Political Cartoonist for Iowa Newspaper Loses Job after Corporate Advertiser Complains about His Latest Drawing
A career cartoonist says that he is out of a job after his bosses’ bosses didn’t see the humor in his latest work.
Rick Friday claims that he drew more than 1,000 cartoons in his 21 years with Iowa’s Farm News before a call from one of the advertisers ended his career at the paper.
“I wish there was profit in farming,” one farmer says to another in his latest effort.
May 4, 2016 | Source: New York Daily News | by Christopher Brennan
A career cartoonist says that he is out of a job after his bosses’ bosses didn’t see the humor in his latest work.
Rick Friday claims that he drew more than 1,000 cartoons in his 21 years with Iowa’s Farm News before a call from one of the advertisers ended his career at the paper.
“I wish there was profit in farming,” one farmer says to another in his latest effort.
“There is, in year 2015 the CEOs of Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer and John Deere combined made more money than 2,129 Iowa farmers,” his friend responds.
Friday said that one of the corporations called up the Farm News, which is delivered to 24,000 Iowa homes by the Fort Dodge Messenger, and cancelled its advertisement, leading to the end of his cartoons.
“Again, I fall hard in the best interest of large corporations,” the artist said on Facebook.
Farm News publisher Larry Bushman and editor Larry Kushner told the Des Moines Register that they could not comment on exactly why they would not run Friday’s cartoons anymore.
Monsanto and DuPont told the Register that they had not heard of the cartoon, and a John Deere spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.