Sydney Morning Herald: The End of the Political Cartoonist?
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Jordan Baker of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote a lengthy article delving into historical and current risks of working as a political cartoonist. Speaking with editorial cartoonists Mark Knight, Cathy Wilcox, and Jess Harwood they surface issues like crossing powerful politicians, dealing with angry readers, and in the age of social media, having a cartoon become controversial well outside of its intended audience.
In the halcyon days, there were dozens of full-time cartoonists in Australia. Their ranks began thinning with the digital transition about 20 years ago. News organisations still struggle to make cartoons work online. The printed cartoon sits on the opinion pages, surrounded by letters and editorials. Regular readers understood the context. “If you’ve read yesterday’s paper, if you’re in the news cycle, you could see [the meaning] immediately,” says Phiddian.
Without wide knowledge of current affairs – to a dip-in, dip-out digital reader, for example – cartoons can be hit-and-miss. “To get a joke you’ve got to have the context in your head, that’s why looking at cartoons from 20, 50 years ago takes an awful lot of explanation,” Phiddian says.
Regarding the new danger of a cartooning posted on social media getting negative attention from an international audience…
Knight learned this the hard way when he drew a cartoon of tennis star Serena Williams spitting the dummy after an on-court tantrum in 2018. “The cartoon didn’t utter a mention here; I put it on Twitter, it went to America, and it dropped into racial politics in America,” he tells this masthead. Among the critics were Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling and The Washington Post, which said it reflected “dehumanising Jim Crow caricatures” (the Press Council ruled it did not breach media standards).
Sobering conclusion:
These challenges may be too much for the political cartoon to survive in its present form, but Phiddian is optimistic. “There’s an awful lot of cartooning going on,” he says. “The cartoon function is alive and well and probably always will be, but the host organism [newspapers] is dying. I’m sure it will survive newspapers. I just can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to look like.”
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