The Washington Post has hired Michael de Adder as an editorial cartoonist, the news organization announced Friday. De Adder replaces Tom Toles, who left the Post last fall, a few months after an unusual article about a party Toles threw in 2018, which a guest attended in blackface.
De Adder got his start in Canadian newspapers, including the Halifax, Nova Scotia, alt-weekly the Coast and later papers owned by Brunswick News Inc. The loss of that gig in 2019 gained de Adder a lot of attention: He said he was let go because of a cartoon that showed former US President Trump golfing callously over the bodies of two migrants. It was a reference to a Julia Le Duc photo that showed Óscar Alberto Martínez and his infant daughter, Valeria, who drowned in the Rio Grande while trying to reach the States.
Cartoonist Michael DeAdder was just fired from the newspaper for this cartoon. pic.twitter.com/PhpkH5FbcO
— Jason Chatfield (@Jason_Chatfield) June 29, 2019
The company disputed de Adder’s account, saying he hadn’t submitted the cartoon and that it had been negotiating with him for weeks over renewing his freelance contract. “I’ve said repeatedly that cartoon was simply the final nail in the coffin and hastened my demise,” de Adder wrote for NBC News at the time.
De Adder won the Herblock Prize in 2020. He will contribute three cartoons each week, the Post says.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
