After her managers prevented the publication of a satirical cartoon that showed billionaires, including one who looked like Post owner Jeff Bezos, kneeling before President-elect Donald Trump, a Washington Post cartoonist resigned from her position at the newspaper.
In a blog post on Friday, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes stated that she resigned the publication after a drawing was turned down. Telnaes noted that this was the first time a cartoon at the Post had been murdered due to my choice of target.
According to a rough draft of the cartoon that was posted on the Telnaes Substack site, Trump is represented by a taller man in a suit and long tie, while other men are kneeling in front of him. According to Telnaes, the likenesses are of Bezos, Los Angeles Times Publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Money bags are in the hands of three of the men. A drawing of Mickey Mouse, a cartoon figure that represents Walt Disney’s ABC News, is also included.
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In an email to CNBC, Telnaes said the article rejected the drawing completely and offered no recommendations for any revisions.
According to a statement from David Shipley, editorial page editor of the Washington Post, the cartoon was turned down not because of its target audience but rather because it resembled columns at the publication.
I appreciate everything that Ann Telnaes has done for The Post. However, I have to disagree with her account of what happened. Not all editorial decisions reflect a negative force. My choice was influenced by the fact that we had previously scheduled the publishing of a satirical column and had just published one on the same subject as the cartoon. According to Shipley’s assertion, the sole prejudice was against repetition.
The cartoonist’s exit coincides with a backlash against the way Trump has been treated by the media and business leaders, both before and after the November election.
Ahead of the presidential election, the Washington Post claimed that Bezos canceled his intended endorsement of Trump opponent Kamala Harris. Several members of the editorial board at the Los Angeles Times resigned when Soon-Shiong made the decision that the publication should not endorse the presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, some media law experts criticized ABC News for paying $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit with Trump, arguing that the news company had a compelling case.
According to a Wall Street Journal story last month, Bezos and Zuckerberg, through Meta, intended to contribute $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. They are also among the billionaires who have met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence since his election victory. According to some sources, Altman of OpenAI is also contributing $1 million to the inaugural fund.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, commented on Telnaes’ resignation on X, stating that the cartoon was worth sharing: It’s not surprising that big tech leaders are bowing down to Donald Trump: Jeff Bezos and other billionaires like paying a lower tax rate than teachers at public schools.
The departure of Telnaes is the most recent in a string of internal Post reorganizations. According to NPR, since taking over the paper last year, publisher and CEO Will Lewis has had disagreements with the newsroom. Since Lewis took charge, a number of the paper’s top editors have departed.
In 2001, Telnaes was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. In her blog post, she stated that she had been employed by the Post since 2008.
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