Editorial cartooning

Interviewed: Breen on Living in the Shadows project

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Alan Gardner January 19, 2011 1 minute 2 comments

Michael Cavna interviewed San Diego Union-Tribune editorial cartoonist Steve Breen about his “Living in the Shadows” project.

MICHAEL CAVNA: Did you do the reporting for your cartoon, Steve, or was that gathered by other journalists as part of the Union-Tribune’s larger immigration coverage?

STEVE BREEN: This cartoon took months of work here and there, but I feel strongly about the topic so I didn’t mind the sweat. Everything fell in place in the end.

Like most journalism projects these days, it was basically a one-man show. I conceived, wrote and drew it on my own. Our fantastic web guy Andrew Kleske did the programming for the mouse-rollover effect. I also asked two local migrant-rights groups to hand out the questionnaires, which I wrote. I figured people could be afraid that I would expose” them if I asked the questions myself. I also feared I would not get honest responses. But I didn’t change any of the information I collected.