Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump

A cartoonist has decided to quit her job at the Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of the newspaper’s owner and other media executives bowing before President-elect Donald Trump. Telnaes wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize “billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Several executives, Bezos among them, have been spotted at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’” The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a statement Saturday accusing the Post of “political cowardice” and asking other cartoonists to post Telnaes’ sketch with the hashtag #StandWithAnn in a show of solidarity. “It thrives in the dark, and the Washington Post simply closed its eyes and gave in like a punch-drunk boxer.” The Post’s communications director, Liza Pluto, provided The Associated Press on Saturday with a statement from David Shipley, the newspaper’s editorial page editor.