Washington Post cartoonist resigns after cartoon satirising newspaper's owner Jeff Bezos and Trump rejected
Cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned after the Washington Post rejected a cartoon featuring owner Jess Bezos. (Reuters: Paul Ellis/Pool)
In short:
A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist has resigned from the Washington Post, saying her editor refused to publish a sketch satirising the newspaper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos.
Mr Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, was depicted in a cartoon by Ann Telnaes offering money and bowing to Donald Trump alongside other tech billionaires.
What's next?
The newspaper rejected Telnaes's view of events and said the rejection was because other columns had already covered the issue.
A cartoonist at the Washington Post has resigned after the newspaper refused to publish a sketch featuring the publication's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, satirised bowing before Donald Trump.
"I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations — and some differences — about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I've never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at," Ann Telnaes wrote on her Substack blog.
"Until now."
Telanes had created a sketch depicting Amazon founder Mr Bezos offering bags of money and kneeling before a giant statue of US president-elect Donald Trump alongside Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, LA Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong and Mickey Mouse.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, who has worked for the Washington Post since 2008, said her editor killed the sketch "because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon's commentary" and said that was dangerous for a free press.
"The cartoon that was killed criticises the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favour with incoming president-elect Trump," Telnaes said.
"As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable."
The working sketch of Telnaes's proposed cartoon, which shows Jeff Bezos and other tech tycoons kneeling before Donald Trump. (Ann Telnaes)
"For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post," she wrote.
Jeff Bezos, the world's second-richest man, bought the newspaper in 2013.
David Shipley, the newspaper's editorial page editor, said in a statement he disagreed with Telanes's "interpretation of events".
Mr Shipley said he decided against publishing the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and was set to publish another.
"Not every editorial judgement is a reflection of a malign force … The only bias was against repetition," Mr Shipley said.
Amazon donates to Trump
Mr Bezos's billion-dollar e-commerce company Amazon confirmed in December it would donate $US1 million ($1.6 million) to Trump's inauguration fund, joining Meta and OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) in conciliatory moves towards the incoming president-elect.
The Post has reported on Mr Bezos's links to Donald Trump, including articles detailing Mr Bezos's attendance at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort with Tesla CEO Elon Musk following the US election in December.
Trump has also met with Mr Zuckerberg, founder of Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the Post noted.
Mr Bezos wrote an op-ed for the paper in the lead-up to the US election that defended the newspaper's lack of endorsement of either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump as president.
Mr Bezos argued endorsements did nothing but create a perception of bias, and said "no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here" with either the Trump or Harris campaigns.
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a statement on Saturday accusing the Post of "political cowardice" and asking other cartoonists to post Telnaes's sketch with the hashtag #StandWithAnn in a show of solidarity.
"Tyranny ends at pen point," the association said.
"It thrives in the dark, and the Washington Post simply closed its eyes and gave in like a punch-drunk boxer."
ABC/Wires