Press cartoonist Ann Telnaes announced that she had resigned from Washington Postdue to management’s rejection of a caricature in which it criticized the daily’s owner, Jeff Bezos, for seeking to ” curry favor with Donald Trump “.
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The drawing, published Friday on the designer’s blog, shows the founder of Amazon on his knees handing a bag bearing the dollar sign to a statue representing Donald Trump. In mid-December, Amazon donated one million dollars to the organization fund for the inauguration of the president-elect on January 20. And Jeff Bezos recently made a trip to Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of the Republican who promised to “ to sort out » the media with legal proceedings.
Designer for the Washington Post since 2008 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for press cartoons, Ann Telnaes explains in an article on his blog not have “ never had a design rejected » because of the subject matter she had chosen to depict, “ until now “. “ The cartoon that was suppressed criticizes the tech and media bosses and billionaires who are doing everything to curry favor with the president-elect “, she explains.
“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that job. So I have decided to leave the Washington Post” — Ann Telnaes, after drawing this cartoon, which included the image of a supplicant Jeff Bezos
—Bill Grueskin (@bgrueskin.bsky.social) January 4, 2025 at 02:07
In the drawing, Jeff Bezos is alongside Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; the boss of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, Sam Altman; and the owner of the Los Angeles TimesPatrick Soon-Shiong. A little further on, a prostrate Mickey Mouse represents the Walt Disney Company, itself owner of ABC News. The channel had agreed to pay $15 million to end a defamation proceeding brought by Donald Trump.
Even before beginning his second term, the Republican signaled his intention to launch an avalanche of complaints against the media, which he calls “ enemies of the people “. Many lawyers believe that many procedures will not succeed, but that they risk creating an effect of intimidation and potential self-censorship.
Also read“Warning signals are increasing” for the American press at the dawn of Donald Trump’s second term
Asked by AFP, the Washington Post disputed Ann Telnaes’ version. Saying that he respected the designer and all her contribution to daily life, the head of the editorial pages David Shipley affirmed that his decision to reject the drawing had been “ guided by the fact that we had just published an editorial on the same subject » and that another, satirical, was already planned. “ The only bias was to oppose the repetition “, he said.
Jeff Bezos, who during Donald Trump’s first term opposed the Republican on defense contracts, had prevented the Washington Post before the November election to call to vote for Kamala Harriswhile voting recommendations by editorial boards are a tradition in the United States. His space company, Blue Origin, is also engaged in a race with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to win public contracts.