Washington Post cartoonist resigns after paper rejects Bezos and Trump cartoon
A Pulitzer-Prise winning cartoonist has resigned from The Washington Post after the paper set a “dangerous” precedent by rejecting her sketch.
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A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist has resigned from the Washington Post after the newspaper refused to publish her satirical sketch.
Ann Telnaes’ cartoon depicted the American publication’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos kneeling before Donald Trump offering the president-elect a bag of cash.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong and Mickey Mouse also featured bowing to Trump.
Ms Telnaes, who has worked at the Post since 2008, raged at the “dangerous” decision to knock back her sketch.
“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,” she wrote in an online Substack post. “Until now.”
Ms Telnaes said it was the first time one of her cartoons had been rejected because of the “point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary.”
“That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press,” she added.
She accused Bezos - who bought the newspaper in 2013 - and other media chief executives of “doing their best to curry favour” with Trump.
She claimed the powerful men pictured in her cartoon had “lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations.”
The Washington Post’s editorial page director David Shipley said he respected Ms Telnaes but “must disagree with her interpretation of events.”
“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,” he said in a statement to the NY Post.
Social media users on X were quick to defend the cartoonist.
One person wrote that the cartoonist’s resignation was a “stark reminder of the challenges faced by editorial cartoonists and journalists,” and that its rejection “raises important questions about editorial freedom and the influence of media ownership.”
“Amid the controversy over The Washington Post killing a cartoon it’s important to note that editorial cartoonists are a dying breed at US newspapers. Many positions are being cut as a cost savings and because publishers are increasingly unwilling to upset readers,” another wrote.
Billionaires cozy up to Trump
Ms Telnaes’ departure is the latest in a series of resignations for the embattled paper that has seen key members of the editorial board and staff step down after Bezos killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris in October 2024, on the eve of the US presidential election.
It sparked a reader backlash that resulted in more than 200,000 people cancelling their digital subscriptions, a figure that represented eight per cent of the paper’s paid circulation of roughly 2.5 million subscribers at the time, as reported by NPR.
The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Amazon, Bezos’ billion dollar e-commerce company, would donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, as Bezos was reported to dine with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club.
The move followed in the footsteps of similar $1 million donations announced by tech giants Meta and OpenAi earlier that month, who have similarly met with the president-elect.
In the same month, Disney settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump for $15 million in a widely-dissected decision.
At the time, Former media writer for The Washington Post Paul Farhi wrote on social media that the settlement was “an awful precedent and a huge sellout,” while Democratic Party lawyer Marc E. Elias wrote: “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.”
Originally published as Washington Post cartoonist resigns after paper rejects Bezos and Trump cartoon
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