Cartoonist quits Washington Post over sketch mocking owner, Trump

WASHINGTON: An award-winning political cartoonist for The Washington Post has announced her resignation after a cartoon depicting the newspaper’s billionaire owner groveling before Donald Trump was rejected.

Ann Telnaes posted on Substack late Friday that this was the first time she “had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at.”

The cartoon -- which she included in her post -- depicts Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, as well as Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and other media and tech moguls, kneeling and holding up bags of money before a massive Trump.

Also shown is a prostrated Mickey Mouse, the symbol of the Disney Company, which owns ABC News. Telnaes wrote this was the first time that had happened because of her “point of view.” The Washington Post, whose slogan is “democracy dies in darkness,” did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US media quoted the opinions editor, David Shipley, saying that Telnaes’s work had been rejected only because of “repetition.”

There are signs that top CEOs, including in the media, are eager to build good relations with the president elect.

A stream of senior moguls, from Apple CEO Tim Cook to Bezos Zuckerberg, have traveled to meet Trump at his Florida estate.