Post With The Most

There are times when readers don’t understand a cartoon of mine. I kick myself when that happens. But, there are other times I totally expect a lot of readers won’t get it and I’ll be fine with it. This cartoon is one of those.

Although stories on this issue have been published by NPR, CNN, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Axios, and even The Washington Post, it might be a story readers pass over to get to the sports section. The public may not be as tuned into this issue as those in the journalism community. As a cartoonist, I will either choose a subject because it’s the one readers are talking about the most or the one they should be. This is something the public should be aware of and realize the importance of it.

The Washington Post has been one of the best sources of great journalism for decades. This is the publication of Woodward, Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and Herblock. When I moved to Fredericksburg in 1998, one of the benefits was moving into the Post’s circulation area. I think the cost at the time was 50 cents an issue. Dammit, I’m old. But I’ve been a daily reader since.

I always have several subscriptions to news outlets going at the same time, most are trials or special deals that I won’t keep (like the Daily Beast, LA Times, Times of London, New York Daily News, St. Louis Post Dispatch, etc), but the two that are necessary for my job, so I always have them, is The New York Times and the Post.

I love the Post, but lately, I’ve questioned its judgment, at least in my field. For example, when the brilliant Tom Toles retired, the Post publicly stated they would hire a new cartoonist. They did not. They lied. Instead, they contracted a freelancer, one who did NOT live in the Washington area…or even this country. A great cartoonist, but one who couldn’t vote in elections he’s commenting on.

Then, the Post started putting cartoons on its Opinion page that were more like stuff you’d find in The New Yorker. And like The New Yorker, a lot of these cartoons were difficult to understand. But why were they on the Opinion page? A lot of publications have stopped putting opinions on their Opinion pages, but you’d think the home of Herblock wouldn’t be so cowardly to do that.

And then, they contracted a right-wing conservative to draw cartoons. Publishing a conservative cartoon from the syndicates now and then is understandable. I’m not against showing both sides of an issue, but here, they have hired a cartoonist to gaslight and lay bullshit on their page with the Post’s name on it. Herblock fought corruption and called out the liars and now, one of the Post’s cartoonists defends liars and corruption and they put his cartoons in the spot that belonged to Herblock. This would be like taking down a statue of George Washington and replacing it with one of George Santos.

To be fair, the Post still has Ann Telnaes, one of the best cartoonists working today. Their bad decision regarding Telnaes was not hiring her full-time when Toles retired.

Now, Jeff Bezos, who promised to maintain the journalistic legacy of The Washington Post hired a publisher, Will Lewis from the United Kingdom who previously worked for Rupert Murdoch. Even worse, he was an unofficial advisor to Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister.

There are accusations that Lewis encouraged staffers to delete material during a scandal of Boris holding drinking parties during COVID. There are other accusations he did the same thing while working for Murdoch in the UK. The accusations continued after he arrived at the Post as some staffers claim he fought to have stories about him killed. A reporter for NPR claims he offered an exclusive interview about the future of the Post, just as long as he wasn’t asked about the allegations from the UK.

Journalism is a bit different in the United Kingdom from that in the United States. For example, it’s common to pay sources in the UK. In the US, it will destroy your career. In the UK, it’s been acceptable to use deceit to get a story, such as hacking phones. In the US, it’s a no-no, such as the goon outlet that used deceit to gain access to abortion clinics (and then lied that they were selling baby body parts), or even the activist from a few weeks ago that secretly recorded corrupt Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his flag-loving goony wife, Martha. Journalists have to identify themselves when they ask questions.

Staffers at the Post are calling for Will Lewis to resign or for Jeff Bezos to fire him. Bezos should have known enough about journalism to know he shouldn’t have hired this guy. There are red flags all over a guy who was part of a hacking scandal, worked for Boris Johnson, and worked for Murdoch…twice.

Newspapers are supposed to expose cover-ups, not engage in them. The tagline underneath The Washington Post’s header reads, “Democracy dies in darkness.” The new publisher is bringing the darkness.

Publisher Katharine Graham supported her editors and reporters to investigate the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, for which she caught a lot of grief. Will Lewis would have helped Nixon with the cover-up.

Jeff Bezos needs to fire Will Lewis, let him go back to News Corp, and then take some journalism courses.

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