A cartoonist has made the decision to resign from her position at the Washington Post following the rejection of her illustration featuring the owner of the newspaper and other media leaders bending the knee to President-elect Donald Trump.
On Friday, Ann Telnaes shared her thoughts on the Substack platform, revealing that she had created a cartoon depicting various media executives, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, presenting bags of money to Trump while they bowed before him. Telnaes intended the artwork to critique the “billionaire tech and media executives who have been trying to ingratiate themselves with the incoming president.” She pointed out that several of these executives, including Bezos, have frequented Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, raising concerns about their lucrative government deals and efforts to dismantle regulations.
Telnaes expressed that this was the first time she had encountered a rejection based on the message conveyed in her cartoon, warning that such actions are perilous for a free press. In her statement, she said, “As an editorial cartoonist, my role is to hold the powerful accountable. This is the first instance where my editor hindered my ability to perform that essential task. As a result, I’ve chosen to leave the Post. I suspect this decision won’t create much of a scene and may be trivialized since I’m viewed as merely a cartoonist, but I will continue to advocate for accountability through my work because, as the saying goes, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”
On Saturday, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists released a statement criticizing the Post for what they termed “political cowardice”. They encouraged fellow cartoonists to share Telnaes’ illustration using the hashtag #StandWithAnn to demonstrate their support. The association emphasized, “Tyranny ends at pen point. It flourishes in obscurity, and the Washington Post has simply shut its eyes and conceded like a boxer unable to stand.”
Responding to the situation, Liza Pluto, the communications director for the Post, shared a statement from David Shipley, the editorial page editor, who expressed disagreement with Telnaes’ view of the incident. He explained that the rejection stemmed from the fact that the newspaper had recently published a piece on the same subject as the cartoon, with another article slated for publication soon after. Shipley stated, “Not every editorial decision reflects a harmful influence. The only bias in play was against redundancy.”
