Yesterday morning NPR ran a piece on the decline of editorial cartoonists at local newspapers. As newspapers cut back editorial cartoonist jobs are among the first to go, their spots on the editorial page replaced with the work of syndicated cartoonists like Mike Luckovich (who offers his own take on the problem of media cutbacks). While in the 1980s cartoonists numbered about 300 at U.S. newspapers, they are now what one person in the piece calls the "canaries in the coal mine": the signal that recent newspaper cutbacks are going to be permanent and devastating.
The piece points out that it's important to have folks visualizing the local. Certainly the local sometimes becomes national (e.g., in Illinois with Governor Scumbag), but the loss of a "visual voice" on the local stuff seems to me to be a real loss. For as long as I've lived here our local newspaper (not even owned by an evil corporation, incidentally) has never had its own cartoonist. That's too bad. I would love to know what a local guy or gal would do with, for example, the "giant Lincoln head" recently proposed for the Urbana courthouse.
Among this blog's readership are a former newspaper editor and a former college editorial cartoonist. Perhaps they, or others, would be willing to comment on the role editorial cartoons can or should play in local politics.
You cannot overestimate the importance of a local cartoonist. They focus on the basic issues facing a community often making lighthearted commentary on serious issues which spark a reaction among readers. They can have a much greater impact on readers than an editorial or an editorial column. It is sad that they are a disappearing breed.
Posted by: John R. Finnegan SR | 18 December 2008 at 08:42 AM
I used to love seeing Jerry Fearing doing the local angle editorial cartoons in the Pioneer Press. A very talented artist, he nailed the caricatures of our local politicians and celebrities. He was a very big influence in my choice of careers (graphic arts). I felt closer to the local issues that the paper covered when an editorial cartoon was involved. Today, local editorial cartoons are relegated to the covers of the smaller weekly papers, monthly magazines, blogs and newsletters. Our two city dailies in the Twin Cities are no longer under local ownership and don't feel any real connection to the local scene. They just seem to regurgitate stories off the wire and local staffs have been cut.
Technology and the electronic media has actually given a voice to the political satirist and cartoonists in the form of animated shows (The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Adult Swim). That could be an entire dissertation by itself.
Don't forget to check out the brilliant work of Thomas Nast.
Posted by: Jim Finnegan | 18 December 2008 at 09:25 AM
Oh, I LOVE Thomas Nast. So nasty and so visually complex. Next year when I teach my U.S. visual history grad seminar we're going to spend time with his work.
Posted by: caraf | 19 December 2008 at 11:32 AM