Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times; Washington Post Cartoonist Quits After Jeff Bezos Cartoon Is Killed
"David Shipley, The Post’s opinions editor, said in a statement that he respected Ms. Telnaes and all she had given to The Post “but must disagree with her interpretation of events."
“Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force,” Mr. Shipley said in the statement. “My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition.”
Mr. Shipley added that he had spoken with Ms. Telnaes by phone on Friday and had asked her to reconsider resigning. During the call, Mr. Shipley said he wanted to speak with Ms. Telnaes on Monday, after they had taken the weekend to think things over. He later encouraged her to hold off on quitting to see if they could work out the situation in accordance with her principles.
Ms. Telnaes did not respond to requests for comment.
Matt Wuerker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for Politico, called the decision to kill Ms. Telnaes’s cartoon “spineless,” adding that the storied Post cartoonist Herbert Block, known as Herblock, and Ben Bradlee, a former editor of The Post, were “spinning, kicking and screaming in their graves.”"
