The “Washington Post” refuses a caricature criticizing Jeff Bezos, the press cartoonist resigns

Ann Telnaes criticizes in a cartoon the American bosses who try to mollify Donald Trump, including Jeff Bezos, owner of the major American daily. The newspaper refused to publish the sketch and explained why.

UKneeling on the ground, with a proud or frightened look, men hoist bags of dollars at arm's length towards a massive pedestal, decorated with laurels, on which we can see the imposing mass of Donald Trump. The small group of generous donors is made up, among others, of Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, Sam Altman, co-founder with Elon Musk of Open AI, and Jeff Bezos, boss of Amazon whose glowing skull we recognize in this drawing. Also represented: Patrick Soon-Shiong, boss of Los Angeles Timesand Mickey, flattened to the ground, flagship character of the Walt Disney Company which owns the ABC News channel. This draft caricature which, according to its author Ann Telnaes, “criticizes tech and media bosses who have done their best to curry favor with the new president-elect Trump”is not visible in the columns of the Washington Postfor which she has worked since 2008. The designer published it on January 4 on Substack, in a post entitled “Why am I leaving Washington Post »and subtitled “Democracy cannot function in a free press”.

The cartoonist, awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2001, explains that her newspaper – owned by Jeff Bezos – refused to publish the sketch. However, in mid-December, Amazon donated one million dollars to the organization fund for Donald Trump's inauguration, scheduled for January 20. And the founder of the multinational recently made a trip to Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of the president-elect who promised to ” to sort out ” the media, which he calls “enemies of the people”. Through legal proceedings which could generate phenomena of self-censorship. Jeff Bezos, who during Donald Trump's first term opposed the Republican on defense contracts, had prevented the Washington Post to call for a vote for Kamala Harris before the November election, while voting recommendations by editorial boards are a tradition in the United States. His space company Blue Origin is also engaged in a race with Elon Musk's SpaceX company to win public contracts.

Requested by the AFP, the Washington Post contested Ann Telnaes' version. Emphasizing respect for the designer and all her contribution to daily life, the head of the editorial pages David Shipley affirmed that his decision to reject the drawing had been “guided by the fact that we had just published an editorial on the same subject” and that another, satirical, was already planned. “The only bias was to oppose the repetition”he said. According to the New York Timeshe would have suggested to the cartoonist to reconsider her resignation.