Profile: Political cartoonist Rob Tornoe

2013-04-29T14:42:20-04:00

You may have noticed something funny around here lately: political cartoons.

Rob Tornoe, a political cartoonist based in Delaware,is now drawing original cartoons for The Center, based on our stories. You'll see his work pop up on publicintegrity.org, our Facebook page and on Twitter. Tornoe also draws cartoons for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Press of Atlantic City, Media Matters and Philadelphia NPR affiliate WHYY, among others. You can follow him on Twitter, and Facebook, too.

We asked Rob a few questions to get to know him a little better:

When did you first know you wanted to be a political cartoonist?

Rob: During college, I worked at the local daily paper in town building ads and doing layout. Every so often the editors would let me draw local cartoons for the op-ed pages, and that was the first time it dawned on me that I could turn my love of politics and drawing into a career. Once I started, I was hooked.

So, if you weren't a cartoonist, you'd be a . . .?

Rob: No sure. I have a business and accounting degree of all things, so I guess I'd be a comptroller working for some company counting down the hours until I could retire. Or maybe I would have been a forensic accountant.

Anything — or anybody — off limits in your work?

Rob: Nothing is off limits per se, besides what normal decency would allow. But I do try to exercise caution around controversial subjects, like religion. I don't mind slamming religious groups or individuals if I feel they deserve it, but I wouldn't draw a cartoon mocking religion just for the sole purpose of mocking it. There would have to be a greater underlying point behind it.

Take us through the “how.” How do you come up with ideas? Do you write the words or draw the images first? How many revisions? How long does it take?

Rob: Everyone always wants to know "how." Honestly, there's no single way. Sometimes a great idea comes to my head right away. Other times, it's a struggle that involves reading about a subject, figuring out all the ins-and-outs that I could play with visually, trying to find the humor, etc.

I tend not to go with the first idea I come up with, since that's the one other cartoonists (and readers) thought of first, too. I always try to dig down to the next layer, and to inject humor into my cartoons. That's not to say political cartoons can't be serious — I just find a funny, thoughtful political cartoon to be quite effective in conveying a message.

Unlike many cartoonists, I still prefer to draw on paper with brushes, pen and ink. Then I scan it and do all my coloring and corrections on a computer before sending it off to editors. Technology has been a dual-edged sword — it's harmed the revenue of newspapers, who happen to employ the large majority of political cartoonists in the country, yet it has afforded me opportunities I would have never had 10 years ago.

Who’s easier to satirize — Republicans, Democrats, Tea partiers, Green Party-ers?

Rob: Even though the tea party really makes it easy at times, they're all equally as goofy and incompetent. I have drawn plenty of cartoons criticizing Obama, and the duo of Romney and Ryan appear as though they'll be cartooning gold during this election cycle.

What do you read, watch or listen to everyday?

Rob: I read The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and listen to NPR in the morning. Throughout the day, I'll switch back and forth between MSNBC and Fox News and read countless websites and blogs (but unlike Sarah Palin, I'm unable to read them all). I also love social media sites like Facebook, Reddit and Twitter — they help get a sense of what people are talking about and what stories are emerging.

Does your work reflect your own opinions, or does it attempt to reflect popular opinion?

Rob: They are all my opinion. I try to comment on topics that are relevant to readers or part of the broader policy discussion, but the opinions of all my cartoons are my own. I find drawing political cartoons is a lot like boxing. Boxers don't swing as hard as they can with each punch — it's a delicate balance of lighter jabs punctuated by one power uppercut.

Do you think political cartoons have the power to influence voters?

Rob: Well, they certainly have the power to help inform them. Cartoons work well in our over-saturated media environment because they're quick to consume, visual and in your face. They work equally well across all devices, and good ones spread like wildfire across social media. I try to add humor to my cartoons, because I find it has a disarming quality that allows my opinion to permeate better.

I always wondered why political consultants or media websites didn't hire more cartoonists. After all, we're trained since we were kids to read the comics, and while it's easy to throw away that mailer or gloss over a 700-word editorial, people tend to be drawn in by the quick, powerful message of a cartoon.

‘Investigating Power’ celebrates 60 years of muckraking

2013-04-29T14:42:14-04:00

With the future of journalism up for grabs, Investigating Power reminds us in high-definition why the world needs courageous people to produce original, independent, investigative reporting.

McCarthyism. Civil Rights. Vietnam. Watergate. Corporate power. Post 9/11.

Some of the most influential journalists of the last 60 years talk about the stories that not only shaped their careers, but shaped history as well, in a just-launched project produced by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University and co-sponsored by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

“At this critical juncture in the history of American journalism, as the news media and the nature and extent of original reporting itself undergo a very difficult transformation, we must reflect on the inherent, incalculable value of original, independent reporting in our nation and in the world,” said site creator Charles Lewis.

Lewis has long championed upholding truth to power. He was an investigative producer for 60 Minutes, before founding The Center for Public Integrity in 1989. In 1997, Lewis launched the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the world’s first working international network now with 160 reporters in 61 countries. He’s written five books. And today Lewis is a professor and founding executive director of the Investigative Reporting Workshop in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.

For the website, Lewis sat down with many of the greatest journalists from the last century including Murrey Marder, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Moses Newson, Ben Bradlee, Dana Priest and Seymour Hersh and more than a dozen other leading reporters, along with the now deceased Mike Wallace and Daniel Schorr, in never before seen interviews. Lewis spent more than five years researching and creating the website in order to faithfully record, for the first time, journalism’s impact on history from the very people who did the reporting. He plans to add additional footage as the project continues. The project will also form part of a book Lewis is writing, “The Future of Truth: Power, the News Media and the Public’s Right to Know” (Public Affairs), which is expected to be published in 2013.

To celebrate the website’s public launch, Lewis is moderating a discussion at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., beginning at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Panelists include Bill Kovach, former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, Dana Priest, national security reporter for The Washington Post and Barry Sussman, former Watergate editor at The Washington Post and now editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project at Harvard University.

Investigating Power is likely to become the most bookmarked website for journalism students across the country for decades to come.

Christine Montgomery stories from The Center for Public Integrity

Profile: Political cartoonist Rob Tornoe

‘Investigating Power’ celebrates 60 years of muckraking