A political cartoonist for The Washington Post quit her job after her work – a sketch depicting Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and other media and technology bigwigs kneeling and holding up bags of money before a statue of former President and President-elect Donald Trump – was rejected.
The cartoon also showed Mickey Mouse on the ground. Disney Company owns ABC News, which recently reached a $15-million settlement with Trump. The former and incoming President had sued the network for reporting on his sexual abuse trial in New York.
On Friday, Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Ann Telnaes said that this was the first time she “had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at.”
Bezos, one of the moguls in her cartoon, owns The Post.
The newspaper, founded in 1877 and which became famous for its coverage of the Watergate Scandal in the 1970s that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, denied that Telnaes’ cartoon had been rejected for its message.
Editorial page editor David Shipley said in a statement that “the only bias was against repetition.”
hey had already published a column on the same topic, Shipley said, and another one, a satire, was also due to be published. The rejection of Telnaes’ cartoon was not due to any “malign force,” it explained.
The Post’s slogan is “Democracy dies in darkness.”
The paper’s statement on the matter could easily be confirmed by looking at columns that purport to address the same issue. It might also be that it pulled its punches because the cartoon could be seen as an articulation of an institutional position, not only the views of one writer or cartoonist.
But what are the rules, really, in toeing the editorial line when it conflicts with the practical demands of ownership? Ultimately, is the press freer on some issues than on others? Would a satire be exempt from the rules?
Unfortunately, the ideals of journalism often run counter to what journalists contend with from day to day. Realities such as politics, economics, and personal issues, even, could color a news organization’s practices and preferences vis-a-vis the profession’s lofty ideals. As a result, freedom is in fact uneven – something purists and idealists may find difficult to accept. The sooner we acknowledge this imperfection, the higher our chances are of pushing for “what should be” despite the odds, instead of being defeated by “what is”.
Anywhere in the world, ownership of media enterprises is driven by a host of factors. Meanwhile, it is incumbent upon journalists to keep pushing and testing boundaries. Stark realities notwithstanding, we know that the powerful forces in media are aware of the sheer power that their enterprise holds in shaping the nation. We continue to hope that despite their other interests, they continue to hold themselves responsible for the pursuit of the higher public good. They would not be so crass or tyrannical as to suppress a freedom we so cherish, and upon which our democratic society rests.