While I agree 100% with the sentiment expressed here, as a former reporter/editor of four-plus decades, I am struggling to think of ANY cartoonist that would be allowed to lampoon the actual owner of the paper they worked for. In my experience, the ownership level has never really loved “freedom of expression” but reluctantly allowed it when aimed at other public figures. But if you point the finger back at THEM it’s a red line.
The ONLY way we get out of the mess Trump voters have put us in is for more people to do what Telnaes did and refuse to participate in the destruction of what's good about American by people who have no moral compass.
I recently visited the Lincoln Museum, Springfield, iL. An entire area is dedicated to the political cartoons of Lincoln's time. The museum offers an immersion and interactive experience but the cartoons on the walls were a highlight of my visit. Poignant cartoons are not new. Have we all become so fragile that different thoughts are corporately censored? I am no fan of Jeff Bezos and proud to not have an Amazon account. Thanks Arnie, another thoughtful read.
Arnie: I have hanging on my living room wall in my apartment in Portland, Ore. a cartoon by then-San Bernardino Sun cartoonist Ben Dib (Khalil Bendib) that you killed!
It’s a great cartoon from 1989 when California passed the Assault Weapon Ban. It shows a man and woman in bed. Behind them on the wall are two small pieces of art — one a picture of a gun and another with the motto “Home is where the gun is.”
The woman in bed looks disappointed. The man next to her wears an NRA arm band and is holding a long-barreled assault rifle. The barrel is drooping, kind of flaccid-like. The bed spread has the words scrawled over it: “Assault Weapon Ban Okayed.”
I can see why you might have thought the cartoon wasn't worth the pushback it would have caused. I, as a gun owner, thought the cartoon was hilarious.
After you rejected the cartoon, Khalil signed it and gave it to me. Not as many people have seen it on my living room wall as would have seen it in The Sun. But those who look at it usually smile.
A large part of being an editor is making judgments. You can’t please everyone. The Telnaes cartoon didn’t sound that original to me.
Arnold: How could the Iowa Writers Collaborative use editorial cartoonists’ skills? Do any cartoonists use Substack? I subscribe to Gocomics.com, which has political cartoons (as well as all my favorites), but I can’t quite envision how Substack could help the lone cartoonist. Perhaps I am just uninformed?
When this controversy came to light, one of the arguments against Telnaes' cartoon was that the topic had been covered a couple of times. Smoke screen? Perhaps. But as another newspaper editor once told me, "What's the first word in NEWSpaper?" Why not another attempt? Everybody's journalilstic work gets sent back to the drawing board at some point, does it not? If so, why not another go? Or is there more to the story?
While I agree 100% with the sentiment expressed here, as a former reporter/editor of four-plus decades, I am struggling to think of ANY cartoonist that would be allowed to lampoon the actual owner of the paper they worked for. In my experience, the ownership level has never really loved “freedom of expression” but reluctantly allowed it when aimed at other public figures. But if you point the finger back at THEM it’s a red line.
The ONLY way we get out of the mess Trump voters have put us in is for more people to do what Telnaes did and refuse to participate in the destruction of what's good about American by people who have no moral compass.
I recently visited the Lincoln Museum, Springfield, iL. An entire area is dedicated to the political cartoons of Lincoln's time. The museum offers an immersion and interactive experience but the cartoons on the walls were a highlight of my visit. Poignant cartoons are not new. Have we all become so fragile that different thoughts are corporately censored? I am no fan of Jeff Bezos and proud to not have an Amazon account. Thanks Arnie, another thoughtful read.
Arnie: I have hanging on my living room wall in my apartment in Portland, Ore. a cartoon by then-San Bernardino Sun cartoonist Ben Dib (Khalil Bendib) that you killed!
It’s a great cartoon from 1989 when California passed the Assault Weapon Ban. It shows a man and woman in bed. Behind them on the wall are two small pieces of art — one a picture of a gun and another with the motto “Home is where the gun is.”
The woman in bed looks disappointed. The man next to her wears an NRA arm band and is holding a long-barreled assault rifle. The barrel is drooping, kind of flaccid-like. The bed spread has the words scrawled over it: “Assault Weapon Ban Okayed.”
I can see why you might have thought the cartoon wasn't worth the pushback it would have caused. I, as a gun owner, thought the cartoon was hilarious.
After you rejected the cartoon, Khalil signed it and gave it to me. Not as many people have seen it on my living room wall as would have seen it in The Sun. But those who look at it usually smile.
A large part of being an editor is making judgments. You can’t please everyone. The Telnaes cartoon didn’t sound that original to me.
Arnold: How could the Iowa Writers Collaborative use editorial cartoonists’ skills? Do any cartoonists use Substack? I subscribe to Gocomics.com, which has political cartoons (as well as all my favorites), but I can’t quite envision how Substack could help the lone cartoonist. Perhaps I am just uninformed?
When this controversy came to light, one of the arguments against Telnaes' cartoon was that the topic had been covered a couple of times. Smoke screen? Perhaps. But as another newspaper editor once told me, "What's the first word in NEWSpaper?" Why not another attempt? Everybody's journalilstic work gets sent back to the drawing board at some point, does it not? If so, why not another go? Or is there more to the story?