2.5
May 4, 2016

“Longtime Iowa farm cartoonist fired after creating this cartoon.”

Long-time Iowa farm cartoonist fired after creating this cartoon (kcci.com)

“A freelance cartoonist says he was fired for drawing an editorial cartoon…” This, in America, no less–land of free expression and free press? See below to see how you can help. Watch the video about this, here.

“Again, I fall hard in the best interest of large corporations. I am no longer the Editorial Cartoonist for Farm News due to the attached cartoon which was published yesterday. Apparently a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled their advertisement with the paper, thus, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of its Friday cartoons after 21 years of service and over 1,090 published cartoons to over 24,000 households per week in 33 counties of Iowa.

“I did my research and only submitted the facts in my cartoon.

“That’s okay, hopefully my children and my grandchildren will see that this last cartoon published by Farm News out of Fort Dodge, Iowa, will shine light on how fragile our rights to free speech and free press really are in the county.”

Bonus: our extensive coverage of Monsanto over the years, here.

Game of Thrones wisdom time!

“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” ~ Tyrion Lanister.

For a photo of the cartoonist, here. “A large affiliated company “was insulted and canceled their advertisement with the paper, thus, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of ‘It’s Friday’ cartoons,” wrote Friday, who worked 21 years for Farm News, publishing 1,090 cartoons.”

“That newspaper shot themselves in both feet. They just announced to their entire staff that loyalty is worthless.”

Did you know? “3 CEOs in the agribusiness space made more than 2,129 farmers. Worth mentioning them by name.”

  • Hugh Grant. Monsanto.
  • Charles Johnson. DuPont Pioneer.
  • Samuel Allen. John Deere.”

More great Reddit comments (which underline the importance of subscribing to your favorite news sources—years ago, before even the NY Times, elephant launched its own paygate).

lvbm59gws 1002 points

The more important piece of info is that he was fired because “a seed dealer pulled his advertisements with Farm News” as a result of the cartoon. This reveals the sad state of modern journalism, at least in the US. You’ll literally see corporations running ads on mainstream network news channels even though they’re not trying to sell anything to consumers; they simply want influence over the news channel. The news should be beholden to its viewers, not the advertisers.

CireArodum 302 points

It would be if the viewers paid. NPR and PBS are good.

Alwaysahawk 181 points

Yep, I’m leaving my journalism job next week actually and the one thing I’ve realized is people want New York Times work on tiny budget. They don’t want the paper to answer to advertisers, but right now advertisers are the ones paying the bills.

I don’t really know what the answer is to the problem. I would say going more towards a subscriber fee based model but the problem is nobody wants to pay for any news online. Digital advertising rates are going to shit so something is going to have to change eventually.

M_de_Fortgibu 27 points

That’s the one bit of hypocrisy I see on a lot of these issues. Lots of people are angry about online advertising and the influence of corporations but not many people want to pay for the content they consume (whether it be news, music, or visual media). I think our desire for free lunch left the door open for a power grab by giant multinationals to step in and start shaping all the pieces of the system to benefit themselves (since they were willing to shell out the bucks to keep the lights on at news headquarters). As I see it we basically have two options:

1) open our wallets and start paying for content we consume, or

2) Devise a new economic model that sustains everyone and every type of enterprise without depending on economic growth protracted infinitely into the future (personally I think this will have to happen eventually but I kind of doubt it’s anywhere within the time horizon of my own lifetime).

Byxit 35 points

PBS, BBC models work on a subscription or fee base and turn out good work.

Relephant bonus:

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