His situation was clearly growing intolerable. That’s the whole point of being a cartoonist. But, there is absolutely no reason to be an editorial cartoonist if you don’t have the opportunity to express yourself. Getting a string of cartoons killed is generally not a good harbinger of things to come, and going public with it is a risky gambit. I called him a few days later to express concern about his job security. Given the context of Roseanne Barr’s tweet about Valerie Jarrett - an African-American woman who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama – the cartoon showing a KKK member blaming his racism on “Ambien” was completely within the bounds of fair commentary. I was actually the first one to comment – “That was killed?” I could see absolutely no rationale for killing that cartoon. Newspaper fires cartoonist critical of Trump Rob went public on Facebook that week after the fourth one – an image of someone in a Klan outfit asking a doctor, in a reference to Roseanne Barr’s attempt to explain her racist tweets, “Could it be the Ambien?” – was killed. There were 19 cartoons killed in that span – six in a single week. “When I had lunch with my new boss a few months ago, he informed me that the paper’s publisher believed that the editorial cartoonist was akin to an editorial writer, and that his views should reflect the philosophy of the newspaper,” according to him. Rob’s firing occurred after what he described to The New York Times as months of pressure from his editor. Certainly these events are not equivalent, but for a cartoonist like me, they stand out as the events involving my profession that cause America to pause and take notice.Īs with so many other outrages, America then usually goes back to sleep and pays little attention to the existential threat to editorial cartooning unfolding under their noses.Ī number of Americans are justifiably outraged by Rob’s firing (disclosure: we’re friends). Military authorities carried out targeted raids on the hideouts of kidnappers and other criminal gangs in the state, who are known locally as ‘bandits.Nick Anderson Nick Anderson and Angel DrakeĪnd now, in a different register, there is the Orwellian firing of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoonist, Rob Rogers, after a 25-year career, for doing cartoons critical of President Trump. The directive came after at least 73 students were abducted from a state-run high school in Zamfara’s Maradun district. Mobile network providers in Zamfara state were directed to shut down communications for two weeks “to enable relevant security agencies to carry out required activities towards addressing the security challenge in the state,” the Nigeria Communications Commission said in a letter. In Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, the start of the school term has been pushed back to an unusually late date without explanation, after schools in nearby states were targeted by kidnappers seeking ransoms. Several northwestern states have tried to curb the spate of abductions by banning the sale of fuel in jerry cans and the transport of firewood in trucks in order to disrupt gangs who travel by motorbike and camp in remote places. Insecurity also led to school closures in Nigeria. More than 37 million Nigerian children are due to start the new school year this month, UNICEF said.Īn estimated eight million have had to wait for more than a year for in-person learning after schools were closed due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Schools in Nigerian state shut after mass kidnapping of students by gunmen
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