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Food Politics reports that Rick Friday, a long time cartoonist for Farm News, was dismissed for offending "a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in a cartoon." The political cartoon is critical of Big Ag CEOs, which earned more than 2,000 Iowa farmers combined.
In a Facebook post the cartoonist, Rick Friday, explained:
I am no longer the Editorial Cartoonist for Farm News due to the attached cartoon which was published yesterday. Apparently a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled their advertisement with the paper, thus, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of It's Friday cartoons after 21 years of service and over 1090 published cartoons to over 24,000 households per week in 33 counties of Iowa.
I did my research and only submitted the facts in my cartoon.
That's okay, hopefully my children and my grandchildren will see that this last cartoon published by Farm News out of Fort Dodge, Iowa, will shine light on how fragile our rights to free speech and free press really are in the country.
The Des Moines Register explains further:
The CEOs at the ag giants earned about $52.9 million last year, based on Morningstar data. Monsanto and DuPont, the parent of Johnston-based Pioneer, are large seed and chemical companies, and Deere is a large farm equipment manufacturer.
Profits for the three companies, all with large operations across Iowa, also have declined as farm income has been squeezed. After peaking in 2013, U.S. farm income this year is projected to fall to $183 billion, its lowest level since 2002.
It seems like in the U.S. you free to say what you like, but if you offend the wrong people you're free to lose your job despite the protections you are provided and encouraged to use.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @04:37PM
I blame the US for not taking care of its PEOPLE and, instead, only taking care of corporations.
Well voters vote for issues they care about most which is typically stuff like "gay marriage", "abortion" and not stuff like this. Heck look at the huge number of US voters who were opposed to providing healthcare for the poor[1].
Then the Corporations fund the politicians for stuff they care about most, which is stuff like subsidies, extended monopolies, "friendlier" regulations etc.
There's usually not much conflict (most large Corporations don't care as much about "gay marriage" as they do about corporate subsidies and regulations , and most voters don't care as much about regulations on industries as much as "abortion" and similar - you'd hear more voters say "I'll never vote for him, he opposes/supports gay marriage" than "I'll never vote for him, he opposes/supports lengthening/shortening/strengthening copyrights").
So the majority of the voters get what they want the most (abortion or not in their state), and the Corporations get what they want the most, and the politicians get their $$$$ and votes. Win-win for everyone right?
Democracy at work.
[1] Despite healthcare _already_ being provided to the poor in far more expensive ways like the poor waiting in ER, committing crimes to get $$$ or even robbing banks for a buck to get into prison for treatment. I know rich supposedly intelligent people who were against giving healthcare to the poor. All despite there being plenty of evidence that it's cheaper and better to provide healthcare to the poor and everyone else in the way that's already done in many other countries. Ah but many of the very rich can avoid taxes right? So it might be a smart selfish choice for them but how about the richer but not quite so rich who can't avoid those taxes? Those bunch are pretty stupid have fought universal healthcare (obamacare is not universal healthcare it's an abomination- you shouldn't have to waste time and money to register people for stuff and build stupid websites to do so, people should be covered automatically).