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December 5, 2005
Jape Out in Chapel Hill
J.P. "Jape" Trostle is no longer drawing editorial cartoons for The Chapel Hill Herald in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He had been doing weekly cartoons for the regional newspaper since August 2000, as part of his job as designer and illustrator at the Chapel Hill Herald's nearby parent paper, the Herald-Sun.
Trostle left The Herald-Sun at the end of November and had arranged with his editor to keep providing local cartoons for the Chapel Hill paper on a freelance basis, but the plan was nixed late last week by the paper's upper management over budget concerns.
"Paxton Media says they want local content, but they don't want to have to pay for it," Trostle told Editor and Publisher's Dave Astor on Friday.
Paxton Media Group purchased the family-owned Herald-Sun and Chapel Hill Herald in January 2005, and immediately laid off over 80 people, including the Herald-Sun's long-time cartoonist John Cole. [Link http://editorialcartoonists.com/news/article.cfm/416/ ]. By dropping Trostle, this is the first time in almost 30 years the Durham, N.C.-based newspapers have not had a local editorial cartoonist in its pages.
It is also interesting in light of the fact that Raleigh's News & Observer — the nearby competitor to the Herald-Sun — recently added two cartoonists to the pages of its new local edition, the Durham News: first picking up the discarded John Cole, then later, when Cole moved to the Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pa., hiring Dennis Draughon. [Link http://editorialcartoonists.com/news/article.cfm/494/ ].
The two publishing companies have been involved in a newspaper war during the last year. According to data released in November by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, in the last six months the Herald-Sun lost 15% or more of its circulation on weekdays and Sundays, and over 25% on Saturdays.
In addition to the 80-some employees axed in January, a steady stream of Herald-Sun staffers unhappy with changes made by Paxton Media Group has been leaving the paper in the last few months, Trostle among them.
The erstwhile Chapel Hill cartoonist is now designing books and web graphics full time, while looking for a new outlet for his cartoons. Trostle is currently designing and editing "Attitude3: The Subversive New Media Cartoonists" with Ted Rall, which will be published in 2006 by NBM.
On the Net:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001614266