Mike Peterson in The Daily Cartoonist.
(Jack Ohman — Pulitzer Prize, 2016)
(Joel Pett — Pulitzer Prize, 2000)
(Kevin Siers — Pulitzer Prize, 2014)
The McClatchy chain of newspapers, which has been struggling in bankruptcy for more than three years, has decided to cut costs by eliminating three of the USA’s leading editorial cartoonists.You can click on the above links to view their Pulitzer entries.
Jack Ohman and Joel Pett are syndicated by Tribun and Kevin Siers gets some additional distribution through Cagle, but you need to recognize that that isn’t the same as having a job at a major paper.
The trio is expected to make the trip toin San Francisco this October, when the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists has its convention.
Newspapers used to be community leaders, but, then, newspapers used to be locally owned by passionate entrepreneurs, not by distant bean-counting hedge funds.
Even publishers who didn’t understand editorial cartoons knew their value, because they heard people talking about them in the grocery store and at church and at Rotary and on the golf course.
Richard Thompson, had long since given the entire industry a paddling for losing focus and for attempting to adapt to “changing readers’ habits” they have been following rather than directing.
But quality is irrelevant.
According to a letter the Charlotte Observer received from the chain’s opinion editor, the newspapers will simply no longer feature editorial cartoons on a daily basis.
We made this decision based on changing reader habits and our relentless focus on providing the communities we serve with local news and information they can’t get elsewhere.
It may not leave you sleeping in the park and eating out of Dumpsters, but it sure means tightening your belt and thinking hard about how you spend your grocery money.
Ohman is Association of American Editorial Cartoonists president and hosting the thing, lucky devil.
Newspapers used to be community leaders, but, then, newspapers used to be locally owned by passionate entrepreneurs, not by distant bean-counting hedge funds.
Even publishers who didn’t understand editorial cartoons knew their value, because they heard people talking about them in the grocery store and at church and at Rotary and on the golf course.
They knew that a good cartoonist was a solid connection between the newspaper and its readers.
Keeping a cartoonist on staff was good business, back when newspapers made an effort to matter.
Keeping a cartoonist on staff was good business, back when newspapers made an effort to matter.
UPDATE
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