Comments on: Lee Judge: Endangered Species: Political Cartoonists

By: Alan Gardner

Alan Gardner — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:57:35 +0000

Thanks Lee for the report and I’m glad that it went well. For the record, I enjoy using some of the lost lingo of yesteryears, “woe is me” is in there and “don’t get your knickers in a twist” being one of my favs as well.

By: lee judge

lee judge — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:30:11 +0000

Since my speech at the National Conference of Editorial Writers set this discussion off, I should clarify a couple things: My editor, Miriam Pepper, was hosting the conference here in Kansas City and asked if I’d show my collection of killed cartoons. When the convention brochure came out with my speech entitled, “Making the Case for an Endangered Species: Political Cartoonists” I was surprised, since no one had asked me what I’d planned on saying.

I started by offering to show them a nice, middle-of-the-road collection of cartoons that wouldn’t offend anyone or a collection of cartoons that were killed because they were controversial. Since there was no nice, middle-of-the-road collection of cartoons, I’m lucky they chose the controversial stuff. I then pointed out that they all wanted to see just the kind of thing they won’t put in their papers.

Over the course of the show I remarked on how much they were enjoying the stuff they consider too outrageous to print and, if they really wanted to reach a younger audience, a good cartoonist has the best chance of doing that. It wasn’t a “woe-is-me” speech (who the heck says ‘woe’ anymore anyway?)…It was more of a woe-is-you speech.

I suggested that any paper that uses terms like’balderdash’, ‘poppycock’ and ‘piffle’ and then wonders where all the 18-year-olds went is clueless and needs the help of a cartoonist to connect with its readers. I told them I believed that controversy is good business, that offending a fraction of their audience is better than boring all of them and that their timidity was killing our chance of engaging the demographic they say they want.

This was all greeted with thunderous applause, which I’m assuming, won’t change a thing, but, hey, I took my shot.

I just thought you might like to know what actually took place at the conference.

By: Jeff Darcy

Jeff Darcy — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:04:15 +0000

I think it’s good the Lee is talking to the Editorial writers group about the state of the craft. Usually when cartoonists address job loss they at the same time talk about the pluses Cartoons bring to the paper. {Although I’m sure Editorial writers might not enjoy hearing that cartoons are what draw readers to the editorial page and are often the first thing the reader looks at.} I’ve often thought part of the difficulty for cartoonist is that we’re kinda of like the step kid of the newspaper family. Nobody else at the paper does what we do.We’re not writers. You’re hired and fired by Editors who were once reporters. When an Editor is forced to reduce staff and the choice is between the writer and the Bush doodler..the doodler I think is at the disadvantage even if he or she is more productive than the writer, just because the newsroom and edit-page is run by writers. So the more cartoonists can talk to writer,Editor, and Publisher associations the better.

By: Rick Stromoski

Rick Stromoski — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:52:41 +0000

Eliminating a staff editorial cartoonist has more to do with cost cutting versus the political slant of the cartoonist. It’s much less expensive for a paper to purchase syndicated work at 10 cents on the dollar than to pay someone on staff.

By: Charles Brubaker

Charles Brubaker — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:17:16 +0000

Neal,

LA Times did not replace Ramirez. And yes, he did get a new job at Investor’s Business Daily. He’s their cartoonist and also a senior editor.

By: Dawn Douglass

Dawn Douglass — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:38:04 +0000

To be clear, what I’m saying is a newspaper couldn’t get rid of one without getting rid of the other and if they got rid of both there would certainly be reader uproar. But as it is, like I said, when a partisan cartoonist gets canned — whichever side he’s on — it just feels like “Oh well, that’s fair” or even “Good riddance!”

By: Dawn Douglass

Dawn Douglass — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:34:49 +0000

Good. I’d like to think that the “obligatory” statement was wrong, but nobody rose to challenge it.

In any case, I believe the point still stands that if there is only one cartoonist on staff, that’s a doomed position, whether they are conservative or liberal. It would be much healthier and more sustainable to have two or more cartoonists taking opposing looks at the same issues. Of couse, I do understand that if a newspaper isn’t going to pay for one staff cartoonist, they certainly aren’t going to pay for two. But if they HAD, they just might not being going downhill as quickly.

By: Neal Obermeyer

Neal Obermeyer — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:32:40 +0000

Is he currently out of work?
Did they replace him with a “liberal” cartoonist?

By: DT

DT — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:31:00 +0000

By the way, Neal, Mike Ramirez, notably conservative and the best in the biz in my own humble opinion, lost his job at the LA Times. Perhaps they didn’t say it was for his point of view, but you can’t help notice how left that paper is.

By: Neal Obermeyer

Neal Obermeyer — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:16:16 +0000

I probably need to clarify that my list up above is of conservative cartoonists that I can think of, even though the way I structured my paragraph makes it look like they were laid off because they were conservatives.