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Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes
Courtesy of Ann Telnaes
TO Washington Post The cartoonist resigned from her position at the newspaper, saying her bosses blocked publication of a satirical cartoon depicting billionaires, including one who looked like the Post’s owner. jeff bezoskneeling before the president-elect donald trump.
Ann Telnaesa Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, said in a blog post Friday that she leave the newspaper after a drawing was rejected. This was the first time at the Post that a cartoon was “deleted by who or what I chose to point my pen at,” Telnaes wrote.
A sketch of the cartoon, posted on Telnaes’ Substack blog, shows several men kneeling before a larger man wearing a suit and long tie, representing Trump. Telnaes wrote that the similarities are Metaplatforms executive director Mark ZuckerbergOpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Bezos. Three of the men hold bags of money. Also included is a drawing of the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, representing walt disneyABC News.
Satirical drawing by Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who resigned after it was rejected.
Courtesy of Ann Telnaes
The drawing was flatly rejected by the newspaper, with no suggestions for possible changes, Telnaes told CNBC in an email.
David Shipley, the Washington Post’s editorial page editor, said in a statement that the cartoon was rejected because of its similarity to the newspaper’s columns, not because of who it was aimed at.
“I respect Ann Telnaes and all she has given to the Post. But I must disagree with her interpretation of events. Not all editorial judgments are a reflection of an evil force. My decision was guided by the fact that we had just publish a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column, this one a satire, for publication. The only bias was against repetition,” Shipley’s statement said.
The cartoonist’s departure comes amid controversy over how the media and corporate executives They have been treating Trumpboth before and after the November elections.
He Washington Post reported that Bezos shot himself a planned endorsement of Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris by the newspaper before the presidential elections. At the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong also decided that the paper should retain any support in the presidential race, leading to the resignation of several members of the editorial board.
Meanwhile, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump over $15 millionprompting criticism from some media law experts who thought the news organization had a strong case.
Bezos and Zuckerberg, through Meta, planned to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, the The Wall Street Journal reported last monthand has been among several billionaires who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home since his election victory. Various outlets have reported that OpenAI’s Altman is also donating $1 million to the inauguration fund.
Sen. Elizabeth WarrenD-Mass., heavy on Telnaes’ resignation at than that of a public school teacher.”
Telnaes’ departure is the latest of several internal restructurings at the Post. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis took over the paper last year and has clashed with the newsroom, as reported by NPR. Several top editors at the paper have left since Lewis took over.
Telnaes won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2001. He wrote on his blog that he had worked for the Post since 2008.
