John Branch’s position was eliminated at the San Antonio Express-News
Two images motivated me to write my first letter to the editor as a teen: the picture of a screaming girl with a bloody hand, kneeling beside a body at Kent State, and a Fort Worth Star Telegram editorial cartoon showing Uncle Sam gazing in horror at his bloody hands.
The screaming girl was exactly my age, and the domestic turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War was a huge part of my formative years. The editorial cartoonist rubbed me the wrong way. I mark my passion for journalism from the day I saw the cartoon, and for being a journalist the my letter was published.
And so it goes with good editorial cartoonists. The best have a love-hate relationship with the audience. Some days they are the champions of vox populi … other days, they are tipping your sacred cows. In local context, they can crystalize public sentiment and be a powerful tool for social change. In the days when journalism toed the line on strict objectivity in news coverage, the editorial cartoonist was the one guy in the newsroom who got to say what many others were thinking, but couldn’t say publicly.
For editorial cartoonists, however, time appears to be running out. I was moved to hear that my longtime colleague, San Antonio Express-News cartoonist John Branch had been cut loose from the newspaper, as part of the ongoing hemorrhage of talent in the industry. He’s not alone, and the craft itself is in peril, as described in this Editor & Publisher special report: “Will the editorial cartoonist vanish?”
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Thomas Nast’s GOP elephant sits at the grave of his defeated Democrat rival, in a victory that almost destroyed him. |
Editorial cartoonists have been part of our history — both the Democrat Donkey and the Republican Elephant were born from the inkwell of Thomas Nast , who also gave us our modern vision of Santa Claus, and the original Uncle Sam. His cartoons are credited with tipping presidential elections and exposing the corruption of Tammany Hall.
For my generation, the leading political cartoonist was Gary Trudeau, who used the long-running comic strip “Doonesbury” and its memorable characters to carry us from Vietnam and campus unrest, through every major social and political upheaval.
Satire is a powerful tool against corruption and social ills. It reaches us on a visceral level that a dry analysis or news report does not. It bridges the gap between our heads and our hearts. And the best satire tends to take the edge off polarization, easing tension and allowing rival sides to engage in more civil discourse.
For today’s generation, Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” and Steven Colbert’s “Colbert Report” have shown phenomenal ability to attract influence social and political debate. They are the editorial satirists of the left, and if the right had something similar, perhaps the country wouldn’t be so deeply divided.
While Stewart and Colbert and their heirs and imitators will carry the torch nationally, the real loss will be at the local level. John Branch is still an editorial cartoonist with King Features Syndicate, and his cartoons are still appearing in the Express-News, but the institution of political cartoonist is slipping away. Like cartoons in general, which have slowly been trimmed from newspapers over the past 20 years, it is increasingly difficult to find buyers.
One can only hope that when journalism finds a new life and business model apart from the newspaper factory, the skills and wit of these artists are part of the new world.
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