Ed Hall loses another client
By Alan Gardner
December 2, 2008
Ed Hall, who I reported last week as losing one of his client newspapers due to a cartoon that criticized the local school district, has lost St. Augustine Record permanently as a client (before the relationship was “temporarily” suspended). Ed reports on his blog that the paper ran a semi-apologetic letter to sooth the locals as well as a letter that condemned the cartoon as offensive.
Ed sums up the insanity of the situation.
At the same time, this weekend, a local online publication wrote a short column praising my work, and asking why I should be let go for doing my job. The irony here of course is that I’m not even a staffer at this paper. I provide them with INEXPENSIVE, quality local commentary that they can’t get from any syndicate.
In other Ed Hall news, he’s lost another paper - The Times Union due to budget cuts. Regarding this he writes,
This is as bad as I’ve ever seen things, and I know it’s not easy for my editors. They have to let go photographers, reporters, cartoonists, et al. My question is, who’s gonna put the paper together when everybody is gone? The janitor? The editor? Alone? There’s no one left. But they all say they’re going to do what they have to to keep the papers published.
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Community Comments
#1 Paul Fell
December/2/2008 @ 11:57 am
I was joking with a journalist friend about the continuing cutbacks in newspaper staff and observed that the bean counters who run newspapers these days won’t be happy until the entire staff consisted of 1 editor and 1 other guy who takes pictures.
My friend said that arrangement would only last until management figured out how to teach that editor to take pictures.
Its a pretty sad scene at most newspapers these days. Those who have survived the cutbacks thus far are now expected to assume the workload of those who have been let go.
#2 Turbulent Ted Dawson
December/2/2008 @ 8:57 pm
In order for media conglomerates to stop firing editorial cartoonists, there has to be a repercussion of some sort. When they think about letting a staff editorial cartoonist go, there has to be something that makes them pause for a moment, because they know X could happen. There is no X.
What X could be?
#3 Bill Hinds
December/2/2008 @ 11:05 pm
Do the corporations make the decision to layoff the editorial cartoonists, or do they make a decision to cut staff, and let the editors work it out how they want? They can cut the staff cartoonist job and still have plenty of editorial cartoons in the paper.
This is an area, like the lineup of comic strips, where the lack of newspaper competition in a town has affected the makeup of the paper. If one paper had an editorial cartoonist, the other paper, or papers, wanted one.
I think a popular motivation to hire an editorial cartoonist on the staff these days, is to try to win a Pulitzer prize for the paper.
I think Turbulent Ted may have it backward. X won’t happen if they don’t run local cartoons, but X (a different X) could happen if they DO run local cartoons. The truth is, people are pretty clueless about the politics in their own community. It’s easier to get a point across with a cartoon than it is with a series of articles.
I think a high profile award for local editorial cartooning might help. Maybe the Fischetti Award would fit that bill.
#4 Mike Peterson
December/3/2008 @ 5:10 am
The lack of cross-town competition is at the heart of the decline of editorial cartooning, as well as the issues on the comics page. It’s not even the arrogance of a monopoly — it’s not “So what if we have Ann Landers instead of Dear Abby? We’re the only paper in town!”
The days of slugging it out are so far behind us that today’s editors have no sense of that competition. The few places that have two papers are, for the most part, either locked in JOAs or so massive that they don’t really feel the competitive urge. And Boston and Washington aren’t competitive — they’re runaways.
Chuck Asay was a tremendous asset for the Colorado Springs Sun in the late 70s and early 80s, not just for his local cartoons but for the other illustrations he provided throughout the paper. Plus he was always willing to go to public events and sketch for people. He really branded the Sun. Which failed anyway, but that’s life — I think Chuck remained their greatest asset right to the end. Like the Boston Herald or the Washington Times, the Sun just never achieved traction against the Big Established Paper in town.
And that’s the problem — even with an asset like Chuck, the competitive advantage doesn’t kick in if you’re down by a 3-to-1 margin. Until you’re really toe-to-toe, there aren’t a lot of individual things you can do to shift the basic inequalities, which is what advertisers look at. (I’m not saying you shouldn’t try. Just stating how it works.)
#5 Ed Hall
December/3/2008 @ 7:46 am
This is all a mute point when they’re not just getting rid of the cartoonists, but the photographers, columnists, receptionists, et al. I was released with a photographer in one of these instances,and a columnist in another; and I asked the editor, point blank “who is going to put this thing together now?” And he said, quote, “I’ve kept our star reporter, we’ll manage; but we’re counting every penny that goes out the door.” Looks like advertising might be drying up now as well. And, that’ll kill it for sure.
I didn’t think that this would hapen so suddenly at the local level, but it has. Having been in the trenches of local editooning for 17 years, I’ve never seen things this bad.
#6 Turbulent Ted Dawson
December/3/2008 @ 9:13 am
Excellent points, Bill.
I would disagree about cartoons on local issues making a difference in saving one’s job, though. It’s almost like laying off editorial cartoonists is the trendy thing, and publishers get together and say, “Hey, dude, you fire your cartoonist yet? Everybody’s doing it!”
By X, I had in mind not repercussions from readers and the like, but something like an angry mob of united editorial cartoonists who go on Good Morning America… or by now there would probably be a bigger mob of laid-off editorial cartoonists. What about people who have professed themselves leaders of the group? There doesn’t seem to be much leadership.
In my view, this is a crisis situation. It’s not like we are wondering IF any more editorial cartoonists will lose their jobs, but WHEN… and how long till there are ONLY syndicated cartoonists? It seems like a time to take drastic measures.
What would the cartoonists who have been let go in the past two years have done, if they had known for sure? That’s what everybody who is currently an editorial cartoonist should do, as it seems likely another dozen or more will be gone soon.
All this carnage without a fight. I don’t understand it.
#7 Bill Hinds
December/3/2008 @ 9:46 am
I disagree. My points weren’t excellent–average, really. I will, however, stand by them.
I see no point in a cartoonist in a mid-size city newspaper, even some large city papers, making a comment about national politics unless it relates to that city somehow. An example of why can be seen at Daryl Cagle’s web site where he posts themes with the takes of editorial cartoonists from around the country. Sure, some are clever, but many are redundant. I doubt if the reader cares where the cartoonist lives who is making comments about national news and politics. Also, it’s easy to make comments about national politics. Local politics requires doing homework.
But I would like to watch that episode of Good Morning America. It has a sort of Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney, “Let’s put a on show in the barn, and raise the money to get our parents out of jail!” feel to it. Those were innocent times. Putting on a show in the barn sounds completely different today. Sigh
#8 Telegenic Ted Dawson
December/3/2008 @ 10:39 am
There was actually an editorial cartoonist who got in trouble for “putting on a show in the barn,” but we should let bygones be bygones…
For me, one of the things that is frustrating about the cartooning fields is that logic doesn’t apply much anymore. I would think that concentrating on local issues would be an important way to secure one’s job. Yet we’ve seen cartoonists who do just that, and they get fired just the same. The layoffs don’t have anything to do with job performance.
We all wonder if the specific decision is coming from corporate or the local editor. That bit of information seems paramount to dealing with this situation. Somebody should have figured that out by now.
Even newspaper carriers represent themselves better than cartoonists. Editorial cartoonists are generally very intelligent and creative people. They have strong opinions and stand behind their beliefs and their cartoons. But as long as I’ve been a cartoonist, I’ve never seen cartoonists pull together on any issue. The only thing that comes to mind at all, is Neal Adams standing up for poverty-stricken Seigel and Schuster, but that was mostly Adams and not the community of cartoonists.
Several years ago the NCS came up with the lovely idea of establishing Cartoonist Appreciation Day. That quickly bombed. But comic book cartoonists took it and turned it into something positive: Free Comic Book Day, which has been a very effective and expanding promotion. I think there’s something to learn from things like this.
#9 Bill Hinds
December/3/2008 @ 11:02 am
“Logic doesn’t apply much anymore.” That pretty much says it for everything in the world these days.
#10 Ed Hall
December/3/2008 @ 11:04 am
From my last post, I meant to say “moot” point (damn you spell checker!) But, since I’m here, I’ll also mention that regardless of everything else, when advertising revenue starts dropping, due to a soured economy, the axe is gonna swing on local papers. It’s inevitable and because we’ve got people with little or no experience making these decisions, it’s indiscriminate.
As for cartoonists putting up a fight - there’s no one left to fight. In one of these cases an editor was let go with me, and the paper was absorbed by another periodical. Who am I gonna complain to when the paper goes away? This thing is drying up before our eyes (and it’s in slow motion - which makes it worse).
#11 Ted "Diphthong" Dawson
December/3/2008 @ 11:14 am
We could sure use more Mute points around here! :^)
Ed, it seems to me the fight needs to take place on the corporate level, with the handful of companies that together own hundreds of periodicals. The scenario is different with different papers, to be sure. Some are actually hurting financially; some are independently owned and value cartoonists (like the Tulsa World); but many are owned by media conglomerates who can and do affect the entire newspaper industry.
#12 Ed Hall
December/3/2008 @ 11:20 am
TDD wrote: “but many are owned by media conglomerates who can and do affect the entire newspaper industry.”
You think you’re gonna fight those guys, I’ve got some property to sell you. The days of The Hearsts are loooong gone. We’ve got to stop thinking like they’re here or that they are going to come back. The paradigm was changed completely with rise of the internet.
#13 Bill Hinds
December/3/2008 @ 11:54 am
Here’s a thought. Regional self-syndication. If an editorial cartoonist could resist showing how perceptive he is about national politics, and try to sell regional cartoons to a number of newspapers, they might buy them. Just because they can’t afford a staff cartoonist doesn’t mean they don’t want to run cartoons. And I think cartoons with a regional (state or multi-state depending on the size) focus would be attractive to an editor. I don’t think it would take long to figure out it wasn’t working.
And I honestly don’t think cartoonists would be hired because they went on TV and complained.
#14 Tongue-tied Ted Dawson
December/3/2008 @ 11:59 am
That’s the spirit!!
#15 Paul Fell
December/3/2008 @ 1:27 pm
Bill:
The idea of a cartoonist self-syndicating local/regional cartoons has been tried before, and indeed, some are doing this as we speak. However, if you think you’re going to make a living at it, think again. When I self-syndicated, I decided to peddle my cartoons on Nebraska subjects to papers around the state. I charged them $25 per month, regardless of circulation size and they received 3 cartoons each week.
Our state has something like 125 papers if you count all the weeklies, bi-weeklies, and dailies. The most I ever had was about 20 client papers, and that didn’t last more than a couple of years. Even $25 per month was way more than many of these guys were willing to spend for editorial cartoons. Many of the smaller papers don’t even bother to have an editorial page. Peddling the cartoons on a per-use basis just wasn’t worth the time and effort. I finally gave up and went on to other things that paid better.
#16 Bill Hinds
December/3/2008 @ 1:38 pm
Paul, I appreciate your experience, but when you were doing that had so many cartoonist jobs been eliminated? Maybe there are more potential clients now.
I’m glad you’ve found things that paid better.
#17 Ed Hall
December/3/2008 @ 2:02 pm
Bill wrote: “Maybe there are more potential clients now.”
There are less. And it’s shrinking as we speak. I can attest to this. I’m currently trying to fill the holes that were just opened up in my little self-syndicate, and there’s just nothing there. No budget, no money - anywhere.
BTW, I was making substantially more than $25 per toon. Paul, you were giving it away. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why they canned me. DOH!
#18 Telegenic Ted Dawson
December/3/2008 @ 2:28 pm
Bill, my point wasn’t that editorial cartoonists would be hired because they went on TV and complained, but that there are currently NO repurcussions felt by the media conglomerates when they let go editorial cartoonists. I’m saying there is currently no reason for them to have them think twice before axing cartoonists. There needs to be at least some reason, that makes sense to corporate board members, to reconsider firing cartoonists.
I have no idea what would cause them to do so. It could be public attention on national TV. It could be a study conducted by the AAEC showing real effects on newspaper readership by editorial cartoonists. Bags of flaming doggie poop on their porches after each firing. Cartoonists buying up shares of the media conglomerates. Throwing a barbeque for the stockholders and schmoozing them with malt liquor. I don’t know.
I’m sure editorial cartoonists have done many things to try to improve the situation. I just haven’t heard of any of them because I’m not in the loop. All I see is lots of editorial cartoonists being laid off with no end in sight.
#19 Paul Fell
December/3/2008 @ 2:48 pm
Ted, you keep saying that you haven’t heard of editorial cartoonists trying to do anything in the face of continuing job cuts. If you’ve got some great ideas as to what should be done, feel free to share them with the rest of us.
Part of why everyone in journalism, not just cartoonists, feels so powerless to fight these personnel reductions is that newspapers are no longer run by newspapermen. Now they are run by investors and “businessmen”. When they have finally sucked every drop of money from newspapers they will simply discard the husk and move on, as parasites do, to find another victim to feed on.
On a related note, in the online version of Editor and Publisher there’s a story about how it is expected that newspapers will continue to struggle with decreasing ad revenue in 2009 and then in 2010, some cities could start to see daily papers disappear altogether.
Finally, I just heard that longtime Des Moines Register cartoonist Brian Duffy has become the latest to join the ranks of ex-staff cartoonists.
#20 Mike Lester
December/3/2008 @ 2:50 pm
I’m uncomfortable w/ any artificial demand for any service and I can’t think of any occupation where it’s been successful. I’m all ears.
#21 Wiley Miller
December/3/2008 @ 3:41 pm
“Now they are run by investors and “businessmen”. ”
This is the problem in virtually every industry today, including the auto industry being discussed in the other thread. In a bygone era, CEO’s came from within the industry and in many cases had spent 20 or 30 years in the company. They had a vested, personal interest in the company and felt responsibility to the long term health of the company and the welfare of the employees. Not today. There is a detachment by today’s CEO’s who are only interested in garnering as much personal wealth as possible. They have little or no understanding of the industry they’re presiding over, only looking at the bottom line… their bottom line… giving themselves bonuses as the corporation they’re running goes bankrupt. Any wonder why all these industries are going down the tubes?
#22 Ed Hall
December/3/2008 @ 4:02 pm
I think Wiley just defined the apocalypse.
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