7 January 2025
Democracy at risk: American cartoonist Ann Telnaes censored
American cartoonist Ann Telnaes, a columnist for the Washington Post since 2008 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, announced her resignation on 4 January. The reason? The newspaper’s unprecedented refusal to publish one of her cartoons because of its message.
Published on the cartoonist’s blog, the cartoon shows powerful people trying to curry favour with the future American president in an equally unprecedented context of growing threats to American democracy, of which freedom of the press is one of the cardinal points. It shows Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, kneeling with a bag bearing the dollar sign in front of a statue of Donald Trump.
As pointed out in an article published in Le Monde on 4 January, Amazon donated 1 million dollars to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund and Jeff Bezos recently travelled to Mar-a-Lago, the US President’s residence in Florida.
Although sketches have occasionally been rejected or asked for revisions, Ann Telnaes points out that this has never happened to her because of the point of view inherent in the commentary on the drawing. This unprecedented censorship is symptomatic of an increasingly marked decline in the freedom and independence of the press in the United States, which should alert us all to what it portends in terms of respect for the rules of the democratic game.
When asked about this, The Washington Post denies any censorship and says it wanted to avoid repetition, highlighting the coverage of the subject in its pages.
With her resignation, Anne Telnaes is refusing to give up:
‘As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold the powerful to account. For the first time, my editor-in-chief has prevented me from doing this essential work. So I’ve decided to leave the Washington Post. I doubt that my decision will cause much of a stir… because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will never stop speaking truth to power through my drawings, because as they say, ‘democracy dies in darkness’.
Cartooning for Peace salutes Ann Telnaes’ determination, expresses its solidarity and shares her concern about a case of censorship that “changes the situation and represents a danger for press freedom”.
Description of the cartoon: Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post), Mark Zuckerberg (boss of Facebook), Sam Altman (boss of OpenAI), Patrick Soon-Shiong (owner of the Los Angeles Times) and Mickey Mouse (representing the Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC News) ‘seeking the favours of Donald Trump’.
