Pando Daily hires Ted Rall as staff cartoonist

Ted Rall has announced that Pando Daily, an online news site with a focus on Silicon Valley, has hired him full-time to draw “editorial cartoons, spot illustrations and comix journalism”.

From his blog:

Having witnessed the disintegration of print media since before there was an Internet, mostly due to terrible management decisions, I?m thrilled to join a news organization that is forward-looking, gutsy and smart. It says a lot about Pando?s understanding of the value of visual media that, while newspapers and magazines fire cartoonists, they?re hiring them. This will be first full-time job as a cartoonist, and I couldn?t be happier.

Editorial cartooning has been dying/getting killed, so my hiring ? coupled with that of Matt Bors at Medium last year ? points the way to a possible way out of the print newspaper trap. Lots of websites that can obviously afford to hire writers ? Salon, Slate, HuffPo, etc. ? can easily afford to take on cartoonists?and they should, because cartoons are popular online, and provide a type of commentary no other medium can replicate.

As noted, last fall Matt Bors was hired by Medium, who in turn has contracted a number of other cartoonists. The sample size is a bit small to declare a trend, but at least we’re seeing cartoonists picking up staff jobs again.

6 thoughts on “Pando Daily hires Ted Rall as staff cartoonist

  1. This is great news for Ted, of course, but even better news for editorial cartooning. Any hire is a good hire. Let’s hope this trend continues.

  2. Congrats to Ted. It’s exciting to see anyone get a staff position. I’m looking forward to what he’ll do now as a staff cartoonist. And good on you for running a story on it and quoting Ted despite him not being allowed to participate here.

  3. Congratulations my dear friend, The best news I’ve had in A long time,

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