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How Newspapers Should Use Their Political Cartoonists

Martin “Shooty” Šútovec is a great CagleCartoonist who we don’t see frequently on Cagle.com because he is usually consumed with the crazy local politics in Slovakia. I thought I would show some pages from the most recent issue of the “Dennik N.” newspaper that is filled with Shooty’s work. “Dennik” means “Daily” and N stands for “Nezavisly” meaning “Independent.”

Shooty left his old newspaper, the “SME” five years ago with about 30 of his journalist colleagues to found the Dennik N., because a financial group called “Penta,” that Shooty tells me “was known for making dirty business deals with public healthcare” purchased a large share of the newspaper. At the Dennik N. newspaper, all of the editors are shareholders.

Shooty tells me that the Dennik N. paper is very successful and is financed by digital subscriptions, and powered by excellent investigative journalists who forced their Prime Minister Fico (the short, blonde haired guy in the cartoons) and the minister of the Interior to resign, after some big demonstrations.

Slovakia has recently been rocked by a a scandal that is nicknamed “Gorilla” after the codename of a secret agent who leaked secret documents and 39 hours of audio files showing a conspiracy involving the CEO of Penta corrupting select politicians. Shooty says the codename “Gorilla” is similar to the codename “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal. The scandal involves a famous mobster named Kocner who ordered the murder of an investigative journalist, Jan Kuciak.

Shooty writes, “Marian Kočner (the black haired guy in the cartoons) is involved in corrupting politicians (and) judges … He is finally in jail, but it was hard work; our newspaper is still publishing tons of his leaked messages … where he is making deals with murderers, members of parliament etc. it is not the same as (the) Gorilla cause, but everything is connected.”

The screenshots show a recent issue of the Dennik N, covering the Gorilla scandal, with Shooty’s cartoons dominating the coverage. This is the way to cover a scandal. Bravo, Shooty!

 

 

 

Shooty writes: “On the picture Im sending you is the wall in our office with wallpaper made from our covers, to show you how often we have cartoons on (the) covers.”