Editorial cartoonist Anna Telnaes
Courtesy of Anna Telnaes
A Washington Post A cartoonist has quit her job at the paper, saying her bosses stopped the publication of a satirical cartoon featuring billionaires, including one that looked like the owner of the Post Jeff Bezoskneeling before the President-elect Donald Trump.
Ann TelnaesPulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, in a blog post Friday that she was leave the paper after rejecting a photo. It was the first time at the Post that a cartoon was “killed because of who or what I chose to focus my pen on,” Telnaes wrote.
A rough sketch of the cartoon, published on the Substack Telnaes blog, shows several men kneeling in front of a larger man wearing a suit and long tie, representing Trump. Telnaes wrote that the things are similar to Meta Platforms CEO Mark ZuckerbergOpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times Publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Bezos. Three of the men are holding bags of money. There is also a picture of the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, representing Walt disneyand ABC News.
A satirical drawing by Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who resigned after being rejected.
Courtesy of Anna Telnaes
The photo was rejected by the paper outright, 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 how similar it was to the paper's columns, not because of who it was aimed at.
“I respect Anna Telnaes and all she has brought to The Post. But I have to disagree with her interpretation of events. Not all editorial judgment is a reflection of force illegal. My decision was driven by the fact that we had just published a column on the same subject as the cartoon and he had already filed another column – this one – for publication. It was the same bias against repetition,” Shipley's statement said.
The cartoonist's departure comes amid controversy over the conduct of media and corporate executives has been handling Trumpboth before and after the November election.
The Washington Post report that Bezos was spinning planned support of Trump's opponent Kamala Harris with the paper before the presidential election. At the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong also decided that the paper should withhold any confirmation in the presidential race, forcing several members of the editorial board to resign.
Meanwhile, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump for $15 millionwhich drew criticism from some media law experts who believed the news organization had a strong case.
Bezos and Zuckerberg, through Meta, planned to donate $1 million to Trump's startup fund, the The Wall Street Journal reported last monthand they have been among several billionaires who have met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home since he won the election. Multiple outlets have reported that Altman is also at OpenAI giving away $1 million to the receiving chest.
Sen. Elizabeth WarrenD-Mass., weight in when Telnaes resigned on X, saying that the cartoon was worth “sharing”: “Big Tech executives bend the knee to Donald Trump and it's no wonder why: Billionaires like Jeff Bezos pay a lower tax rate than a public school teacher. “
Telnaes' departure is the latest of several internal shakeups at the Post. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis took over the paper last year and has clashed with the newsroom, as reported by NPR. The paper has had a number of top editors leave since Lewis took over.
Telnaes won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2001. She wrote in her blog that she had worked for the Post since 2008.
