A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist has resigned from the Washington Submit after the newspaper refused to publish a cartoon satirical of its billionaire proprietor Jeff Bezos.
Ann Telnaes, a long-time Washington Submit cartoonist, created a cartoon of Mr Bezos and different tycoons kneeling earlier than a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.
Ms Telnaes introduced her resignation in a Substack put up on Friday: “In all that point I’ve by no means had a cartoon killed due to who or what I selected to purpose my pen at. Till now.”
David Shipley, the editorial web page editor on the paper, mentioned he determined to not run the cartoon in an effort to keep away from repetition, not as a result of it mocked the paper’s proprietor.
Within the cartoon, Mr Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are depicted on their knees giving luggage of money to a statue of Trump.
Mickey Mouse can also be depicted prostrate within the cartoon. ABC Information – which is owned by Disney – final month agreed to pay $15m to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump.
“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who’ve been doing their finest to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump,” Ms Telnaes wrote in her resignation announcement.
She mentioned the cartoon was satirising “these males with profitable authorities contracts and an curiosity in eliminating laws”.
Ms Telnaes mentioned the Washington Submit’s refusal to run the cartoon was a “recreation changer” and described it as “harmful for a free press”.
However Mr Shipley informed the BBC his determination to not publish the cartoon was due to repetition of one other piece set to publish.
“I respect Ann Telnaes and all she has given to The Submit. However I have to disagree together with her interpretation of occasions,” he mentioned in an announcement. “Not each editorial judgment is a mirrored image of a malign pressure.”
He added: “My determination was guided by the truth that we had simply printed a column on the identical matter because the cartoon and had already scheduled one other column – this one a satire – for publication.”
Final month, Mr Bezos introduced Amazon would donate $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund and make a $1m in-kind contribution.
Mr Bezos additionally described Trump’s re-election victory as “a unprecedented political comeback” and dined with him on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
The newspaper confronted a liberal backlash weeks earlier than the November presidential election after Mr Bezos interceded to stop the editorial board endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Mr Bezos defended the transfer, however the newspaper reported it misplaced greater than 250,000 subscribers following the choice.
The Los Angeles Instances, whose proprietor Patrick Quickly-Shiong can also be depicted within the now-killed cartoon, made the same transfer and mentioned the newspaper wouldn’t publish its endorsement of Harris in October.
