Bezo's Sacrifice

This one's for Ann

“Democracy dies in darkness” is a phrase popularized by Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward who used it in an article about government secrecy. After billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Post and Donald Trump assumed the presidency (sic), it became the newspaper’s first slogan in its 140-year history. Today, democracy is dying.

When Bezos purchased the paper, many felt he was saving the Post and journalism. He stood out of the way and allowed his journalists to defend democracy because there is no democracy without journalism.

After Trump lost the 2020 election by being soundly and squarely defeated by Joe Biden, the Post started to get a little flaky. It laid off and bought out prominent journalists. It started running whimsical New Yorker-like cartoons by Edith Pritchett on its opinion page. It hired right-wing Nixon/Reagan lover Michael Ramirez to draw political cartoons for its opinion page. It refused to make an endorsement in the 2024 election. but it still had Ann.

Herblock Award, Pulitzer Prize, and Rueben Award-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes had been freelancing for the Post for years. She was freelancing for the Post when the excellent Tom Toles retired in 2020. The Post promised to hire a full-time cartoonist to replace Toles who had replaced the legendary Herblock. Many felt the Post would hire Ann full-time as she was the most qualified and deserving. But the Post backtracked (lied) and didn’t hire a staffer. Instead, they brought in a freelancer who worked from Canada.

No offense to Michael de Adder, but this is the legendary Washington Post. The person filling Herblock’s spot should be expected to live in Washington, DC, or at the very least, the United States. I believe political cartoons are better if the person drawing them is actually affected by the issues he or she is drawing about. Ann was living in Washington at the time.

For the past few decades, Ann has been one of the best political cartoonists in the world. The Washington Post never fully respected that, and they disrespected her again this week.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, The Post has been flaky. Bezos issued statements before election day about having high expectations from a second Trump administration. Never mind that Donald Trump has attacked the Post, calling it the “Amazon” Washington Post. Never mind that Trump continues to call journalists the “enemy of the American people.” Never mind that Trump calls legitimate news “fake news” while pushing lies over and over again. Never mind that Trump sues journalism outlets for reporting facts about him. Never mind that Trump threatens and wants to do away with the basic tenets of democracy.

After the election, Bezos and other tech billionaires started dumping money into Trump’s “inauguration” fund with many, such as Bezos, making treks to MAGA-Lardo to kiss Trump’s ass.

As the owner of Amazon, which has government contracts, and with the threat of Elon Musk in a position to make cuts to government spending, it’s in Bezos’ financial interest, or so he believes, to play up to Donald Trump. Jeff Bezos had dinner with Trump, probably sitting in the same spot as all the white nationalists who had dinner with Trump at MAGA-Lardo. Trump was launching a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register for a poll while Bezos was sitting at MAGA-Lardo chomping on his Cobb salad.

This week, Ann drew a cartoon that depicted the billionaires groveling to Trump, and among them was Jeff Bezos. Guess what her editor did with that cartoon? He killed it. Guess what Ann did. She quit.

That’s right. Ann Telnaes got up and quit working for the most prominent publication for political cartoonists. In her substack piece, Why I’m Quitting The Washington Post, Ann, who has been with the Post since 2008, writes, “In all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.”

Ann called the spiking of the cartoon a “gamechanger,” that was “dangerous for a free press.”

She’s correct. When newspaper owners are afraid of presidents to the point they start killing critical political cartoons, a free press is in danger. Bezos and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong both killed editorials endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president over Trump. Why? Because it was bad for business.

Ann’s editor, David Shipley, called her a liar for her “interpretation of events and said in a statement, “Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force,” Mr. Shipley said in the statement, “My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published 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.”

As a political cartoonist who’s worked with editors, I smell bullshit. In my experience, editors LOVE it when cartoons coincide with editorials. Now, these are columns but still, they typically like it when they run together or close together. Shipley says one of those columns had already been published and the second is scheduled for publication. Since one of those hasn’t been published yet, then he should have given deference to Ann’s cartoon, that is if he’s not lying. Ann is a Pulitzer Prize winner. Why would he kill her piece for something else?

Shipley said he respects Ann but he clearly doesn’t.

His excuse is nearly as bad as the paper’s when Bezos killed its endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Trump spent his entire campaign promising to weaponize the Justice Department to go after his enemies. Look at his nominees to lead the DOJ. First, it was Matt Gaetz and now it’s Pam Bondi. His pick to lead the FBI is Kash Patel. These are goons.

Ann took a principled stand that will cost her financially. I can’t think of an outlet that would hire her and pay more than the Post. It may have hurt her professionally as I can’t think of an outlet that would hire her and be more prominent than the Post. But she’s established that she’s a badass.

The last time something like this happened was when the Pittsburgh Gazette fired Rob Rogers for refusing to stop criticizing Donald Trump. His replacement was goosestepping Steve Kelley (who was later quietly let go). Someone should tell the Post that Steve’s available, who’s probably already FedEx’ed his resume.

I drew a cartoon in 2015 when Ted Cruz attacked Ann which provoked thousands of death threats and threats of other despicable things I won’t mention here.

I drew a cartoon in 2019 that featured the firing of Rogers. When Rogers was fired, Michael Cavna, who wrote about cartoon issues did a piece about that. He’s not there anymore to write about Ann’s departure.

I drew a cartoon in 2023 about McClatchy laying off three Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonists on the same day.

And last June, I hit the Post’s editor.

This profession needs more journalists with backbones like Ann Telnaes and Rob Rogers.

When I stand up and speak out for my colleagues, I’m not just speaking out for my profession. I’m also standing up for journalism.

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