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Editorial cartooning

Bob Whitmore Reinstated as Staff Cartoonist

Published: August 18, 2025 1 minute 10 comments

Creative Loafing Tampa reinstated Bob Whitmore today as staff cartoonist after hundreds of readers flooded the email inboxes of corporate and local publishers over their decision to fire him last week over a cartoon that two readers complained was “anti-Semitic.”

The saga began after the paper published Bob’s cartoon criticizing Israel’s food blockade to Gaza. Within days the paper received two letters calling the cartoon “anti-Semitic.” The complaints made their way up the paper’s hierarchy. After briefly considering whether to suspend Bob and issue an apology, the paper’s publisher James Howard and its corporate publisher Michael Wagner opted to fire Bob over the objections of Bob’s editor, Ray Roa.

© Bob Whitmore

In the days after, readers began flooding emails to the paper and corporate owner after Bob posted a notice on his Facebook page that he had been sacked. He also went on the local radio station, WMNF, to explain what happened.

Over the weekend Bob expressed understanding that anytime a cartoonist creates a cartoon involving a religion, it’s like touching a third rail but still maintained that the cartoon cannot be construed as anti-Semitic.

First of all, by every definition of antisemitism, this is not antisemitism, even how the State Department defines as antisemitism, this is not antisemitism. Is it offensive? Maybe it is to you. Is it sacrilegious? Some people might find it sacrilegious, but that is all fair game for satirical cartooning.

The public’s reaction was enough to bring Roa and the publishers back to the table to find a way forward. At the end of the meeting the two publishers deferred the decision whether to re-instate Bob to Roa, which he did. Bob reacted, “I couldn’t be happier.”

Reflecting on the last few days, Bob says he firmly believed that things would work out regardless of the paper’s decision to take him back or not.

This has been sort of a tough thing to go through. I believe that everything happens for a reason and something good will come out of this in the end. I feel good about it. And standing up for ourselves as cartoonists. The power of the cartoon is phenomenal. And I’m proud to be a part of that.

Fans of Bob’s work can expect his return in the Aug. 22 edition, where he’ll have two cartoons.

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Comments 10

  1. These are the sort of “publishers” who would have sacked Woodward and Bernstein.

    1. Let’s be happy they changed their minds. It’s a win! That doesn’t happen often.

  2. It is not antisemitic to criticize the nation of Israel. It’s a nation, not a religion. A nation has policies and actions. Some of them are bad.

  4. Sometimes, the good guys win.

    Bob Whitmore’s cartoon is not anti Semitic.. It criticizes the policies of the nation of Israel, not the Jewish religion.

    Two complaints were enough to get him fired but the positive response was enough to get him back. that is the best news I’ve heard about political cartooning for a long while.

  5. Only two complaints got him fired? Then they wanted to publish the cartoonist but not the editor who chose to publish it? And as others have pointed out, it’s NOT antisemitic to criticize Israel. I’m glad the publishers reversed their decision, but what such bullshit.

  6. Sorry, I meant to say, “they wanted to PUNISH the cartoonist but not the editor who chose to publish it.” I blame the ads that keep taking my cursor out of the text box.

    1. I KNOW, it’s frustrating as heck.

  7. Ever since the Holocaust there’s been nothing more antisemitic than the genocidal behaviour of the Israeli state against the people of Palestine in the name of Judaism.

    That defenders of such atrocities are offended by cartoons but not the genocide speaks volumes about themselves, and that editors or publishers take heed of such offense is indicative of all that is wrong with journalism today.

  8. Right on, John Curtis. The way ” anti- semitism ” has been weaponized against any legitimate criticism of the genocidal government of Israel does Jewish people no favours. It just adds another layer to the revulsion that people feel toward the policies of the Netanyahu ‘s government.

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