Herb Block Foundation Condemns Baltimore Sun AI Cartoons

Comments ⁶

1. Jeff Petersen

   Looking at the AI “cartoons” you’ve shown on this site, the overwhelming takeaway is that the owner of the Sun and Sinclair Broadcasting wants only to pay some minimum wage computer jockey to create “cartoons” reflecting the owner’s ass-kissing for “tough on crime” politicians while slurring politicians who are spending public dollars on the public.

2. Atanwat

   That is a truly marvelous letter. It’s a real shame that the Teflon-faced managers and owners of the Baltimore Sun are going to ignore it. Unlike the departure of Ann Telnaes from the Washington Post, which led to a significant number of subscription cancellations, I doubt that many Sun readers will cancel their subscriptions over this issue. (Besides, all those who had the morals to do so would already have cancelled when KAL was fired.)

   1. Jerri

      Many subscribers left the Baltimore Sun years ago – I know I did – when venture capital bought the parent company and content greatly deteriorated. I read the Sun for 40 years and KAL is the standard by which I measure editorial cartoonists. He is a master.

3. John Hines

   Dissent will be marginalized and it’s proponents incarcerated or sued into destitution until it disappears. Except that never happens, in the long run. Pressure-cookers explode when too much heat is applied. Politics is about making your pile while hoping the jury-rigging doesn’t collapse before you get it.

4. mike baldwin

   It’s another case of ‘be careful what you wish for.”
   When I worked in a newsroom and an editor would make a suggestion for a cartoon, most of their suggestions were about as bizarre and convoluted as the Ai cartoon. There was the odd writer/ editor, who had a fluent visual imagination, but most would describe the first chapter of a short story as opposed to a single panel cartoon, and had no idea how to boil it down to clear and simple simple image. AI has given them the opportunity to express just how visually incoherent they are. I imagine that because the result of their prompts gives them something close to what they were asking for, they see it as wonderful. Somehow I don’t think their audience/readers will be quite as impressed. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. The editors I worked with, (years ago) would understand this, perhaps today’s editors do not.

5. Michael Dooley

   news update:

   https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2026/09/13/a-i-slops-over-into-political-cartooning-at-the-baltimore-sun/