The Political Cartoon in the 21st Century: Lost Jobs, Violence, Firings and the Meme

Lesson 03 ended in a world where a metropolitan daily employed its own cartoonist as a matter of civic pride, and a Pulitzer for the work was a career. This lesson is about what happened to that arrangement after 2000. It covers the money, the violence, three high-profile departures, a prize that changed its name, and the image forms that moved into the gap: web animation, memes and now generated images. Every number below comes from the publication or organization that issued it, and where two sources disagree the lesson says so.

The collapse of the staff job

Start with the counts, because they are the hardest numbers in this lesson to pin down. The Herb Block Foundation's Report on Editorial Cartooning, published in December 2011, says that at the start of the twentieth century there were "approximately 2,000 editorial cartoonists employed by newspapers in the United States," and that "fewer than 40 staff cartoonists" worked in 2011, a number it says "continues to shrink."¹² The report credits no individual author. It includes the results of a survey of members of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and the page gives no sample size, so the survey is evidence of opinion, not a census.

A decade later, Matt Bors wrote a special report for the Columbia Journalism Review. He repeated the 2,000 estimate and credited the foundation. He wrote that in 1957, the year the AAEC was formed, the association counted 275 staff cartoonists.¹³ And he wrote that fewer than 30 political cartoonists are employed full time today, with no source given. He also named two departures from 2020: Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News and Tom Toles of The Washington Post both retired that year, and their jobs were not filled.¹⁴

Period	Staff cartoonists	Source and caution
Start of the 1900s	Approximately 2,000	Herb Block Foundation, December 2011. An estimate, not a count.
1957	275	AAEC count, as reported by Matt Bors in the Columbia Journalism Review, Fall 2021.
2011	Fewer than 40	Herb Block Foundation report. Described as still shrinking.
2021	Fewer than 30 full time	Matt Bors, Columbia Journalism Review. No source stated for the number.

Two figures commonly circulated for this subject could not be verified for this lesson: a count of about 280 staff cartoonists in 1980, and any exact 2026 headcount. The first would fit the 1957 count of 275, but no source page checked here states it. If a number matters to a story, call the AAEC or the Herb Block Foundation and ask for the survey behind it.

Why did the job go? Neither page checked here runs a causal study. The usual explanation is the falling revenue of newspapers, and it is plausible, but it is an explanation and not a measured finding in these sources. What the counts do show is a change in who pays, and that changes what gets drawn. A cartoonist on a metropolitan payroll answers to one editor and one owner. A freelancer answers to several editors, and a cartoonist who sells to a syndicate or runs a subscription site answers to readers who can cancel.

Who won the prize when the jobs were disappearing

The Pulitzer record shows the shift better than any survey. Here are winners from the Editorial Cartooning page, with the outlet as the Pulitzer site lists it.¹⁵

Year	Winner	Outlet or status as listed
2000	Joel Pett	Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader
2001	Ann Telnaes	Tribune Media Services
2005	Nick Anderson	The Courier-Journal, Louisville
2010	Mark Fiore	Self-syndicated, appearing on SFGate.com
2012	Matt Wuerker	POLITICO
2015	Adam Zyglis	The Buffalo News
2016	Jack Ohman	The Sacramento Bee
2017	Jim Morin	Miami Herald
2018	Jake Halpern (writer) and Michael Sloan (cartoonist)	Freelancers, The New York Times
2019	Darrin Bell	Freelancer
2020	Barry Blitt	Contributor, The New Yorker
2021	No award given

Read the right-hand column from top to bottom. Through 2017 the list is mostly staff jobs at daily papers, with Telnaes (a syndicated artist) and Fiore (self-syndicated, online) as the two exceptions. From 2018 the winners are freelancers and contributors. The Pulitzer page for Fiore notes that his animated cartoons appeared on SFGate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle's site, and that the Board's citation praised "an emerging form of commentary."¹⁶ His biography on that page also says he grew up in California and spent time in Idaho. No year from 2000 to 2020 went without a winner, and 2021 is the first gap the page shows in this stretch.

September 30, 2005: twelve drawings in Copenhagen

The Columbia Journalism School case study gives the cleanest chronology. On September 30, 2005, Jyllands-Posten, a Danish daily, ran an article by culture editor Flemming Rose along with 12 drawings of the Prophet Muhammad, under the headline "Muhammeds ansigt" (Muhammad's face).¹⁷ Rose had invited 25 members of the Danish cartoonists' association. Twelve submitted drawings. His stated reason was a children's book author who could not find an illustrator for a book about the Prophet, which Rose read as a sign of self-censorship. His invitation, the case study records, said: "Draw Muhammad as you see him."¹⁸

The sequence that followed took months, and that matters, because the story is often told as an instant explosion. The case study records a demand for an apology from the Islamic Faith Community in Denmark on October 9.¹⁹ On October 12 the paper's editorial expressed regret for any offense and did not apologize. Around October 14 a peaceful crowd of 3,000 demonstrated in Copenhagen. In mid-October 11 ambassadors from Muslim countries asked the Danish prime minister for a meeting and were refused. An Egyptian paper reproduced six of the cartoons. On December 3, Danish imams took a 43-page dossier to Egypt.²⁰ On December 7, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference condemned the cartoons in Mecca. On December 18 the editor-in-chief defended publication and refused to apologize. On January 1, 2006, the prime minister defended free expression in his New Year's address, and the matter became an international affair.²¹

The violence came after that. The Associated Press obituary of Kurt Westergaard, the artist whose drawing showed the Prophet with a bomb in his turban, says the images set off violent anti-Denmark protests in 2006 and that the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria were burned down.²² Al Jazeera's obituary says the protests spread across the Muslim world in February 2006, some turned violent, and "dozens" died, and it gives no exact figure.²³ No source checked here provides an authoritative death toll, so this lesson does not use one.

Westergaard lived under threat for the rest of his life. According to the AP, three people were arrested in 2008 for planning to kill him, and in early 2010 a 28-year-old Somali man broke into his home with an ax and a knife and was later sentenced to 10 years in prison.²⁴ Westergaard died on July 14, 2021, at 86, according to Danish media reports cited by the AP; his family announced it on July 18.²⁵

The strongest case that publication was right: Rose argued that a newspaper that will not print what it fears is already censored, and that a public religion is open to satire like any other public institution. The strongest case against: the Islamic Faith Community in Denmark and the 11 ambassadors, per the case study, demanded an apology and a meeting because they read the drawings as an insult to the faith, and a paper's right to print is a separate question from whether it should. Journalists and editors still split on that second question, and this lesson takes no side on it beyond the record of what happened.

January 7, 2015: Charlie Hebdo

Charlie Hebdo, the Paris satirical weekly, had been a target for years. The Committee to Protect Journalists' record says the magazine's office was firebombed in 2011, a day after it published a caricature of the Prophet and a spoof edition guest edited by the Prophet, and that editor Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb, had been under police protection since 2011.²⁶ On January 7, 2015, at about 11:30 a.m., two gunmen in black balaclavas armed with Kalashnikov rifles entered the building, killed one person at the entrance, and went up to a second-floor editorial meeting. CPJ names the dead: Charb, who was 47; the cartoonists Jean Cabut (Cabu), Georges Wolinski and Bernard Verlhac (Tignous); economist and columnist Bernard Maris; copy editor Moustapha Ourrad; and columnists Elsa Cayat and Philippe Honoré.²⁷ The Dhaka Tribune's December 2020 report of the trial gives the toll at the magazine as 12 and the total across the three days of January 2015 as 17: the Charlie Hebdo attack, the murder of a policewoman, and the hostage-taking at a Jewish supermarket, the Hyper Cacher, where four men were killed.²⁸

Police identified the gunmen as brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi. On January 9, 2015 they were shot dead after a standoff at a printing warehouse northeast of Paris, where they held one hostage, who was freed. On January 14 al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility, saying the attack was ordered by Ayman al-Zawahiri as a response to the magazine's caricatures of the Prophet, per CPJ.²⁹

The trial ran in 2020. To mark its opening on September 2, Charlie Hebdo republished the Muhammad cartoons, and, the Dhaka Tribune reports, three weeks later a Pakistani man wounded two people outside the magazine's former offices.³⁰ On December 16, 2020, a Paris court found 14 suspects guilty, three of them in absentia, on charges ranging from membership in a criminal network to complicity in the attacks (CPJ). The Dhaka Tribune lists sentences from four years to life, including 30 years for Ali Riza Polat and 30 years in absentia for Hayat Boumeddiene, who fled to Syria, and life in absentia for Mohamed Belhoucine, presumed dead in Syria.³¹ CPJ adds that two men appealed and on October 20, 2022 were sentenced to life and 13 years respectively, and that judgment became final.³²

Count differences are worth a sentence. CPJ says 14 were found guilty. The Dhaka Tribune says 13 accomplices were convicted and one, Mehdi Belhoucine, was not sentenced because he had already been convicted in a separate trial. Both can be true. The first counts findings of guilt, the second counts sentences delivered that day.

2018 and 2019: two editors, two decisions

Pittsburgh, June 2018

Rob Rogers had drawn for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for 25 years, and had drawn editorial cartoons in Pittsburgh for 34, by the Columbia Journalism Review's account of June 11, 2018.³³ He wrote that two of his cartoons had been killed in a row, then six, and said, in the CJR's quotation, "Never in my career have I had two in a row killed, or six in a row."³⁴ The CJR reported that since March the paper had nixed 19 ideas or drafts and had withheld six finished cartoons since Memorial Day.³⁵ Rogers announced on Twitter on June 14, 2018 that he had been fired.

The paper's side deserves the same space. Keith Burris, the paper's editorial director, did not respond to the CJR's requests for comment in that article. The paper's chief marketing officer, Tracey DeAngelo, said the matter "has little to do with politics, ideology or Donald Trump."³⁶ The CJR notes that Burris had written an editorial in January 2018 titled "Reason as Racism" that drew criticism from readers, staff and members of the owning family.³⁷ The facts the sources support are the timing, the number of killed pieces and the paper's denial of a political motive. The motive itself is a matter on which Rogers and the paper disagree, and this lesson cannot settle it. Rogers also said he would keep drawing and would not change his slant. In the CJR's words he said: "The world needs satire now more than ever."³⁸

New York, April to June 2019

On April 25, 2019, The New York Times ran a syndicated cartoon in its international print edition. Per AFP's report of June 11, 2019, it depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog wearing a Star of David collar, leading a blind Donald Trump in a kippah.³⁹ iMediaEthics reports that the cartoon did not appear online or in any other print edition, and that the Times called it offensive and "an error of judgment to publish it" in an editors' note scheduled to run in the April 29 international edition.⁴⁰ AFP says Israel's ambassador to the United Nations compared the image to material from the Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer.⁴¹ The sources checked here did not name the cartoonist, so this lesson does not.

On June 10, 2019, editor James Bennet said in a statement that the paper had planned for a year to stop running political cartoons in the international print edition "in line with the U.S. edition." The change took effect July 1, 2019.⁴² AFP reports that publisher A.G. Sulzberger had announced in May that the editor who published the cartoon would be disciplined.⁴³ Bennet said the paper hoped to keep working with Patrick Chappatte and Heng Kim Song on other projects. AFP also reports that the Times apologized for the April cartoon and ended syndicated cartoons afterward, and that in-house cartoons were to end by July.

Chappatte, who had drawn twice a week for the International Herald Tribune and then the Times for more than 20 years, published his own statement the same day. AFP reports that he said the decision was "directly related" to the Netanyahu cartoon.⁴⁴ His central complaint was about the platform that amplified the outcry: "Twitter is a place for furor, not debate."⁴⁵ He also wrote that the unique freedom of political cartooning carries a great sense of responsibility, which he put at the center of his argument that cartoons should be judged and corrected and not abolished.

Two readings, both supported. The Times's reading, from Bennet, is that this was a planned alignment of editions, and the outrage hastened it. Chappatte's reading is that the outrage was the cause. The paper's May discipline of the editor and its April apology show it treated the cartoon as a real failure. Both statements are on the record, and neither source checked here settles the cause.

January 2025: Ann Telnaes leaves The Washington Post

Ann Telnaes won her first Pulitzer in 2001 for editorial cartooning, listed then under Tribune Media Services, and worked at The Washington Post from 2008 to 2025, according to the Pulitzer site.⁴⁶ On January 4, 2025 she published a statement on her Substack, titled "Why I'm quitting the Washington Post."⁴⁷ It said her editor had killed a cartoon criticizing billionaire tech and media chiefs who were courting the incoming president, with Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Patrick Soon-Shiong of the Los Angeles Times, Disney and the Post's own owner, Jeff Bezos, among those drawn. NPR's account of the same day describes the cartoon: Bezos, Zuckerberg and Altman bringing sacks of cash to Donald Trump, Soon-Shiong offering a tube of lipstick, and Mickey Mouse lying prostrate for Disney.⁴⁸

Telnaes wrote that editors had objected before to unclear visual metaphors and asked for revisions, but never to a cartoon's viewpoint, and wrote that the killing was dangerous for a free press. She did not quote her editor's reason.

The Post's reason came from David Shipley, the paper's editorial page editor, who told NPR that the paper had just published a column on the same topic and had scheduled a satire piece. He wrote: "The only bias was against repetition."⁴⁹ He added that not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force. That is the paper's account and Telnaes's account side by side. They disagree about whether the reason offered matched the reason acted on.

Context from NPR's report fills in why readers took it seriously. Bezos had blocked a planned presidential endorsement in October 2024, and, NPR says, about 300,000 digital subscribers canceled between October 24 and Election Day, roughly 12 percent of digital subscriptions, according to a person with direct knowledge.⁵⁰ Three editorial board members left after the endorsement decision. The Los Angeles Times owner Soon-Shiong had also blocked an endorsement, and about 20,000 subscribers canceled there. Disney had settled a defamation suit brought by Trump against ABC News for $15 million to a planned Trump foundation and $1 million in legal fees.⁵¹

The Pulitzer Board's 2025 prize in Illustrated Reporting and Commentary went to Telnaes for "delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions,"⁵² and the winner page notes she left the paper after 17 years. The page lists 14 cartoons dated January 31, 2024 to December 27, 2024. It does not mention Bezos and gives no account of the departure beyond that sentence. Her earlier honors on that page include the Reuben Award as the National Cartoonists Society's Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year (2016), the Herblock Prize (2023) and a 2022 finalist spot.⁵³

What the Pulitzer renaming did

On December 23, 2021, according to the date the Pulitzer Prizes page displays (its page metadata says December 22, a conflict this lesson could not resolve), the site announced the 2022 competition and stated: "The Editorial Cartooning category is now called Illustrated Reporting and Commentary."⁵⁴ It had been redefined the year before to recognize "a distinguished portfolio of editorial cartoons or other illustrated work (still, animated, or both)," with weight on political insight, editorial effectiveness or public service value. Entries may include up to 15 items. The prize carries $15,000, per the category page.⁵⁵

Year	Winner	Work, per the Pulitzer citation
2022	Fahmida Azim, Anthony Del Col, Josh Adams and Walt Hickey, Insider	Graphic reportage and comics on Chinese oppression of the Uyghurs
2023	Mona Chalabi, contributor, The New York Times	Illustrations combining statistical reporting with analysis, on Jeff Bezos's wealth and economic power
2024	Medar de la Cruz, contributor, The New Yorker	Black-and-white images of prisoners and staff at Rikers Island and their hunger for books
2025	Ann Telnaes, The Washington Post	Piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions; she left the paper after 17 years
2026	Anand RK and Suparna Sharma, with Natalie Obiko Pearson, Bloomberg	"trAPPed," an account of a neurologist in India held under "digital arrest" by her phone

The rename did two things the Pulitzer site states. It widened eligibility to illustrated journalism of many kinds, and it named animation outright. As the winner list shows, the category since then has rewarded reporting delivered as pictures at least as often as a one-panel opinion. The Pulitzer pages checked do not say why the Board made the change, and this lesson does not guess.

The web cartoonist and the folk cartoon

The staff job vanished and the cartoon did not. Mark Fiore's 2010 Pulitzer went to animated cartoons on a news site, and his own page lists work on several outlets at once. A cartoonist who sells to many outlets, or to readers directly, has a model closer to the nineteenth-century pamphleteer than to the twentieth-century staff artist. The cartoonist is both author and editor.

The other form is the meme. A meme is a folk cartoon: a stock image and a caption, copied, altered and reposted by anyone. It has no author's byline and no editor, and often no consent from the person in the photograph. That is how the Success Kid image reached the Eighth Circuit, covered below. Memes also make a different problem for reporters. A cartoon in a newspaper carries a publication's name and a date. A meme usually carries neither. When a reporter writes about one, the first job is to find the first post and the first poster, as the how-to box below sets out.

Generated images: the new cartoon, the new fake

Three episodes show the range, and each needs the credit it is due.

In the summer of 2024, Donald Trump reshared images that suggested Taylor Swift had endorsed him. One showed young women in "Swifties for Trump" shirts. Another showed Swift dressed as Uncle Sam under the headline "Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump." The Anchorage Daily News describes the images as "created using artificial intelligence," first shared by an influencer and reshared by Trump with "I accept."⁵⁶ After the September 2024 debate, the Anchorage Daily News reported, Swift endorsed Kamala Harris and said the images "conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation."⁵⁷ Report it as images shared by a candidate, described by that newspaper as AI-created, with a stated reaction.

On May 2, 2025, a Friday, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as the pope on Truth Social and, according to a CNN Newsource report carried by KCRG, the White House's official social media account shared it.⁵⁸ It came days after Trump joked that he would like to be the next pope, and days before the conclave. This is a self-presentation as satire, where the subject drew the joke on himself. The sources do not say the image was meant to deceive.

In 2026 the practice moved into paid advertising. Al Jazeera's October 9, 2026 report says candidates and their backers spent more than $80 million on over 164 AI-based ads in the cycle, per the Wesleyan Media Project, and that Republican candidates and their backers accounted for about 80 percent of them.⁵⁹ It names examples. Republican Bruce Blakeman, running for New York governor, aired ads with AI versions of Zohran Mamdani and Kathy Hochul, neither of whom appeared; both ads carried a disclaimer for a few seconds at the start, and Blakeman says they fall within a tradition of satire. The New York Democratic Party filed a complaint with the state board of elections saying the ads break disclosure rules. The report also describes AI depictions of Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio as a party guest who overstayed, Democrat James Talarico in Texas in a blue dress like Maria from The Sound of Music, and Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan as a superhero. In California, Democratic state senator Scott Wiener released an AI chatbot that answered about 5,000 questions about his opponent Connie Chan, mocking her record, accent and naturalized citizenship. It drew criticism as bigoted and Wiener withdrew it, saying it "missed the mark." The article says no federal law regulates AI deepfake ads and 31 states have passed laws requiring labels on AI-made ads.⁶⁰

The Blakeman example is the one that matters for a student of cartoons. Satire has always put words in a public figure's mouth. The difference a generated image makes is realism. An observer may take a cartoon for a cartoon at a glance, and a photorealistic generated image invites the observer to take it for a record. The disclaimer that runs for a few seconds is the law's attempt to reproduce the cartoon's built-in label. Whether a few seconds does that is what the New York complaint will test.

Role	Example	What the source supports
Self-satire by the subject	Trump as pope, May 2, 2025	CNN Newsource via KCRG: posted on Truth Social, shared by the White House account
Image suggesting an endorsement	"Swifties for Trump," 2024	Anchorage Daily News: images created using AI, first shared by an influencer, reshared by Trump with "I accept"; Swift cited AI fears in endorsing Harris
Paid attack ad with a disclaimer	Blakeman ads featuring AI Hochul and Mamdani, 2026	Al Jazeera: disclaimer for a few seconds; complaint filed with New York board of elections
Campaign chatbot	Wiener chatbot about Connie Chan, 2026	Al Jazeera: withdrawn after criticism

The law of the cartoon, the parody and the meme

Four decisions give a working map. They answer different questions, and mixing them up is the commonest mistake.

Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 1988: can a public figure sue over a cartoon

Hustler printed a parody of a Campari liquor ad in which the Reverend Jerry Falwell described his "first time" as a drunken encounter with his mother in an outhouse. Small print labeled it "ad parody," and the table of contents listed it as fiction. Falwell sued. On February 24, 1988, the Supreme Court ruled against him, 8 to 0 (Justice Kennedy did not take part, and Justice White concurred in the judgment).⁶¹ Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion held that public figures cannot recover for emotional distress from a parody unless they prove it contained a false statement of fact made with actual malice. The opinion traces the tradition through Thomas Nast, whose attack on William M. "Boss" Tweed it called "a graphic vendetta."⁶² The case is the reason a cartoonist in the United States can draw a sitting official as grotesque. It protects opinion and exaggeration that no reasonable reader takes as fact. It does not protect a drawing presented as a factual claim that is false.

Campbell and Warhol: can you copy to comment

The question of copying is separate from the question of reputation. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (March 7, 1994, unanimous, Justice Souter), the Court held that 2 Live Crew's commercial parody of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" may be a fair use under 17 U.S.C. 107. It said commercial use is not presumptively unfair and that parody, which needs to mimic the original to make its point, has a stronger claim to borrow than satire, which "can stand on its own two feet."⁶³

In Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (May 18, 2023, 7 to 2, Justice Sotomayor writing, with Justice Kagan and the Chief Justice dissenting), the Court held that the first fair use factor favored the photographer Lynn Goldsmith, because the Foundation's licensing of "Orange Prince" to a magazine shared substantially the same purpose as her photograph and was commercial. It added that new expression or a different meaning does not alone make a use transformative, and the Foundation's claimed commentary on celebrity had no critical bearing on her photograph.⁶⁴ For a cartoonist the practical test is whether the borrowed image is the thing being criticized.

Griner v. King, 2024: the meme that cost $750

Laney Griner photographed her 11-month-old son Sam on a beach in 2007, and the picture became the Success Kid meme. She registered the copyright in 2012 and licensed it to companies including Virgin Mobile, Vitamin Water, Microsoft and Coca-Cola. In 2020, the King for Congress committee posted a version with Sam in front of the U.S. Capitol and the caption "FUND OUR MEMES!!!" with a link to a donation page, and never sought permission. A jury found the committee liable for innocent infringement and awarded $750, the statutory minimum. It found Congressman Steve King not liable, and found neither defendant liable for invading Sam's privacy.⁶⁵

On June 7, 2024, a panel of the Eighth Circuit (Judges Benton, Erickson and Kobes) affirmed.⁶⁶ It rejected fair use: the first factor favored Griner because the use was purely commercial and added no further purpose or different character, and the third favored her because the meme used the core subject of the image. The fourth factor was neutral, and the second was conceded. The court held the implied-license defense was waived because the committee's counsel conceded it at trial, and that excluding "political" evidence, including a link to the Pepe the Frog meme, was not an abuse of discretion.⁶⁷ The lesson for anyone running a political meme: using a copyrighted photograph to raise money is the weakest ground for fair use, whatever the politics.

Case	Decided	Question	Holding in one line
Hustler v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46	Feb. 24, 1988	Can a public figure recover for emotional distress from a parody	Not without a false statement of fact made with actual malice
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, 510 U.S. 569	Mar. 7, 1994	Is a commercial parody fair use	It may be; commerciality is one factor; parody has a stronger claim than satire
Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, No. 21-869	May 18, 2023	Does a new meaning make a licensed copy fair	No, where the use serves the same purpose and the commentary does not target the original
Griner v. King, Nos. 22-3623 and 23-2117 (8th Cir.)	June 7, 2024	Can a campaign post a copyrighted meme photograph to raise money	Fair use rejected; $750 statutory verdict affirmed

The century's cartoon controversies, by date

Date	Event	What the sources say happened
Sept. 30, 2005	Jyllands-Posten publishes 12 drawings	25 invited, 12 drew; later protests, embassies in Syria burned, Danish dossier to Egypt in December
2008 and 2010	Plot and attack against Kurt Westergaard	Three arrested in 2008; a 28-year-old man with an ax and knife at his home in 2010, sentenced to 10 years
2011	Charlie Hebdo firebombed	A day after its issue guest edited by the Prophet; Charb under police protection after
Jan. 7, 2015	Charlie Hebdo attack	12 killed at the magazine, 17 across three days; verdicts Dec. 16, 2020; final judgment Oct. 20, 2022
June 14, 2018	Rob Rogers fired by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette	19 ideas nixed since March; six finished cartoons withheld; paper denied a political motive
Apr. 25, 2019	Netanyahu cartoon in Times international edition	Apology, editor disciplined; international cartoons end July 1, 2019
June 7, 2024	Griner v. King affirmed	Meme infringed; $750 verdict stands
Jan. 4, 2025	Ann Telnaes resigns from The Washington Post	Cartoon on tech and media owners killed; editor cited repetition; Telnaes wins 2025 Pulitzer
Oct. 2026	AI ad complaint in New York	State Democratic Party complaint over Blakeman ads; outcome not reported as of the Oct. 9, 2026 source

Questions and answers

How many staff editorial cartoonists are left in the United States?

No source checked here gives a current exact count. The Herb Block Foundation's December 2011 report says fewer than 40, and Matt Bors wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2021 that fewer than 30 are employed full time, without naming a source. The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists keeps a membership list and is the place to ask. Use a range and name the source.

Did the Jyllands-Posten cartoons cause the Charlie Hebdo attack?

The sources do not draw a single straight line. AQAP's claim of responsibility, as CPJ records it, cited the magazine's own caricatures of the Prophet. Charlie Hebdo had been firebombed in 2011 and Charb had been under police protection since then. The Danish drawings of 2005 belong to the same fight over depicting the Prophet, but the trial and the claim concern the magazine's own work. Say what each source says and no more.

Was Rob Rogers fired because of his cartoons about Donald Trump?

Rogers said his cartoons were being killed in a way he had never experienced. The paper's chief marketing officer said the matter had little to do with politics, ideology or Donald Trump. The Columbia Journalism Review reported 19 ideas nixed since March and six finished cartoons withheld since Memorial Day. The record supports the pattern and the denial. It does not by itself prove motive, and the CJR piece reported no comment from Burris.

Did The New York Times ban political cartoons because of the Netanyahu cartoon?

The Times says the plan to end them in the international edition was a year old, in line with the U.S. edition, and took effect July 1, 2019. Chappatte, who drew for the paper, was reported by AFP as saying the decision was "directly related" to the cartoon. The Times apologized for the April 25 cartoon and disciplined the editor who ran it. The most careful statement is that the outrage and the planned change coincided and the paper and its cartoonist disagree about which was the cause.

Why did Ann Telnaes's cartoon get killed, and did it matter that Bezos owns the paper?

Telnaes wrote on January 4, 2025 that it was killed because of its viewpoint, and that editors had never done that to her before. Editorial page editor David Shipley said the Post had just run a column on the same topic and the only bias was against repetition. Both statements are on the record. The Pulitzer Board gave her its 2025 illustrated commentary prize for work that included, per her winner page, 14 cartoons from 2024. Readers will weigh the owner's role according to what they already believe about it.

What changed when the Pulitzer renamed the category?

On December 23, 2021 (the date the page displays; its metadata says December 22), the Board announced that Editorial Cartooning is now Illustrated Reporting and Commentary, covering "editorial cartoons or other illustrated work (still, animated, or both)." Winners since include Insider's Uyghur graphic report (2022), Mona Chalabi (2023), Medar de la Cruz (2024), Ann Telnaes (2025) and a Bloomberg team (2026). The Pulitzer pages checked do not say why the Board chose the change.

Can a politician sue a cartoonist for a cruel drawing?

A public figure can sue, but under Hustler v. Falwell they cannot recover for emotional distress over a parody no reasonable reader takes as fact unless they prove a false statement of fact made with actual malice. The 8 to 0 decision of February 24, 1988 rests on a tradition the Court traced through Thomas Nast. Defamation and other claims have their own standards.

Can I use a meme photograph in a political post?

Only if you have the right to. In Griner v. King the campaign's fundraising post using the Success Kid photograph was held infringing, the fair use defense failed, and the jury's $750 minimum was affirmed on June 7, 2024. Commercial use and use of the image's core subject were the weak points. A parody that targets the original, as in Campbell, stands on firmer ground than a post that borrows the picture only for its appeal.

Is an AI-generated political image illegal?

No federal law regulates AI deepfake ads, per Al Jazeera's October 9, 2026 report. It says 31 states have laws requiring labels on AI-made ads. Whether a given ad complies is a question under the state's own law and, for broadcast, other rules. Satire has its own protection, and the Blakeman complaint in New York is a live test of how long a disclaimer must be.

Hard questions

If newspapers can no longer afford cartoonists, isn't this just the market working?

Partly, and the evidence supports that reading. A paper with falling revenue cuts the roles that do not bring in subscribers or advertisers, and a cartoonist is an easy cut because the paper can run a syndicated cartoon for less. The Herb Block report records the shrinkage without calling it a policy failure. The counter-argument is that a cartoonist is a form of accountability for the paper's own community that syndication cannot replace, since a syndicated drawing about Washington says nothing about the county board. Both are fair. The numbers show what happened, and they do not settle whether it was a good bargain.

Doesn't the Pittsburgh and Washington Post episodes show owners silencing critics?

They show owners and editors exercising control over what runs, which they have always had. Whether the control was illegitimate depends on the reason. The papers gave reasons: in Pittsburgh a spokesperson said the matter had little to do with politics, ideology or Donald Trump, and at the Post Shipley cited repetition. The cartoonists gave opposite reasons. A newspaper is a private business and the First Amendment constrains government, not an owner. The reporter's job is to publish both accounts and the dates, and the reader decides.

Shouldn't a paper refuse to print drawings that offend a religion, to avoid violence?

That is the argument of many who opposed Jyllands-Posten's decision, and it has a sober version: editors owe their staff and readers a duty not to invite attacks. The answer from Rose and from the Danish paper's defenders is that an attack on staff is a reason to stand firm, since the alternative lets violence set the editorial list. Charlie Hebdo republished the Muhammad cartoons in September 2020 as the trial opened. The record in the sources shows 12 people dead at the magazine, and no source checked here says that fewer cartoons would have meant fewer attacks. Reasonable editors have come down on both sides, as the 2019 Times decision shows.

Isn't a generated image just a cartoon with better tools?

It is a cartoon when the maker and the audience both know it is invented, and a record when the audience takes it for one. Satire's old defense is that no reasonable reader mistakes a drawing for a statement of fact, which Hustler v. Falwell turned into law. A realistic generated video or photograph weakens that assumption. States have responded with labeling laws, 31 of them by Al Jazeera's count, and the Blakeman ads carried a disclaimer for a few seconds. Whether that is enough is unsettled.

Why should journalists pay a photographer $750 when the meme is already everywhere?

Because the meme being everywhere does not transfer the copyright. Griner licensed the image to companies including Microsoft and Coca-Cola, and the court's analysis rested on a commercial use that added nothing. That is the point of the ruling. A news story that discusses the meme is on different ground from a fundraising post that uses it, and the first factor of fair use distinguishes them. Warhol v. Goldsmith adds that a different meaning alone does not turn a copy into a fair use.

Learn more

• Herb Block Foundation, Report on Editorial Cartooning: The 2011 count of staff cartoonists and the survey behind it.
• Matt Bors, Back to the Drawing Board: A working cartoonist's account of the job's decline, with the 1957 count.
• Columbia Journalism School case study on the Danish cartoon controversy: The day-by-day timeline from invitation to international crisis.
• Committee to Protect Journalists, Charb profile: The victims, the claim of responsibility and the trial record for Charlie Hebdo.
• Chappatte on the end of Times cartoons: The cartoonist's own statement the day the decision was announced.
• Ann Telnaes, Why I'm quitting the Washington Post: Her statement on the killed cartoon, read against the paper's reply.
• Pulitzer Prizes, Illustrated Reporting and Commentary: Every winner and citation since the category changed its name.
• Hustler Magazine v. Falwell: The opinion that protects parody of public figures, with its history of Nast.
• Griner v. King: The Eighth Circuit opinion on the Success Kid meme and fair use.

Notes

1. Herb Block Foundation, Report on Editorial Cartooning (December 2011). Read it online. ↩
2. Matt Bors, "Back to the Drawing Board," Columbia Journalism Review (Fall 2021). Read it online. ↩
3. Columbia Journalism School case consortium, "The Danish cartoon controversy," Jyllands-Posten timeline. Read it online. ↩
4. Dhaka Tribune, "French court jails 13 accomplices over Charlie Hebdo," December 16, 2020. Read it online. ↩
5. Committee to Protect Journalists, Stephane Charbonnier (Charb) profile and Charlie Hebdo attack record. Read it online. ↩
6. AFP via Inquirer, "New York Times to cease political cartoons after anti-Semitism row," June 11, 2019. Read it online. ↩
7. Kim Lyons, "Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers," Columbia Journalism Review, June 11, 2018. Read it online. ↩
8. NPR, "A Pulitzer winner quits Washington Post after a cartoon on Bezos is killed," January 4, 2025. Read it online. ↩
9. Pulitzer Prizes, "2022 Pulitzer Prize competition opens," category renamed, December 2021. Read it online. ↩
10. Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). Read it online. ↩
11. Griner v. King, Nos. 22-3623 and 23-2117 (8th Cir. June 7, 2024). Read it online. ↩
12. Herb Block Foundation, Report on Editorial Cartooning (December 2011). Read it online. ↩
13. Matt Bors, "Back to the Drawing Board," Columbia Journalism Review (Fall 2021). Read it online. ↩
14. Matt Bors, "Back to the Drawing Board," Columbia Journalism Review (Fall 2021). Read it online. ↩
15. Pulitzer Prizes, Editorial Cartooning winners (2000 to 2021). Read it online. ↩
16. Pulitzer Prizes, Mark Fiore, 2010 winner page. Read it online. ↩
17. Columbia Journalism School case consortium, "The Danish cartoon controversy," Jyllands-Posten timeline. Read it online. ↩
18. Columbia Journalism School case consortium, "The Danish cartoon controversy," Jyllands-Posten timeline. Read it online. ↩
19. Columbia Journalism School case consortium, "The Danish cartoon controversy," Jyllands-Posten timeline. Read it online. ↩
20. Columbia Journalism School case consortium, "The Danish cartoon controversy," Jyllands-Posten timeline. Read it online. ↩
21. Columbia Journalism School case consortium, "The Danish cartoon controversy," Jyllands-Posten timeline. Read it online. ↩
22. Associated Press via KSAT, "Dane who drew controversial Muhammad caricature dies at 86," July 19, 2021. Read it online. ↩
23. Al Jazeera, "Danish Prophet Muhammad cartoonist Kurt Westergaard dies, aged 86," July 19, 2021. Read it online. ↩
24. Associated Press via KSAT, "Dane who drew controversial Muhammad caricature dies at 86," July 19, 2021. Read it online. ↩
25. Associated Press via KSAT, "Dane who drew controversial Muhammad caricature dies at 86," July 19, 2021. Read it online. ↩
26. Committee to Protect Journalists, Stephane Charbonnier (Charb) profile and Charlie Hebdo attack record. Read it online. ↩
27. Committee to Protect Journalists, Stephane Charbonnier (Charb) profile and Charlie Hebdo attack record. Read it online. ↩
28. Dhaka Tribune, "French court jails 13 accomplices over Charlie Hebdo," December 16, 2020. Read it online. ↩
29. Committee to Protect Journalists, Stephane Charbonnier (Charb) profile and Charlie Hebdo attack record. Read it online. ↩
30. Dhaka Tribune, "French court jails 13 accomplices over Charlie Hebdo," December 16, 2020. Read it online. ↩
31. Dhaka Tribune, "French court jails 13 accomplices over Charlie Hebdo," December 16, 2020. Read it online. ↩
32. Committee to Protect Journalists, Stephane Charbonnier (Charb) profile and Charlie Hebdo attack record. Read it online. ↩
33. Kim Lyons, "Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers," Columbia Journalism Review, June 11, 2018. Read it online. ↩
34. Kim Lyons, "Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers," Columbia Journalism Review, June 11, 2018. Read it online. ↩
35. Kim Lyons, "Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers," Columbia Journalism Review, June 11, 2018. Read it online. ↩
36. Kim Lyons, "Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers," Columbia Journalism Review, June 11, 2018. Read it online. ↩
37. Kim Lyons, "Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers," Columbia Journalism Review, June 11, 2018. Read it online. ↩
38. Kim Lyons, "Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers," Columbia Journalism Review, June 11, 2018. Read it online. ↩
39. AFP via Inquirer, "New York Times to cease political cartoons after anti-Semitism row," June 11, 2019. Read it online. ↩
40. iMediaEthics, "NYT deletes offensive cartoon of Netanyahu, Trump," April 2019. Read it online. ↩
41. AFP via Inquirer, "New York Times to cease political cartoons after anti-Semitism row," June 11, 2019. Read it online. ↩
42. AFP via Inquirer, "New York Times to cease political cartoons after anti-Semitism row," June 11, 2019. Read it online. ↩
43. AFP via Inquirer, "New York Times to cease political cartoons after anti-Semitism row," June 11, 2019. Read it online. ↩
44. AFP via Inquirer, "New York Times to cease political cartoons after anti-Semitism row," June 11, 2019. Read it online. ↩
45. Patrick Chappatte, "The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times," June 10, 2019. Read it online. ↩
46. Pulitzer Prizes, Ann Telnaes, 2025 winner page. Read it online. ↩
47. Ann Telnaes, "Why I'm quitting the Washington Post," Substack, January 4, 2025. Read it online. ↩
48. NPR, "A Pulitzer winner quits Washington Post after a cartoon on Bezos is killed," January 4, 2025. Read it online. ↩
49. NPR, "A Pulitzer winner quits Washington Post after a cartoon on Bezos is killed," January 4, 2025. Read it online. ↩
50. NPR, "A Pulitzer winner quits Washington Post after a cartoon on Bezos is killed," January 4, 2025. Read it online. ↩
51. NPR, "A Pulitzer winner quits Washington Post after a cartoon on Bezos is killed," January 4, 2025. Read it online. ↩
52. Pulitzer Prizes, Ann Telnaes, 2025 winner page. Read it online. ↩
53. Pulitzer Prizes, Ann Telnaes, 2025 winner page. Read it online. ↩
54. Pulitzer Prizes, "2022 Pulitzer Prize competition opens," category renamed, December 2021. Read it online. ↩
55. Pulitzer Prizes, Illustrated Reporting and Commentary winners (2022 to 2026). Read it online. ↩
56. Anchorage Daily News, "Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris for president after debate ends," September 2024. Read it online. ↩
57. Anchorage Daily News, "Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris for president after debate ends," September 2024. Read it online. ↩
58. CNN Newsource via KCRG, "Trump posts AI-generated photo of him as pope," May 3, 2025. Read it online. ↩
59. Al Jazeera, "AI deepfake ads grow more popular in US midterm campaigns," October 9, 2026. Read it online. ↩
60. Al Jazeera, "AI deepfake ads grow more popular in US midterm campaigns," October 9, 2026. Read it online. ↩
61. Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). Read it online. ↩
62. Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). Read it online. ↩
63. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994). Read it online. ↩
64. Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith, No. 21-869 (May 18, 2023). Read it online. ↩
65. Griner v. King, Nos. 22-3623 and 23-2117 (8th Cir. June 7, 2024). Read it online. ↩
66. Griner v. King, Nos. 22-3623 and 23-2117 (8th Cir. June 7, 2024). Read it online. ↩
67. Griner v. King, Nos. 22-3623 and 23-2117 (8th Cir. June 7, 2024). Read it online. ↩