Published: May 02, 2008 12:49 am            

ADAMCZYK: Another profession’s decline

Browse through any newspaper or news magazine and it won’t be long before you find a political cartoon with some sort of reference to competition and mutual self-destruction — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in locked-together racing cars headed for the wall; Clinton and Obama flattening a donkey as they jump on its back; the two of them as Olympic swimmers elbowing each other while speeding down the lanes.

Yeah, we get it, oh clever satirists wielding pen and ink. This rivalry is a damaging one.

We can add “political cartoonist” to the list of endangered American professions. Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2007, Tony Dokoupil mentioned that, 50 years earlier, The Saturday Review declared editorial cartooning on its deathbed. The cause was wishy-washy editors, eager to avoid the issues of race, corporate power, the rise of the military-industrial complex and other topics of the day, and the fear of offending advertisers, stockholders and politicians. In short, conservatives. That was 1957, more or less, and there was plenty about which to be offended.

Although the American press has hardly been in play-nice mode since, the number of working newspaper cartoonists in the United States has fallen, in 50 years, from 275 to 84. Fewer than one in 10 papers today has a staff cartoonist. Newspapers interested in filling an editorial page space with a potent, one-panel punch of a political view can turn to a variety of syndicators, who’ll gladly sell it by the unit. Unfortunately, those commodities tend to be vanilla-flavored, relatively inoffensive and plain-Jane versions of an opinion. Fewer people than ever read political cartoons. Fewer still appreciate them. Presumably even fewer agree with them.

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be political cartoonists. There’s no future in it.

I have a hard time believing that cartoonists are out of work because they’ve angered the Perry Whites or Lou Grants of the world, or their bosses (and pardon the dated references: the newspaper business has become marginalized in the 21st century New Media to the point that there isn’t even a contemporary archetype for whoever’s running the operation and yelling “Stop the presses! Get me Re-write!” into the phone). If you seek a quick, clever, snap-judgment opinion on the day’s affairs, you turn to television.

Like political cartoonists, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jon Stewart and their colleagues can offer the one-sided wisecrack that deflates a politician or lays waste to some government administrator’s intention. Similarly, the viewer can turn to his or her favorite for an unfair and unbalanced commentary on the news (I suspect you cannot name a favorite cartoonist, but you have a favorite political comic. Maybe Bill O’Reilly). It’s also a lot easier to repeat a setup and a punchline, at work the following day, than to describe an editorial page illustration.

Under the category “President Bush/ Overall Job Rating” last week’s USA Today/ Gallup Poll survey reported that only 28% of respondents are in the “approve” category (69% come in under “disapprove”). I suspect that next to no one has his or her opinions moved by the work of newspaper cartoonists. Ah, but the necktie-straight apologists at Fox News, the bomb-throwing anarchists of MSNBC, the news desk at “Saturday Night Live” and the other late-night talk shows --- that’s another matter. This is why presidential hopefuls announce their candidacies in appearances on Jay Leno’s show, and not on “Meet the Press”. It is also why America’s most incisive and perceptive political commentators hone their craft through years of stand-up comedy and general interaction with the American public and not the American ruling class (or in the case of my personal favorite, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, at ESPN, where sports wrap-up programs include plenty of snappy opinion).

Historical museums today routinely feature exhibitions of the fascinating history of the political cartoon. Thomas Nast, John Leech of the influential Punch magazine of the 19th century, “Herblock” and the rest, all get their due. And therein lies the problem. When an art form requires the help of a museum to survive, it often suggests there is inadequate resonance in the public realm to keep it afloat. There are political cartoonists out there the way there are quilt-makers. It’s an honorable craft, and it’s still being practiced, but the world, in general, has passed it by.

And yet: I remember meeting Pulitzer Prize-winning Buffalo cartoonist Tom Toles at a local book-signing. He provided a autograph for an friend of mine who’d moved to Chicago. We then began talking about one of Toles’ interests, the city’s Olmsted Parks. He scribbled away with a felt-tip pen on a manila envelope to explain his points, and by the time he finished, I had a map of the Buffalo park system drawn by Tom Toles. I asked him to sign it. That, I’m keeping.

Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears Fridays in the Tonawanda News. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.

        

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