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This article discusses the significance of the editorial cartoons in the U.S. Cartoonists have been declining--down from almost 200 in the 1980s to fewer than 90 in 2004. The poisonous fumes laying us low are the byproduct of the corporate culture that has engulfed newspapering during the past two decades. It is a bottom-line cult of efficiency that threatens not just the profession but the integrity of journalism and hence the unruly spirit of democracy. That is old news, and all heard reasons for the disappearance of the editorial cartoon. Circulation is down and budgets are tight. Newsprint costs soar. Editors forced to cut budgets look around and find the expendable employee, or the person least like them: the guy or gal who just draws pictures. Newspapers have survived challenges for 200 years, from the rise of the telegraph to radio and television and now 24/7 cable news programming. That is because the newspaper's indispensable function has been to shape its community's very identity through the distinctive voices and personalities on its pages. Cartoons are the most accessible window into the character of the paper and its town. Yet more and more publishers are convincing themselves that they do not need a local pen or brush representing them on the editorial page. Instead of having an artist who will continue to shape and reflect the soul of their community, they get by cherry-picking canned cartoons from syndicates.

This article examines the reasons for the lost jobs of editorial cartoonists. The first reason is money. Papers are losing readers and advertising revenue is tougher to come by. The second reason is fear. A good editorial cartoon probably annoys, and might even anger, at least half the audience on any day. Third is laziness. Good cartooning, like all aspects of journalism, takes work. Finding a cartoonist is work. Working with a cartoonist is work. Arguing with a cartoonist about their approach is work. Taking the telephone calls that go along with having a cartoonist is work. Another is ignorance. Thanks in no small part to the editors at Newsweek, an entire generation of journalists has grown into their careers blissfully unaware that editorial cartoons are not just jokes about the news, but visual columns, strong opinion pieces. When relegated to sideshow status, cartoons become basic filler, not the type of stuff you pay someone a full-time salary to produce. Next is the one-paper town. In the old days it was fine to be opinionated and one-sided. But today a lot of editors are uneasy about bludgeoning their readers with the inherently unbalanced work of cartoonists. And last is the might of the right. Although dozens of conservative cartoonists work at papers today, most of the big-circulation names are liberals. In today's political climate, there is a lot of pressure to be fair and balanced, and some of this pressure comes from the publisher's office. None of these explanations for the demise stand up to reason. Yes, papers are losing readers, primarily to television, an easy-to-absorb visual media where opinions fly fast and furious. And while it might make short-term sense to let a cartoonist go, in the long run a newspaper cuts its own throat by making the paper less interesting by robbing it of personality. Sacking the cartoonist also deprives a paper of local cartoons, which can get a community talking about the pages.

This article presents a narrative of the author's experience with newspaper job interviews. The only job I have ever wanted was to draw political cartoons for a living and that is what I do. I am that rare creature, the editorial cartoonist who can make a full-time living solely from syndication. Nonetheless, I do not have what I really want: a job at a newspaper, where I would work with editors and journalists on cartoons on the state and local issues that resonate strongly with readers. My cartoons are fairly well known since they are published in more than a hundred papers. As a result, I have been interviewed three times for positions at major U.S. newspapers. Those close hiring calls serve as parables for the state of the industry. In 1995, the Patriot-News flew me to the Pennsylvania capital to meet for lunch with the paper's features editor, editor in chief, and publisher. I left the meeting feeling positive about my chances. The features editor informed me that rather than hire an editorial cartoonist they have decided to go with a sports-writer. The Patriot-News already had 6 sportswriters on staff. But such are the mysterious priorities of editors and publishers. Around the same time an opening occurred at the Asbury Park Press. The executive editor worked his way down a list of boilerplate questions, everything went satisfactorily until he asked if the paper will see protesters yelling about a cartoon that I drew. I said it is not my intention to offend readers but if an idea is worth expressing, I do not think I should self-censor because of that possibility. I knew I had blown what should have been a simple no. But taking a job under impossible conditions would invariably get me fired. I still dream and wait for the telephone to ring with the news that a paper wants to talk to me and, maybe this time, actually hire me.