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Editorial cartooning Newspaper industry

Baltimore Sun Dismisses KAL – Update

Published: July 1, 2025 1 minute 12 comments
Kevin KAL Kallaugher

note: this story has been updated to include a KAL interview with the Baltimore Brew

After 31 years (1988-2006, 2012-2025) Kevin (KAL) Kallaugher has been let go by The Baltimore Sun.

From KAL:

I am disappointed to announce that after 31 years of award-winning cartoons in The Baltimore Sun, I was abruptly dismissed from the paper on Friday.

It was just a matter of time.

In February of 2024, David Smith, the conservative owner of the Sinclair Broadcasting group purchased the struggling paper. As my politics do not align with the new owners, I assumed my days were numbered.

Especially as, in years prior, I had drawn some blistering cartoons in The Sun about Sinclair Broadcasting and its owner…

Kevin KAL Kallaugher

Read KAL’s full report and relevant cartoons at his KAL Draws the Line Substack.

KAL’s last ed-op cartoon for The Baltimore Sun for June 21, 2025 (dated June 22, 2025 here)

July 2, 2025 Update:

Baltimore Brew headline about KAL’s dismmissal

The Baltimore Brew carries the story and talks to KAL about being released:

Kallaugher, whose biting cartoons have been skewering Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, among other targets over a decades-long career, figures the real reason for his dismissal is his politics.

Kallaugher described a meeting he was asked to attend last December at Sinclair headquarters in Hunt Valley at which Smith discussed his plan to hire a local-topics-only cartoonist.

“He says, ‘The problem is the paper’s got this ultra-liberal cartoonist,’ and then I realized, he didn’t know he was talking to me,” Kallaugher recalled, chuckling.

Kallaugher declined to restrict his weekly cartoon to local matters (“We’re living in the most pivotal time in American history in a century. I’m not gonna sit that out”) and figured, since then, that his days were numbered.

Responding after publication, Sun publisher and editor-in-chief Trif Alatzas sent the following statement:

“We appreciate KAL’s work on The Sun’s pages during these many years. At this time we have decided to allocate our freelance budget to other areas. We will continue to highlight national and international topics through the work of syndicated editorial cartoonists.”

When The Sun shone on and welcomed KAL in 1988

KAL’s first editorial cartoon for The Baltimore Sun – December 4, 1988
The Baltimore Sun welcomes KAL – December 4, 1988

KAL as cover feature for Sun Magazine – December 4, 1988
Sun Magazine feature stories about KAL and Sun’s history of editorial cartoonists – December 4, 1988

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Comments 12

  2. There goes a great man. I got several of his books autographed.

    Sinclair sucks.

  3. The Sun keeps asking me to subscribe to it. Fat chance after this. Sinclair has stripped everything out of the Sun that brought me to it in the first place years ago.

  4. If I ran out of TP I would not buy a “my pillow” or now the Baltimore Sun as a substitute. Would prefer to use poison ivy.

  5. Democracy dies in darkness. I’m violently ill.

  6. Sinclair sucks. The DoJ has slowly been killing newspapers and other local media for decades.

  7. Lost for words – Kal is one of the most respected and revered editorial cartoonists on the planet. A fearsome defender of truth, democracy and a bright light In the dark days that have blanketed America. The Sun will be the poorer for this decision.

  8. The Sun has gone down. Yet another huge casualty of the devastating MAGA tsunami, washing away erudite analysis in ink from its pages until there’s nothing left but a bland, lukewarm pulp dripping in mediocrity.

  9. If you can’t see or hear it, then it doesn’t matter or even exist. You can’t complain about a problem you don’t know about. The light is fading rapidly leaving us prey to the armies of the night.

  10. The Sun died a long time ago — this was just its death rattle.

    (And now that Paramount just paid a bribe to Trump… er, settled his bogus lawsuit that is… CBS News and 60 Minutes are now toast as well.)

  11. The dismissal followed the 2024 acquisition of the paper by David D. Smith

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