editorial cartoon

Allan Fotheringham on a gentleman in a profession that had few

Why cartoonists are proving to be a powerful force in one of the world’s most repressive regimes

Attention newspapers: trying to milk the Lee Harpey Oswald scandal for every possible ounce of news value may seem like fun now, but you do realize, don’t you, that we journalists will end up being bound by the standards of taste we’re all now blithely applying to partisan propagandists? The longer we countenance this grotesque farce, the more likely it is that editorial cartoonists will eventually be forbidden by custom from drawing statesmen with knives sticking out of their backs. (It’s a direct reference to assassination! How dare you?) This is a problem, since the code of their profession requires them to do so a minimum of five times a year. (I think it’s in the handbook right after the “Dead celebrities being greeted by St. Peter” quota.)