Tony Doris said that during his long career in the Palm Beach Post he never got away from controversy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in the backyard of the Mar-A-Lago Resort by President Trump.
Mr Doris, 67, investigated the local government and digs in city shops in West Palm Beach, Fla., For more than two decades at the newspaper, most recently as an editorial page editor. He did not expect his career to end there during a cartoon.
Gannett, the largest newspaper company in the United States and the owner of the Palm Beach Post, dismissed Mr Doris last month after he decided to publish a cartoon about the war in Gaza, said Mr Doris. The cartoon caused a recoil in Palm Beach, including a reprimand of a local Jewish group that claimed that the cartoon was anti -Semitic, which resulted in a quick response from the Senior Editors of Gannett.
Mr. Doris said in an interview last week that the cartoon was anti -war, not anti -Semitic, and added that he thought the senior editors of Gannett missed the power to stand up for their journalists.
“They are afraid of their shadow,” Mr. Doris said and added, “I think it is going to be a misunderstanding or not complying with the mission of an editorial page.”
In a statement, Gannett said that the cartoon “did not meet our standards”, adding that it “would not have been published if the right protocols were followed”. The company did not say what those protocols were or comment on the termination of Mr Doris, referring to confidentiality.
“We sincerely regret the mistake and have taken appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again,” said Lark-Marie Antón, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Post.
At the end of January, Mr. Doris – who said he was a Jewish proponent of Israel – selected the cartoon to walk in a printing problem of the Palm Beach Post. The image shows two Israeli soldiers who save a hostageman who has been captured by Hamas. Among the words “Some Israeli hostages are at home after more than a year of merciless war”, One of the soldiers says: “watch your step” while he, the rescued hostage and the other soldier walk through a mass of bodies with the label “more than 40,000 killed Palestinians.”
Mr. Doris said that he expected that the image, signed by a syndicated cartoonist, would cause a small excitement in Palm Beach, which has a vocal Jewish community. But he was not prepared for what came next. After the cartoon had run, the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County bought an advertisement on full pages in the Sunday newspaper of the following week that the cartoon condemned.
After the advertisement, Senior Editors intervened at Gannett. Mr Doris said he was suspended within a few days and editors at the company met a group with Michael Hoffman, the president and chief executive of the Federation. Mr Hoffman said in an interview that the editors of Gannett apologized during the meeting and discussed how those present could promote a healthy dialogue about issues that are important for the local Jewish community.
Mr Doris said that he was fired the week after the meeting by a senior editor at Gannett who told him that he has violated the company policy. Mr Doris said that the editor did not specify what that policy was and added that he did not receive a severance payment.
In an interview, Mr Hoffman said that he believed that the cartoon was anti -Semitic, partly because it had conquered the plight of hostages that was caught by Hamas during his 7 October 2023, an attack on Israel and gave more fuel to online hatred against Jewish people.
“Since October 7, the dramatic rise in anti -Semitism is the result of how the conflict in Gaza and in Israel has been reported,” said Mr Hoffman. “We believe that there has been no honest and balanced approach to how the war was reported.”
The cartoonist who drew the image, Jeff Danker, has drawn many cartoons who are critical of the war. In an interview on Saturday, he rejected the idea that the cartoon was anti -Semitic and said that it was “just a case of” this war went long enough. ” Mr. Danziger, a veteran of the army, whose father is Jewish, also said that his service as an intelligence officer made him critical of war.
“I am a Vietnam veteran and I think I know what I am talking about – at least from the point of war that is bad,” said the Lord Danker.
Mr Doris said in the interview that he did not regret selecting the cartoon that he believes in his resignation ultimately led. It is fair to “talk about the horrors of war,” he said, adding that the task of an opinion page of a newspapers is to address important issues for their communities.
“I remain convinced that no matter how old -fashioned it sounds, democracy needs journalists who care about the mission and not just for page views,” said Mr. Doris.
