year-end review

Letter to the editor, The Hamilton Spectator, Dec. 31, 2021

At the Hamilton Spectator, I’m quite spoiled by having several pages that have run for four days this week highlighting the past events of 2021. It’s a huge honour, and a wonderful testament that there are still some print media outlets, like the Spec, which embrace satire, as well as local reporting and staff photography as a necessary part of print and digital journalism. It’s a tradition in newspapers around the globe to use the final week of the year to showcase editorial cartoons which best boil down the past 12 months viewed through the lens of satire. Thankfully, there’s still a contingent of talented cartoonists sustaining the craft. Although, as many of you are aware, editorial cartooning positions have been in steady decline as newspapers respond to shrinking circulation & advertising revenues by chopping or retiring off their artists and replacing their local insights with banal syndicated Hallmark style gags masquerading as satire, or worse, bland wire photos. Support your local newspapers but remind editors that satire is fundamental to a healthy democracy. Thank you for your likes and shares, and encouraging comments. Here’s to a better year ahead in 2022, my 25th year as editorial cartoonist at the Hamilton Spectator. Happy New Year!

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