We're all familiar with editorial cartoons, anyone who has perused a paper and landed on the editorial page can get an immediate sense of what's important to the paper's leadership by way of these cartoons. In what is often the most pithy and biting statement a newspaper can offer, editorial cartoons communicate much with little.
Despite a seemingly important role to play for print news the Columbia Journalism Review reports that editorial cartoonists are becoming an endangered species. In the last half century the number of editorial cartoonists has dwindled from 257 to 84, a trend which prompted the Review to note that "a baby born today is roughly five times more likely to play in the NBA than draw full-time for a newspaper."
Editorial cartoonists have not only played an important role as motivating commentators on social and political issues throughout our nation's history but also continue to do so today. In fact, John Trever of the Albuquerque Journal recently had a cartoon syndicated that perfectly captures what's at stake for communities with regard to the dropout crisis. It would be a shame to lose any more of this sort of commentary that entertains readers even as it informs them.
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