Roger Childs: Freedom of the press includes freedom of cartooning

Jeff Bezos can’t handle the criticism

I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’ –Cartoonist/journalist Ann Telnaes

Freedom of cartooning

From the late 1920s Dunedin-born Kiwi cartoonist David Low worked in London for the conservative Daily Express on the condition that he have ‘complete freedom in the selection and treatment of subject-matter’. He was a ferocious opponent of appeasement in the 1930s and his cartoons were in marked contrast to the paper’s editorials. The owners knew that Low caricatures sold papers as many readers always looked first at the day’s cartoon.

Recently, Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned because the paper’s owner and Trump supporter Jeff Bezos would not allow to be published her cartoon showing him and two other fawning billionaires offering cash to the president-elect. A follow-up cartoon published elsewhere, made a telling point about limiting cartoonist’s freedom.

Tom Scott, when working for The Dominion once told the editor, that “if you don’t print my cartoon I’m off.” He added “because I earn more than you!”

The attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine’s office in Paris in January 2015 focused the collective attention of the world on cartoonists and the tension that exists between the right of freedom of expression and the responsibilities that come with it says Scottish cartoonist, Terry Anderson.

Around the world, notably in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East cartoonists are often threatened and some have ended up in jail. Here’s what happened in Turkey a few years ago.

Musa Kart worked for the Cumhuriyet newspaper in Istanbul. Turkey’s authoritarian ruler Recep Erdoğan objected to being portrayed as a kitten and a hologram by the cartoonist. He has been keen to prosecute Musa for sedition and has even suggested that this “crime” should one day be punishable with the death penalty! A court case followed.

In 1999 the Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) was set up to support cartoonists under political pressure and to promote their right to freedom of expression.

Wanting the Mainstream Media on their side

Here in New Zealand, former prime minister Jacinda Ardern bribed the media with tens of millions in cash in exchange for favourable “treatment” of the government and support for Labour’s version of the Treaty of Waitangi. So, we are very familiar in this country with a highly dishonest and compliant media. But wanting to interfere with a free fourth estate is not limited to Leftist regimes.

President-elect Donald Trump claims that the U.S. Leftist media is corrupt. In December 2024, according to Al Jazeera, Trump filed a lawsuit accusing a newspaper (The Des Moines Register) and a polling firm of engaging in “brazen election interference” by publishing a pre-election poll that well underestimated his popularity.

The bottom line on press freedom should not be who’s right or wrong, but the ability of the media to be to be able to express its view in words or cartoons without interference.

Taking a stand – the brave Ann Telnaes

A lot of people don’t realize that … we’re journalists. We’re opinion journalists, but we are journalists. And that is our job as editorial cartoonists: to bring up sometimes uncomfortable truths.

The very rich Amazon owner, Jeff Bezos would not accept being lampooned in his own paper. So Ann Telnaes was off. She received plenty of support from across the country and the World. The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists condemned The Washington Post’s decision, accusing the newspaper of “craven censorship” and “political cowardice.”

Last month, Bezos made his political inclinations obvious when he dined with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and announced that Amazon would donate $1 million to the President-elect’s inauguration fund. The other two “three wise men” — Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman — offered cash to Trump in the cartoon have also committed to financial aid. So Telnaes’ cartoon was highly relevant.

Brilliant NZ cartoonist Garrick Tremain, at the time the Otago Daily Times‘ house cartoonist was sanctioned by the Leftist/Wokeist establishment for this cartoon in 2019 so he quit and instead produced numerous cartoons critical of the Jacinda regime for the next 4 years, many of them reposted by WW.

Roger Childs is a writer and freelance journalist. He is a former history and geography teacher, who wrote or co-authored 10 school textbooks. This article was first published HERE