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Brian McGrory, when he was the editor of the Boston Globe, liked to say the purpose of journalism is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” For years, the Washington Post adhered to that principle. It was the Post that brought news to America and the world of Watergate, thanks to the tireless efforts of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. It can be argued that their reporting — and the courage of the owner and publisher of the Washington Post — was what led to the downfall of Richard Nixon. It followed the courageous decision by the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers, which played a significant role in bringing America’s shameful mishandling of the Vietnamese war to an end.
For years, the motto of the Washington Post has been “Democracy Dies In Darkness.” But when Ann Telnaes, who was a political cartoonist for the Post for 16 years, had one of her cartoons rejected recently, she decided enough was enough. She quit to pursue her own idea of what journalism should look like by creating her own media channel on Substack, where her first post explained her decision.
“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.”
It may be that last part that rankled the editorial staff at the Post. After all, it is one thing to say the emperor is wearing no clothes when you are a child, but calling out the boss for being a jock-sniffing buffoon may not be a good career move. It takes courage to do that, something the group of suck-ups depicted in her cartoon would know nothing about.
Journalism Is Not Entertainment
Over the years I have watched my overseas colleagues risk their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives to expose injustices and hold their countries’ leaders accountable. As a member of the Advisory board for the Geneva based Freedom Cartoonists Foundation and a former board member of Cartoonists Rights, I believe that editorial cartoonists are vital for civic debate and have an essential role in journalism.
There will be people who say, “Hey, you work for a company and that company has the right to expect employees to adhere to what’s good for the company.” That’s true except we’re talking about news organizations that have public obligations and who are obliged to nurture a free press in a democracy. Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press — and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press.
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 critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, “Democracy dies in darkness.”
The Knock-On Effects Of Courage
Courage has a way of empowering others to also stand up and say “Enough!” This week, two other long-time Washington Post journalism professionals — Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen — also resigned from the Post to form their own independent journalism channel, The Contrarian. The irony here is that Rubin is known as a conservative voice. If she is horrified by what conservatism has become under the influence of MAGAlomaniacs, perhaps the rest of us should be concerned as well.
For readers who ask, “What does this have to do with clean technologies?” the answer is “Everything.” The next administration intends to end support for renewable energy, increase tailpipe emissions, and flood the world with oil and methane from America. It also plans the most sweeping assault on journalism in the nation’s history. The more voices who oppose such policies are silenced, the more extreme those measures will become.
In her introductory post, Rubin wrote,
Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, protecting and advancing democracy. The Washington Post’s billionaire owner and enlisted management are among the offenders. They have undercut the values central to The Post’s mission and that of all journalism: integrity, courage, and independence. I cannot justify remaining at The Post. Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires accommodate and enable the most acute threat to American democracy — Donald Trump — at a time when a vibrant free press is more essential than ever to our democracy’s survival and capacity to thrive.
The decay and compromised principles of corporate and billionaire-owned media underscore the urgent need for alternatives. Americans are eager for innovative and independent journalism that offers lively, unflinching coverage free from cant, conflicts of interest and moral equivocation. Which is why I am so thrilled to simultaneously announce this new outlet, The Contrarian: Not Owned by Anybody.
What especially stuck in her craw was that Jeff Bezos forked over $1 million to help fund the upcoming inaugural.
None of us could imagine Katharine Graham (former owners of the Washington Post) sending LBJ or Nixon a $1M check. It would have been, as it is now, a fundamental betrayal of a great American newspaper. Defense of the First Amendment is incompatible with funding or cheerleading for the very person who seeks to ‘drastically undermine the institutions tasked with reporting on his coming administration.’
The Post’s downfall is hardly unique. ABC, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, and corporate-owned cable TV networks — which have scrambled to enlist Trump-friendly voices — are catering to powerful interests, and have profound corporate conflicts. Instead of guarding their independence, they join financial leaders, politicians and other public figures currying favor with Trump and his orbit. Through classic anticipatory obedience — a dangerous but all too familiar pattern — they normalize the authoritarian menace. If Trump has taken ‘attacks on the press to an entirely new level, softening the ground for an erosion of robust press freedom,’ as The Post reported, it is because he finds insufficient resistance. Instead, owners whose outlets he targets quite literally rewarded him.
Collaborators, Fellow Travelers, & Journalists
Following the Second World War, Nazi collaborators were exposed and subjected to untold abuse. Yet for many of them, the choice to work with the invaders was not because of shared goals but because of a need to survive. Sadly, we cannot know who the winners and losers will be in any conflict until much later. America has now arrived at a similar inflection point, in which all of us will be asked to choose sides and opposition voices will be ruthlessly suppressed. No one thought this could ever happen in America, but it is happening at this very moment. Journalism is one antidote to the onslaught against a civil society.
There is little any of us can do individually, but it is good to know there are journalism professionals like Jennifer Rubin and Ann Telnaes who are committed to making the truth accessible for those who want to hear it. They can use all the support they can get. Let’s give it to them.
Featured image: Photo by appshunter.io on Unsplash
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