“Usually when you look at an editorial cartoon, it's (done by) some guy like you who is pissed who can draw,” he said. While written editorials can sometimes be ponderous and intimidate readers, the impact of a well-done cartoon is instantaneous, Pett said. Since then, owing to the diminishing number of employed cartoonists, the Pulitzers have broadened the category in which they compete and renamed it “Illustrated Reporting and Commentary.” The last full-time editorial cartoonist to win a Pulitzer was Jim Morin of the Miami Herald in 2017. Now, Ohman estimates there are fewer than 20. There's a rich history of editorial cartooning, including Thomas Nast's vivid takedowns of corrupt New York City politicians in the late 1800s and Herbert Block's drawings of a sinister-looking Richard Nixon in The Washington Post.Īt the start of the 20th century, there were about 2,000 editorial cartoonists employed at newspapers, according to a report by the Herbert Block Foundation. “We made this decision based on changing reader habits and our relentless focus on providing the communities we serve with local news and information they can't get elsewhere,” the chain said in a statement. newspapers, said it would no longer publish editorial cartoons.
