This weekend the prolific political cartoonist and author Michael de Adder was for all intents and purposes, fired from all newspapers in his home province of New Brunswick, Canada for creating a cartoon critical of America’s 45th President.
This contentious piece has since gone supernova, his third one-panel cartoon on the same subject to go viral in a week.
From Micheal de Adder via Twitter:
“The highs and lows of cartooning. Today I was just let go from all newspapers in New Brunswick.”
Michael says that while he wasn’t technically employed by the papers he was however “let go” from the contract he held with Brunswick News Inc., and thus the three newspapers in his home province.
All three of these are owned by the same company, Brunswick News Inc.’s parent company, J.D. Irving Ltd. – a huge oil and forestry company with trade ties to the US, wary of drawing the ire of its 45th President Donald Trump.
Trump is a man who punishes those in the press he deems to have taken pot shots at him by effectively encouraging his followers to take a literal pot-shot back. It’s so common a reaction of Trump’s that de Adder recently published a cartoon on the subject.
Cartoons from the past two weeks. #Trump
Cartoons from the past two weeks. #Trump pic.twitter.com/azKPtZFuHD
— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) June 30, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
These were de Adder’s first two cartoons that went viral of Trump, a character so cartoonish in himself that it’s hard not to lampoon him.
Mr deAdder is well aware of where his termination of contract came from…
“The Premier of New Brunswick Blaine Higgs is a former Irving Oil executive, and any cartoon I drew that was slightly critical of him [Trump] was systematically axed. You want to know why I was let go? I wanted to do my job as an editorial cartoonist, and they wanted me to do their job.”
– Via @deAdder on Twitter
As insightful as those first two cartoons were, it appears that it was this powerful piece that caused de Adder’s employers to finally terminate his contract with immediate effect.
Cartoon for June 26, 2019 on #trump #BorderCrisis #BORDER #TrumpCamps #TrumpConcentrationCamps pic.twitter.com/Gui8DHsebl
— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) June 26, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The cartoon depicts Trump having disembarked his golf cart at the edge of the water, looking down at the bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, who tragically drowned while trying to cross from Mexico into Texas last week (God love him and his daughter).
Their sad fate was captured in photographs which has further fuelled the fire of debate on immigration in the U.S.
This photo is perfectly evoked in de Adder’s powerful cartoon. Standing over them with an enigmatic smile, Trump’s apathy to human value and dull mimicry of social propriety is captured in his “Do you mind if I play through?”.
Taken together, this is an incredibly powerful and emotive piece, which was clearly too much for the oil company owners of the New Brunswick Times.
And Donald Trump doesn’t even matter. It’s a distraction from the big picture.
— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) July 1, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
One can only assume that the oil company must have a financial interest in silencing any dissent against the most divisive character in the U.S.. This is dangerous, but not a precedent. Silencing and demonising the press is a familiar tactic from the late 1930s and early 1940s here in Europe. It certainly makes a case for significant oversight on media ownership.
With our own derisive characters clamouring even now for attention from the far right, it’s hard nowadays not to be familiar with their cry for protection of free speech – unless it’s something they disagree with.
It is hard to imagine why an oil company should be allowed such control over the press. It is even harder to imagine how they thought that cancelling Michael de Adder’s contract would silence dissent against the “bigger picture”.
Cartoonists capture our imagination by articulating often in only one frame what so many of us are thinking.
They can remind us, warn us, amuse us and educate us. They are often at the front lines of change and dissent and can pay dearly for it, as we saw in the case of France’s Charlie Hebdo and the ensuing Je Suis Charlie movement in 2015 where 12 people were killed by gunmen at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
Michael de Adder, has filled out his side of the story on his Twitter account (@deAdder).
He has detailed his account of the situation and is thankful for 17 years of his 20 year career honing his craft locally. He has stated that while he will miss working with his local papers he still freelances for some amazing newspapers and already had a book due locally in September.
At Fuzion Communications we wish him the best and every success and look forward to enjoying his work for many years to come.
#RESIST
Mark Kenny
