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January 9, 2006
Sketchy Future: Editorial Cartoonist Ranks on the Decline
[The following article by Laura Newpoff appeared last week in The Business Journal of Phoenix, Arizona.]
After Jenny Campbell graduated from Arizona State University in 1979, the sixth-generation journalist took at job at the Pasadena Star-News as a reporter and staff artist.
She did a variety of work at the paper, including crafting cartoons for the editorial page. But she quickly decided editorial cartooning wasn't her future.
At the age of 32, she quit the journalism profession, moved to Philadelphia and became a freelance cartoonist for the educational arms of publishing companies, earning just $3,000 for her first year of work.
Today, Campbell, based in Ohio, is the artist behind the syndicated "Flo and Friends" daily cartoon strip and the illustrator of a number of acclaimed children's books.
That she didn't end up an editorial cartoonist has worked to her favor.
"There are a lot of other avenues for cartoonists," she said. "I love editorial cartoons. Turns out, it just wasn't my forte."
Those who have made editorial cartooning their career share an increasing concern about the future of the profession. Cartoonists make a picture convey 1,000 words. They bring editorial pages to life, infusing crafty images and messages onto a piece of paper that otherwise would be row upon row of black ink.
Yet they say their value is being questioned by corporate bean counters who have caused their ranks to thin.
The profession's struggles reached a boiling point after the November firing by The Los Angeles Times of its editorial cartoonist, a position that won't be filled. Not too long after, its corporate sister paper, the Baltimore Sun, bought out its cartoonist's salary and chose not to replace the position.
It prompted editorial cartoonists across the country to protest the newspaper industry's corporate downsizing.
Locally, at the East Valley Tribune family of newspapers, editorial cartoonist Mike Ritter was let go early in 2005, and a permanent replacement hasn't been named. Several executives there didn't respond to requests for comment.
According to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, the number of cartoonists on the staff of daily newspapers across the country has been cut in half and then some over the past two decades. The bellwether of American journalism, The New York Times, hasn't had a cartoonist on staff since 1958. And the Chicago Tribune hasn't replaced its cartoonist position since the death of Jeff MacNelly in 2000.
The Arizona Republic, however, is bucking the trend. The Gannett Co.-owned paper has a local cartoonist firmly entrenched in its newsroom, even though it's cheaper to buy content from syndication than it is to pay his salary, pension and health insurance.
"Newspapers have to differentiate themselves as a clear leader in providing
local news and information," said John Zidich, The Republic's publisher. "A
staff cartoonist is part of that effort."
The Republic's cartoonist, Steve Benson, has brought national recognition
to the paper through the Pulitzer Prize he won in the early 1990s.
Ken Western, The Republic's editorial page editor, said Benson serves as a goodwill ambassador for the paper by speaking to local groups. The Republic also freelances cartoon work to two others who live in the Valley.
J.P. Trostle, editor of the book "Attack of the Political Cartoonist," said there are fewer than 90 cartoonists working full-time for American newspapers, down from 200 in the 1980s. He notes media consolidation and tightening budgets as part of the problem.
Today's culturally sensitive environment also is a factor. It's a cartoonist's job to poke fun at his subject, often creating controversy. Many editors, Trostle thinks, prefer not to rock the boat.
Tim McGuire, the former top editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the newly appointed Frank Russell Chair at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, agrees.
The editorial page started as a marketing device back in the days when cities had more than one dominant newspaper, he said.
"The editorial page told you whether it was a a liberal paper, a conservative paper," McGuire said. "Then, newspapers moved to one-size-fits-all, and you suddenly had editorial pages going one way and a lot of your audience going the other way."
Few things can inspire and instigate emotion like a powerful editorial cartoon, he said.
"Publishers are trying to push their papers toward the middle, and that means the local, controversial cartoon is something that can be done without," McGuire said.
Clay Bennett, editorial cartoonist for The Christian Science Monitor and president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, said, in the past few years, cartoonists have been among the many fatalities produced by a frenzy of newsroom staff cuts intended to improve "not journalism, but journalism's bottom line."
"To a newspaper that has become more concerned with the interests of its shareholders than the interests of its readers, an editorial cartoonist is as easy to abandon as a journalistic mission," Bennett said.
The Business Journal runs a cartoon weekly on its editorial page. The paper does not have a cartoonist on staff, but uses artists who work for its parent company, Charlotte, N.C.-based American City Business Journals.
Brian Fairrington, a Valley cartoonist whose work is syndicated through Cagle Cartoons Inc. of California, has been working for the East Valley Tribune on a "regular contributor" basis since Ritter was let go.
While he said a full-time staff position at the paper would be nice, it's not something he needs to pay the bills. His cartoons get pumped through syndication to 600 newspapers.
"I make a good living doing what I'm doing," he said.
Fairrington estimates that cartoonists at big dailies can make six figures a year while others struggling to get syndicated make as little as $1,000 a month.
"Editorial cartoonists are the canary in the cave, the first ones to be let go in bad times," Fairrington said. "But a staff cartoonist brings a local voice to the paper, just like a columnist.
"And what has us scratching our heads is that editors today say they want a newspaper that's more graphic," he said. "And that's where we're at the head of the class."