A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist has resigned from the Washington Post after the paper refused to publish a satirical cartoon of its billionaire proprietor Jeff Bezos.
Ann Telnaes, a longtime Washington Post cartoonist, created a cartoon of Bezos and different moguls kneeling earlier than a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.
He stated the newspaper’s refusal to publish the cartoon was a “recreation changer” and described it as “harmful for a free press”.
But David Shipley, the paper’s editorial web page editor, stated he determined to not publish the cartoon to keep away from repetition, not as a result of he was mocking the paper’s proprietor.
In the cartoon, Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are depicted on their knees whereas giving luggage of money to a statue of Trump.
Mickey Mouse can be depicted prostrate within the cartoon. ABC News – owned by Disney – final month agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit introduced by Trump.
Ms Telnaes introduced her resignation in a put up on Substack on Friday, saying she had labored for the paper since 2008.
“In all this time I’ve by no means seen a cartoon killed due to who or what I selected to level my pen at,” he wrote. “Until now.
“Slain cartoon criticizes billionaire tech and media CEOs who’ve executed their finest to curry favor with President-elect Trump.”
He stated the cartoon satirized “these males with profitable authorities contracts and an curiosity in eliminating laws.”
But Shipley informed the BBC that his resolution to not publish the cartoon was attributable to a repetition of one other piece that might have been printed.
“I respect Ann Telnaes and all she has given to the Post. But I disagree together with her interpretation of occasions,” he stated in an announcement. “Not all editorial judgments are a mirrored image of a malign power.”
He added: “My resolution was guided by the truth that we had simply printed a column on the identical matter because the cartoon and had already deliberate to publish one other column – this time a satire.”
This shouldn’t be the primary time one among Telnaes’ cartoons has been printed by the Washington Post.
In 2015, the newspaper retracted one among its sketches that depicted Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s younger daughters as monkeys.
Explaining its resolution on the time, the newspaper stated its editorial coverage was to depart youngsters “out of all this”.
Last month, Bezos introduced that Amazon would donate $1 million to Trump’s settlement fund and make a $1 million in-kind contribution.
Bezos additionally described Trump’s reelection victory as “a unprecedented political comeback” and had dinner with him on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence.
The paper confronted a liberal backlash weeks earlier than November’s presidential election after Bezos intervened to dam the editorial board from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Bezos defended the transfer, however the newspaper reported that they misplaced greater than 250,000 subscribers because of the choice.
The Los Angeles Times, whose proprietor Patrick Soon-Shiong can be pictured within the now-defunct cartoon, made an analogous transfer and stated the paper wouldn’t publish its endorsement of Harris in October.
