A controversial cartoonist delivered a blistering parting shot to his boss after he was sacked in a ‘throat-cutting train’.
Michael Leunig’s 55-year profession at The Age got here to an finish final week when the editor of the Melbourne-based masthead, Patrick Elligett, informed subscribers the cartoonist had ‘filed his final editorial illustration’.
However Leunig, 79, is refusing to go quietly, and delivered a blunt farewell message to the newspaper by accusing its editors of censorship and branding it a ‘cheesy tabloid’.
He described his sacking as a ‘throat-cutting train’ and took umbrage that Elligett didn’t inform readers it was his determination to finish his profession.
‘There was no point out of the truth that he (Elligett) gave me the axe,’ Leunig informed The Australian.
‘I used to be anticipating it, as I’ve parted methods with The Age philosophically (and) culturally. I don’t learn it actually, I simply scan it. It’s a tragic story as a result of I started there when it was a considerable newspaper.
‘It’s virtually embarrassing now to say that I labored for The Age. It’s turn out to be like a cheesy tabloid.’
Leunig, who began working for the newspaper in 1969, stated the connection between him and the paper grew to become strained in the course of the Covid pandemic.
Michael Leunig’s (pictured, above) 55-year profession at The Age newspaper got here to an finish final week when the editor of the Melbourne-based masthead, Patrick Elligett (under), informed subscribers the cartoonist had ‘filed his final editorial illustration’
However Leunig, 79, is refusing to go quietly, taking a parting blast at The Age by accusing its editors of censorship and branding it a ‘cheesy tabloid’
The newspaper had been owned by Fairfax Media earlier than it was taken over by 9 Leisure following a merger between the 2 corporations in 2018.
Leunig is the most recent star to be despatched packing after the media outlet let go of a whole bunch of workers in August as a part of its $30million cost-cutting plan.
The cartoonist made headlines when he shared an illustration that was rejected by then-editor Homosexual Alcorn as a result of it was closely essential of vaccine mandates.
Leunig’s cartoon, which by no means made the paper, featured one among his usually fragile, big-nosed figures going through the silhouette of a tank with a syringe rather than the gun turret.
Within the prime left nook, the 76-year-old copied the enduring ‘Tank Man’ picture displaying a Beijing demonstrator standing within the path of a column of tanks at Tiananmen Sq. in 1989.
He posted the drawing on his Instagram web page with the phrase ‘mandate’, an act that ultimately resulted in him being fired from the information pages of The Age and left to file a single cartoon every week for the weekend part.
‘I simply needed to elevate questions, as did lots of people, concerning the severity of the Covid measures and this was insupportable, this stuff stored getting not revealed with none clarification or dialogue,’ Leunig stated.
‘It was form of like being despatched to Coventry, you don’t exist.
‘It was virtually a lonely form of place, there was by no means any contact from anybody … I used to be simply unnoticed on a rock.’
The newspaper had been owned by Fairfax Media earlier than it was taken over by 9 Leisure following a merger between the 2 corporations in 2018
The cartoonist made nationwide headlines when he shared a cartoon that was rejected by the then editor Homosexual Alcorn as a result of it was closely essential of vaccine mandates (pictured)
Leunig stated he had submitted quite a few cartoons about former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews’ excessive lockdown measures throughout 2020.
However these, he claimed, had been rejected out of concern of upsetting The Age’s largely left-leaning readership who had been in favour of lockdowns.
Each day Mail Australia contacted Elligett and 9 Leisure for remark.
Final week, Leunig wrote a bit for his personal web site by which he accused The Age of censorship, claiming there was ‘a message relayed to him from above to not point out Gaza’.
‘He went round that instruction however in a way, he was principally left at midnight with one hand tied behind his again,’ Leunig wrote within the third particular person.
‘It was apparent to him that the establishment which most wanted to be questioned, shaken and satirised was the mainstream media – however in fact, this was out of bounds.’
He accused the trendy cartoon trade of being too ‘good, clear and sanctimonious’ and claimed cartoonists ‘don’t have the help and encouragement of brave or adventurous editors’.
‘With some terrific exceptions, Australian mainstream cartoonists can’t be so humorous, spirited and naughty any extra; they don’t seem to be free sufficient, they don’t have as a lot ink on their fingers as they as soon as did, they’re principally over-educated, they don’t find yourself in courtroom on costs of offensive publishing like they used to, they clamour an excessive amount of after neat punch traces and the self-congratulations of cosy, doubtful media awards, they don’t obtain letter bombs or the amount of hate mail as was regular in earlier instances,’ he wrote.
