Editorial cartooning Newspaper industry

Michael de Adder Let Go by Postmedia – Update

Skip to comments

D. D. Degg October 10, 2024 2 minutes 7 comments

UPDATE

Renowned editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder may have lost his job, but he promises he hasn’t lost his voice.

The author and illustrator, who is a member of the Order of Canada and has won multiple national newspaper awards, says he was let go by The Chronicle-Herald newspaper this week after nearly 30 years with the publication.

“I’ve seen this coming for a long time, but I thought I had more time. I knew newspapers are in trouble all around the world. It’s not just Halifax. So I’ve been preparing for this,” he said Wednesday, one day after getting “the call.”

Rebecca Lau for Global News reports Michael de Adder let go by Postmedia-owned N.S. newspaper.

The article gets into some of Michael’s controversial cartoons and talks to Michael and Terry (Aislin) Mosher on the state of editorial cartooning (dismal). But, says Michael:

“I’m not going anywhere. I will continue to do this until I die, I suppose,” he said.

and…

The Halifax Examiner, the area’s online newspaper and Chronicle-Herald competitor, also carried the story bylined Tim Bousquet and headlined: Chronicle Herald fires cartoonist Mike de Adder and columnist Ralph Surette.

Both de Adder and Surette brought a decidedly progressive and challenging voice to what was generally otherwise a staid and business-oriented paper.

The dismissal of de Adder and Surette is part of Postmedia’s remaking of the Chronicle Herald as a right-wing mouthpiece. Postmedia CEO Andrew MacLeod would likely disagree with that assessment, but what else do you call it when de Adder and Surette are dismissed while Conrad Black will almost certainly be invited in?

and…

Aly Thompson at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports that Renowned editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder dropped from Halifax newspaper after 30 years.

De Adder’s award-winning career began at the Halifax alternative weekly The Coast. A popular comic strip called Walterworld — which lampooned then mayor of Halifax Walter Fitzgerald — led to freelance jobs at The Chronicle Herald and The Hill Times in Ottawa, his website said.

He has also worked for the former Halifax Daily News and New Brunswick Publishing, where de Adder said on his site that he was let go for political views expressed through his work, including a cartoon depicting U.S. President Donald Trump’s border policies. His cartoons have also appeared in The Washington Post and the Toronto Star.

The CBC notes:

In a statement, Postmedia said it does not comment on “internal personnel matters.”

But added:

Editorial cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon will still have two cartoons per week in the publication.

Then Michael himself.

Goalies on a hockey team stand apart from everyone else. They prepare, dress, and fulfill their roles in ways that are uniquely their own. The pressure they face is unparalleled; a single mistake can cost a game or even jeopardize an entire season.

They are solitary figures on the ice, often without anyone to talk to, only venturing to the bench in moments of desperation—when time is running out or trust has faltered. Their uniqueness sets them apart, much like other distinct roles in various teams: the kicker in football, the catcher in baseball, the drummer in a band, or the editorial cartoonist at a newspaper.

Michael de Adder comments in a post on his THE deEP STATE substack about the current plight of editoonists.

Other journalists often overlook our presence when inviting colleagues for a drink. They swing between treating us with excessive reverence and barely acknowledging us at all. Mostly, they just find us strange—and that’s true. We are strange. As Madge would say, “We’re soaking in it.”

We are the soul of the paper. At least we were at one time, when newspapers were giants that walked they earth.

Now, we’ve become scapegoats—fragile reeds barely rising above the bottom line. We’re considered a luxury, and the least-paid one at that. The same people who once insisted that our passion was part of the job now ask, “Why are you so angry?”

Original October 8 post:

Earlier today Michael de Adder let us know via X/Twitter that the remnants of Atlantic Canada’s Saltwire network would no longer be using his editorial cartoons:

I just got let go from the Halifax Chronicle Herald after almost 30 years.

Michael explains that he isn’t sure his last cartoon for them will be published:

I sent this in and got the call. My last cartoon [below], I think, in the Chronicle Herald. It’s not published yet.

>update edit: the cartoon was published<

This has all happened just days after the Association of Canadian Cartoonists’ convention. Was it timed so?

The Halifax Chronicle-Herald was part of the Saltwire Network. Saltwire applied for bankruptcy protection earlier this year and then major parts of the group was bought by Postmedia a month ago. Postmedia is Canada’s largest newspaper publisher but is majority owned by the U.S. hedge fund Chatham Asset Management. Chatham is also the majority owner of US-based McClatchy newspapers which last year fired their three staff editorial cartoonists and has given up on political cartoons on their papers’ opinion pages.

Michael de Adder, who less than two months ago won a Silver Reuben for Editorial Cartoons from the National Cartoonists Society and has won Canada”s National Newspaper Award multiple times, began 2024 by losing his freelance gig with The Washington Post and is ending 2024 by being left out of The Chronicle-Herald.

As far as we know Michael still has the occasional Toronto Star and Hill Times sales, but The Post and The Chronicle were his major sources of income. Michael’s Deep State Substack is an alternative revenue stream.

The status of Saltwire’s staff editorial cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon is unknown at this time.

Edit: The CBC noted “Editorial cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon will still have two cartoons per week in the publication.”

This is a developing story.