Click on cartoon to see 100 cartoons on the topic
The J-Walk Blog — This is pathetic. You can be certain that executives and middle managers are kept on while the important people like these guys are let go! I can assure you that the editorial cartoonists are not high paid featherbedders.
Black Ink Monday, a non-violent protest by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC), is a response to the Tribune Company’s recent elimination of editorial cartooning positions at several of its newspapers, as well as a commentary on newspapers everywhere who have lost sight of the value of having a staff editorial cartoonist.
found on J-Walk Blog via Metafilter
This is why big corporations should not be allowed any media ownership by law.
A company had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Management said, “Someone might steal from it at night.” So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.
Then management said, “How does the watchman do his job without instruction?” So they created a planning department and hired two people; one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies.
Then management said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing his tasks correctly?” So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports.
Then management said, “How are these people going to get paid?” So they created the following positions, a timekeeper and a payroll officer; then hired two more people.
Then management said, “Who will be accountable for all of these people?” So they created an administrative section and hired three people; an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
Then management said, “We’ve had this command in operation for one year now and we’re $18,000 over budget. We have to cutback on overall costs.”
So they laid off the night watchman.
So you want to restrict ownership sovereignty to employ a few cartoonists and destroy a business owner’s right to run their company as they see fit? Maybe it’s cheaper and time effective to license cartoons instead of employees someone to scribble nonsense and caption it with useless, terrible jokes.
You have accurately provided the summary of the problem. The media should be regarded as a public trust not a sleazy and irresponsible way to make money. But I always admire the sentiments of capitalist absolutists with zero heart and apparently no sense of humor either. Wonderful.
BIG COMPANIES! The evil spectre.
Cash your paycheck lately, John?
excellent biggun.
Someone should expose the real role of management consulting firms in all these layoff and outsourcing catastrophes. These suited pirates analyze companies from the outside and then propose (often unsolicited) plans to management for measures that might never be considered otherwise.
The management consultants have carefully prepared presentations to executives outlining cost saving measures that invariably work against lower level workers and employees. The real objective of these “easy way out” propositions is to pilage the company for consulting contracts to carry out the carnage.
They refer to their services as “risk management” or “helping corporate leaders make difficult decisions”. The risks are often:
how to deal with rising health benefit costs for an aging workforce
or
how to balance the books this quarter by restructuring
or
how to raid pension funds
or
how to move work to less costly workers overseas
or
how to avoid arrest and lawsuits when you do any of the above.
They offer complete packages that will compose the announcements, do the accounting, respond to the governement and unions, even handle employee terminations and placement / retraining services. They primarily dream up the plan and spin of mass “employeeside” and get fat on it. Executives don’t even have to get blood on their own hands.
Of course, these vultures never propose anything that would bite the hand that feeds them – so there is never any reform or oversight for executive management. Plus – Any money for such actions has already been spent for the quarter on management consulting services and executive bonuses for saving money.
These are the carrion feeders behind dismantling and outsourcing of corporate America. There is a book yet to be written in this, as few recognise who the real villans are.
A serious suggestion: displaced cartoonists might animate their images for syndication as sound-bite presentations on the TV news and web portals. Jib-Jab has discovered this opening, but the market is larger and more diverse than they alone can satisfy.
There is a perpetual need in the electronic press for visual presentation of complex political issues. A large segment of the population only “gets it” when the information comes in through the eye and is cemented by humor. This need cannot be met by a talking head holding up a cartoon on posterboard and explaining it “Jay Leno” style.
There has to be software to do this easily.
With TV and the web as major sources of news and commentary, the viewing public no longer has time for for newspapers. In the end, the cartoonists may survive paper and ink, in the same fashion as brick and mortor is fading with technology.
Visualize: the cartoonists are the mammals and the daily newspapers are the dinosaurs.
I sent a comment to the gweitman@tribune.com link (communications director of the Tribune Corp) and was amused to get a pertinent reply (i.e., a reply that actually addressed my comments – not a form reply) within minutes. Surely he can’t be reading all his own mail; must be a few flunkies temporarily assigned. In either case, I’m surprised they’d spend the manhours, or could I be the only person who sent a message?
Just what every thinking American didn’t need…yet another reason to not buy the newspaper. The slow death of the American newspaper is a corporate-assisted suicide. I’ll skip the letter to the “Communications Director” and communicate with my dollar, which will be spent elsewhere.