The Washington Post Building at One Franklin Square Building in Washington, D.C., June 5, 2024.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
A Washington Post cartoonist has give up her function on the paper, saying that her bosses blocked publication of a satirical cartoon that depicted billionaires, together with one resembling Post proprietor Jeff Bezos, kneeling earlier than President-elect Donald Trump.
Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, stated in a weblog put up Friday that she quit the paper after a drawing was rejected. This was the primary time on the Post {that a} cartoon was “killed due to who or what I selected to goal my pen at,” Telnaes wrote.
A tough sketch of the cartoon, revealed on Telnaes’ Substack weblog, exhibits a number of males kneeling earlier than a bigger man carrying a swimsuit and an extended tie, representing Trump. Telnaes wrote that the likenesses are of Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times Publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Bezos. Three of the boys are holding luggage of cash. Also included is a drawing of cartoon character Mickey Mouse, representing Walt Disney‘s ABC News.
Satirical drawing by Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who resigned after it was rejected.
Courtesy of Ann Telnaes
The drawing was rejected by the paper outright, with no recommendations for potential modifications, Telnaes informed CNBC in an e mail.
David Shipley, Washington Post editorial web page editor, stated in an announcement that the cartoon was rejected due to its similarity to columns on the paper, not due to who it focused.
“I respect Ann Telnaes and all she has given to The Post. But I need to disagree along with her interpretation of occasions. Not each editorial judgment is a mirrored image of a malign drive. My resolution was guided by the truth that we had simply revealed a column on the identical matter because the cartoon and had already scheduled one other column – this one a satire – for publication. The solely bias was towards repetition,” Shipley’s assertion stated.
The cartoonist’s departure comes amid controversy about how media and company executives have been treating Trump, each earlier than and after the November election.
The Washington Post reported that Bezos spiked a deliberate endorsement of Trump opponent Kamala Harris by the paper forward of the presidential election. At the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong additionally determined that the paper ought to withhold any endorsement within the presidential race, spurring the resignation of a number of editorial board members.
ABC News, in the meantime, settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump for $15 million, which drew criticism from some media regulation specialists who thought the information group had a robust case.
Bezos and Zuckerberg, by means of Meta, deliberate to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, the Wall Street Journal reported last month, and have been amongst a number of billionaires to fulfill with Trump at his house in Mar-a-Lago since his election win. Multiple shops have reported that OpenAI’s Altman can also be donating $1 million to the inauguration fund.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., weighed in on Telnaes’ resignation on X, saying the cartoon was “price a share”: “Big Tech executives are bending the knee to Donald Trump and it is no shock why: Billionaires like Jeff Bezos like paying a decrease tax charge than a public college trainer.”
Telnaes’ departure is the most recent of a number of inner shakeups on the Post. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis took over the paper final 12 months and has clashed with the newsroom, as reported by NPR. Several prime editors on the paper have left since Lewis took over.
Telnaes received the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2001. She wrote in her weblog that she had labored for the Post since 2008.
