American cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize winner Ann Telnaes has left the Washington Post after a dispute over one of her cartoons criticizing newspaper owner Jeff Bezos.
Telnaes said that the editors rejected the depiction of Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, and the founder of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post, Bezos, holding a bag of money and kneeling in front of a statue of the new American president, Donald Trump.
The cartoonist said that her goal was to criticize the billionaire’s attempts to get closer to Trump.
“To be clear, there have been cases when cartoons were rejected or changes were requested, but never because of the point of view expressed in the cartoon. This is a huge change and is dangerous for media freedom,” wrote Telnaes, who has worked for the Washington Post since 2008.
David Shipley, comments editor at the Washington Post, disputes Telnaes’ view.
“Not every orderly assessment is a reflection of malignant forces,” he announced, reports dpa.
Shipley said that he rejected the cartoon because other authors in the paper addressed the same question, so he wanted to avoid repeating it.
Billionaire Bezos bought the Washington Post in 2013.
Bezos recently said that he will not promote personal interests through that media, after criticism because he decided in the run-up to the election that the Washington Post would not publish more information. written endorsement of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.