Another Scary and Shortsighted Decision
July 1, 2019
On Friday, Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder announced he was let go from several newspapers that are published in New Brunswick, Canada. The decision to stop publishing De Adder’s work comes right after one of his cartoons, featuring Trump and Oscar Alberto Martinez and Angie Valeria Martinez (the father and daughter wdrowned in the Rio Grande) went viral last week.
Wes Tyrell, president of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists responds:
Cartoonist Michael de Adder was let go from his job drawing editorial cartoons for all the major New Brunswick newspapers 24 hours after his Donald Trump cartoon went viral on social media, a job he held for 17 years.
Although he has stated there was no reason given for his firing, the timing was no coincidence.
Michael told me once that not only were the J.D. Irving owned New Brunswick newspapers challenging to work for, but there were a series of taboo subjects he could not touch. One of these taboo subjects was Donald Trump.
Brunswick News Inc. states their decision to stop publishing De Adder’s work is not in any way related to the Trump cartoon.
As for our own response, it is exactly the same as our reaction to the firing of Chappatte and Heng from the New York Times: silencing the voice of a brilliant and influential cartoonist in any publication is a scary and shortsighted decision.
DeAdder himself said on Twitter he was a freelancer for those papers, technically he wasn't fired. No reason was given.
The cartoon went viral on social media, the papers didn't even print it.
Maybe they don't like paying for content everyone can get for free before they print it.
And there you go, another budget cut.
These papers won't probably use cartoons anymore. Newspapers don't like cartoonists, even when they use(d) them.
When budget cuts come the cartoonist is the first one OUT.
Another US media group ended cartoonists last month. Nobody is talking of that. So the 2-3 last ones dropped in July... are quite anecdotal to the 300 dropped in 2009-2010 just in the US.
Cartoons have been massively disappearing from US and Canadian papers for 10 years now... It has been OLD NEWS for 10 years now... Way before Trump was elected. So suggesting Trump is behind cartoon censorship doesn't make sense. Papers woud stop printing anti-Trump cartoons but keep writting anti-Trump stories? That's what sells those papers. So letting people believe it's because of Trump helps cutting cartoonists while hitting on Trump at the same time. Smart.
I believe more will follow this model.
This guy has been front page of scandal press whole his life, should we believe he's afraid of 2 cartoonists in Europe and another one in provincial local press in Canada?
Posted by: NEMØ | July 2, 2019 at 11:53 PM