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Editorial cartoonist Anne Thelnes
Courtesy of Anne Thelnes
A Washington Post cartoonist has quit her job at a newspaper, saying her bosses blocked the publication of a satirical cartoon featuring billionaires, including one who looks like the owner of the Post Jeff Bezoskneeling before the president-elect Donald Trump.
Anne ThelnessPulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, said in a blog post on Friday that she throw the paper after the image has been rejected. It was the first time in the Post that a cartoon was “killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at,” Thelnes wrote.
A rough sketch of the cartoon, posted on Telnaes’s Substack blog, shows several men kneeling before a larger man in a suit and long tie, who represents Trump. Telnaes wrote that the similarity with Metaplatforms General director Mark ZuckerbergOpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times Publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong and Bezos. Three men are holding bags of money. Also included is an image of the Mickey Mouse cartoon character that presents Walt DisneyABC News.
A satirical drawing by Washington Post cartoonist Ann Thelnes, who resigned after being denied.
Courtesy of Anne Thelnes
The drawing was rejected outright by the paper, with no suggestions for potential changes, Telnaes said in an email to CNBC.
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 Thelnes and all she has given The Post. But I have to disagree with her interpretation of events. Not every editorial opinion is a reflection of a malevolent force. My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already planned to publish another column – satires – the only bias against repetition,” Shipley said in a statement.
The cartoonist’s departure comes amid controversy over how the media and corporate executives operate treated Trumpboth before and after the November elections.
The Washington Post reported that Bezos spoke sharply planned support for Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris newspaper on the eve of the presidential elections. At the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong also decided that the paper should disclaim any endorsement in the presidential race, which caused the resignation of several members of the editorial board.
Meanwhile, ABC News has settled a defamation lawsuit against Trump 15 million dollarswhich drew criticism from some media law experts who felt the news organization had a strong case.
Bezos and Zuckerberg, through Meta, planned to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The Wall Street Journal reported last monthand were among several billionaires who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home after his election victory. Multiple outlets report that OpenAI’s Altman is, too donating $1 million to the inaugural fund.
Sen. Elizabeth WarrenD-Mass, weighed on Telnes’ resignation on X, saying the cartoon was “worth sharing”: “Big tech executives are bowing to Donald Trump, and it’s no wonder why: Billionaires like Jeff Bezos like to pay lower taxes than public school teachers. “
Telnas’ departure is the latest of several internal reshuffles at the Post. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis took over the paper last year and clashed with the editors, as reports NPR. Several of the paper’s top editors have left since Lewis took over.
Telnaes won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2001. She wrote on her blog that she had worked at the Post since 2008.
