbling. Billionaires looking for new toys bought venerable media properties. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Los Angeles Times. Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post.
In 2024, these self-serving plutocrats flipped the bird at editorial independence and told their editors to toe their preferred party’s line. Editors either agreed to this subservience or were replaced with others who valued a sizable paycheck over honor and integrity.
What had made the prestige press an institution both loved and feared by the rich and powerful was its air of incorruptibility. People understood that editorial pages were partisan — everyone knows the NYT skews liberal (or once did) and the WSJ is reflexively conservative. However, the bias was honest. Opinions were not the product of cynical plutocrats trying to add zeros to obscene fortunes.
But now the Washington Post has proved it has the ethics of a basement-dwelling social media troll.
In the internet era, newspapers trying to stay financially afloat are swimming against strong currents. Many have already expired. Others are dead men walking. And those that have sold their journalistic souls for a few silver pieces are no longer worth the paper they were once printed on.