NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� A longtime editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post early this year after editors killed her sketch criticizing the Post owner and other media chief executives working to curry favor with Trump has won the Pulitzer Prize for illustrated reporting and commentary.
Ann Telnaes won for 鈥渄elivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity 鈥� and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years,鈥� according to the Pulitzer announcement on Monday.
Her cartoon showed a group of media executives bowing before then President-elect Donald Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Several executives, Bezos among them, had been Mar-a-Lago. Telnaes accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations. to inauguration fund.
When she quit the newspaper earlier this year, Telnaes that she'd never before had a sketch killed because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon鈥檚 commentary. She called that a game-changer and dangerous for a free press.
鈥淎s an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,鈥� in early January. 鈥淔or the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I鈥檓 just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say 鈥楧emocracy dies in darkness.鈥欌��
David Shipley, the newspaper鈥檚 editorial page editor at the time, said in a statement after Telnaes quit that he decided to nix the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic. Shipley then resigned in late February after Bezos, in a major shift, directed that the Post to personal liberties and the free market.
The fallout continued in March when a longtime columnist, Ruth Marcus, quit after she said the newspaper鈥檚 management decided not to run her commentary critical of Bezos鈥� policy.
The Post, which made money during the first Trump administration, has been losing money in recent years, Its internal strife largely began last June as executive editor rather than accept a newsroom reorganization. Several prominent Post journalists have since left for other jobs.
Bezos鈥� decision last fall that the Post would not endorse a presidential candidate 鈥� after the editorial staff had prepared to support Democrat Kamala Harris 鈥� led to .
Lisa Baumann, The Associated Press
