CSotD: Telnaes is only unemployed, not gone
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We try to avoid duplication and stepping on each other’s toes around here, and by now you’ve likely seen DD Degg’s coverage of Ann Telnaes’ resignation from the Washington Post. And if you haven’t seen his coverage here, you’ve almost certainly seen some coverage because it is all over the Internet, with regret and praise coming from around the globe. As of seven this morning, her Substack announcement had 5,307 likes and had been shared 910 times.
Which leaves me little to report, but I’m rising to a point of personal privilege because, while I’ve met a lot of the cartoonists I write about, Ann has become a friend over more than 20 years and she became a friend because I so admired her work.
I emailed her about a particularly tough cartoon, back in her freelance days, asking if any papers had bought it, and she replied that she didn’t know yet but that she really didn’t care. Which tells you much of why she’s one of the best cartoonists out there, or at least why she’s a favorite of mine.
We began a conversation that has gone on ever since.
This 2004 cartoon was a mainstay in my presentation to high school students, both because of the message about rights and freedom and fear, but also because it was such a good example of simple but eloquent style. I’d point out the resignation in the woman’s slouch, and also the way the man’s posture shows that he was just walking past and noticed what was on the TV.
Telnaes is a veteran of the Disney studios, which helped perfect her simple style and sometimes leads to her producing animated cartoons like this 2018 example. You can read more about her roots and her style in the Cartoonist’s Cartoonist feature Alan Gardner did on her this past November.
In addition to using her work in my live presentations, she was also frequently featured in the weekly educational piece I wrote, in this case a study of her and Jeff Danziger’s responses to the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Note that, while Danziger’s depiction is chilling, so is the more cartoonish piece by Telnaes, and, yes, the murder happened on Putin’s birthday. She makes him looks ridiculous, but gives him a coldness worthy of a Bond villain.
Eleven years later, the murder was still on her mind as she defended press freedom and depicted Trump and Putin as two faces of the same card. In this case, she made Trump cartoonish but drew Putin in more of a plain caricature, which makes the emotionally high-strung American stand out. For Trump, the media is a personal enemy, while the former intelligence officer simply sees its repression as good policy.
The outcome for press freedom is the same, regardless of why the censorship card is being played or by whom. Telnaes has been very active in defending press freedom throughout the world.
She also has a long history of criticizing those who, like George W. Bush’s Attorney General, John Ashcroft, would restrict personal freedom.
Nor was the cartoon about the terrorists having won the only time she questioned how a call for security can morph into government intrusion and a repressive level of surveillance, cloaked in a pretense of protecting the nation that feels a lot like Big Brother.
Seeing these pieces on the importance of political cartooning and press freedom, it’s easy to recognize how inconsistent it would have been for her to accept the squelching of her voice by the Post’s current management.
Telnaes will no longer be on the pages of the Washington Post, but perhaps going out into the wider world will make her voice heard by a more diverse audience, particularly if the Post continues to cater to the new administration while hemorrhaging both talent and readership.
She’ll need support on her Substack, by which I mean subscriptions, not just applause, and if you haven’t been supporting small and local media outlets, this is an excellent place to start.
The cartoon her editor refused to run, which was the final straw that induced her to walk away from a prestigious and well-paying job, offers the very reasonable suggestion that the billionaires who control major media are selling out to the administration, not just with obedience but in several cases with substantial financial contributions.
And here’s something else they’d just as soon not hear anyone say: It seems that major media may be working to gain influence with the wrong people, that they’re making friends with oligarchs but losing touch with their actual customers.
As venture-capitalist chains purchase small and medium papers and gut their newsrooms to the point of making responsible coverage impossible, there is a growing appetite for local news. We’re seeing more support for regional non-profits and aggregators because, while it’s important to know what’s happening in Washington and in Gaza and in Moscow, people also want to know when the new bridge will be finished in their town and how their property taxes are being assessed and spent.
Samizdat is a term that defined underground writings — mimeographed or photocopied — that circulated in the Soviet Union as it began to totter and crash. In our country, in these times, we’re seeing the growth of Substacks and other small-scale publishing by people who, like Ann Telnaes, want to say what they think needs to be said, without being filtered and both-sidesed and required to be “fair and balanced” by management that is more interested in marketing than in journalism.
Supporting small publishers and individual writers matters. The big boys will get along with or without you, but the voices we need to hear need backing.
And if you want both a laugh and to support Ann Telnaes as she ventures out alone, her 2018 “Trump’s ABC,” an adult version of a children’s board book, has suddenly become relevant once more. It was a hoot then and I’m afraid it’s gonna be a necessary hoot going forward.
But for goodness sake, buy it directly from Fantagraphics, not from Jeff Bezos.
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