With all of the discussion about whether newspapers will survive (or whether they should survive), the discussion often overlooks some of the services that will be lost. Besides the jobs lost at the printers, the jobs of the copy writers, the proof readers and the fact checkers, there is also the job of the political cartoonist. Since the time newspapers began, the political cartoon has been a unique art form, one that is at once disarming and well-armed with barbs. In the hands of an expert, it can distill a political point down to its essence, and present it in a way that gets the point across in seconds without requiring lengthy reading.

One of the first American political cartoons was "Join or Die" (by Ben Franklin):



It set in motion a long tradition of creative political dissent that has served this country well for over 2 1/2 centuries. With the loss of the papers, will we also lose the unique voices of the artist/commentator?

An article in the BBC online (how ironic is that?) describes the fate of cartoonist Ed Stein. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News for 31 years, and is currently pondering what to do next. Two of the drawings in the article show his feelings toward the loss of the "dailies":





Most newspapers print several political cartoons, but the reality is that each artist likely works for a specific paper, and the papers syndicate their "house" cartoonist to the other papers. With the loss of the papers, the cartoonists will now have to become freelance, and try to market their cartoons to the various online newspapers. Can this work? Will "papers" still pay for them? Will readers still read them?

For certain, there are some online political cartoons I read online: Tom Tomorrow, Overboard, Ted Rall... But they have their own websites and I seek them out. What about cartoonists like Ed Stein?

Unfortunately theirs is a style that does not inspire large works of art that command hefty paychecks, nor study in museums and colleges. Picasso's "Guernica", Diego Rivera's "Man at the Crossroads", and Salvidor Dali's "The Face of War" spoke the language of dissent in bold colors on a large canvas. Political cartoonists work in a medium that only really works on the small page.

Immediately after 9/11, Bush encouraged people to go shopping as a patriotic duty to keep the economy from crashing down. Perhaps now our patriotic duty is to buy the newspaper. By keeping the news in print, we're ensuring that the voice of dissent in its most artistic form will continue to have a home and a sponsor. We owe it to ourselves and the country's future.