• by Ray Schultz , July 13, 2023

McClatchy newspapers laid off three Pulitizer-prize winning cartoonists on Tuesday.

The victims were Jack Ohman, of The Sacramento Bee; Joel Pett of The Lexington Herald-Leader and Keven Siers of The Charlotte Observer, according to the Washington Post. 

Ohman won the cartooning Pulitzer in 2016, Siers in 2014 and Pett in 2000, the Post reports.   

“This is just another brick in the wall of continuing layoffs in the field,” Ohman told the Post, speaking as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. “But we haven’t had three Pulitzer [cartoon] winners go out the door on the same day before.”

McClatchy opinion editor Peter St. Onge wrote that the layoffs are part of a “continuing evolution,” through which ‘McClatchy will no longer publish daily opinion cartoonists.  

“We made this decision based on changing reader habits and our relentless focus on providing the communities we serve with local news and information they can’t get elsewhere,” the statement reportedly said. 

Siers told the Post by email that “these decisions are fueled by profit motives alone. We’re simply not paid that much.” 

He added, “There seems to be a rethinking among corporate management over the years as to how a newspaper’s opinion pages should engage with readers. They’ve convinced themselves and the industry that readers no longer appreciate good editorial cartoons, when I feel that it’s the boardroom itself that is uncomfortable with our satire.”