Paper fires cartoonist in editing disagreement

he was being fired because he was asked to turn in his Post-Gazette identification card and any equipment owned by the newspaper.

Mr. Rogers said he will continue to syndicate his cartoons and is getting many requests for freelance work. “I’ve had some projects in mind, things I can’t be specific about, and will start exploring them,” he said.

Mr. Burris began overseeing the Post-Gazette’s editorial pages in March after the paper’s owner, Block Communications, combined them with the editorial pages of its other newspaper, The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. He was formerly the editorial page editor for The Blade and now splits his time between the two cities.

He acknowledged that he is “more conservative” than past editorial page editors and that even prior to Mr. Trump’s election in 2016, the owners of the newspaper had been trying “to right the ship” to reflect less liberal views.

Mr. Rogers said he began to feel “a lot more pushback” about his work after Mr. Trump announced his run for office in 2015.

But few of his cartoons were killed until Mr. Burris took over the editorial page, he said. Since March, nine cartoon ideas and 10 finished cartoonswere killed, he said.

“And I wasn’t getting adequate explanations” about why the cartoons were being killed, he said.

When he came to Pittsburgh in March, Mr. Burris said he met Mr. Rogers for lunch and told the cartoonist, “Obviously, we don’t think thatTrump is the worst president in history.”

“It was an agonized conversation on both sides,” Mr. Burris said.

After that, the two exchanged frequent emails aboutMr. Rogers’ cartoons in which Mr. Burris said he was trying to address “the tone and frequency” of his drawingsabout Mr. Trump.

“I asked for broader topics and could they be funnier?” Mr. Burris said.

On some occasions, he spiked Mr. Rogers’ cartoons and ran others from different artists on the same topics “with a little more humor,” he said.

Those included cartoons on immigration and one about Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet.

Mr. Burris said no decision had been made on whether Mr. Rogers will be replaced.

In his statement, Mr. Rogers said, “I fear that today’s unjustified firing of a dissenting voice on the editorial pages will only serve to diminish an opinion section that was once one of America’s best. I love what I do and will continue to find ways to do it and get it out there. The world needs satire now more thanever.”

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto weighed in on the news Thursday in a statement released by his office.

“The move today by the leadership of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to fire Rob Rogers after he drew a series of cartoons critical of President Trump is disappointing, and sends the wrong message about press freedoms in a time when they are under siege,” the statement reads.

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, which represents reporters, photographers and copy editors, said in a statement that its members were saddened to learn about Mr. Rogers’ firing from his Twitter post.

Mr. Rogers is not a member of the union.

“Given the recent killing of a number of Rob’s cartoons critical of President Trump and conservative positions, favorites of the publisher and editorial director, it perhaps is not surprising that this sad day for the PostGazette, the Pittsburgh community and journalism has arrived.”

Mr. Rogers attended Oklahoma State University and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a master’s degree in fine arts. He worked as a staff cartoonist for The Pittsburgh Press from 1984 to 1993 and had worked at the Post-Gazette since then. He has won the Thomas Nast Award from the Overseas Press Club, the National Headliner Award, and many other regional, state and national awards.