Rob Rogers has been working as the editorial cartoonist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the past 25 years. On Thursday, he was fired.
A little less than two weeks ago, the The Inquirer ran a story about how the Post-Gazette had been shutting down Rogers’ cartoons since March, when Keith Burris took over as editorial director in a merger with the Toledo Blade.
It is unusual for a staff cartoonist to have an entire week’s worth of political cartoons spiked. Signe Wilkinson, the Inquirer and Daily News’ Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, said she has had just one cartoon killed in her tenure — a drawing that was spiked from the Inquirer but ran in the Daily News.
Rogers’ cartoons were replaced in print by the work of syndicated artists and three cartoons by Toledo Blade staff cartoonist Kirk Walters. In last Tuesday’s paper, under a cartoon about gun control by syndicated cartoonist Robert Ariail, Rogers was listed as having “the day off.”
What was wrong with Roberts’ cartoons? He posted them to his Twitter account. Maybe we can find a pattern?
I guess Rogers did not get the memo that freedom of speech is not absolute, especially when it comes to holding 'Dear Leader' to account.
