The Truth Cartoon That Got This Farmer Fired – His Epic Response!

By Heather Callaghan

“I did my research and only submitted the facts in my cartoon”

It was another week; another cartoon for farmer and comic artist Rick Friday – until the newspaper fired him after he dropped a truth bomb about corporate reality. 

After 20 dedicated years of entertaining readers of Farm News, based in Des Moines, Illinois, his column was abruptly ended when he ticked off the wrong people – ironically proving the strip correct in its assessment of corporate powers.

The comic (below) features a farmer bemoaning the meager profits of farmers, only to be told by another farmer that there are in fact rich profits in farming: In the year 2015 the CEOs of Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer and John Deere combined made more money than 2129 Iowa farmers, he said.

Widget not in any sidebars

He didn’t know that his approximate 1,091st cartoon would be his last to the column.

How to Officially Censor a Farming Cartoonist

Friday explains how it works on his Facebook wall:

Again, I fall hard in the best interest of large corporations. I am no longer the Editorial Cartoonist for Farm News due to the attached cartoon which was published yesterday. Apparently a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled their advertisement with the paper, thus, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of It’s Friday cartoons after 21 years of service and over 1090 published cartoons to over 24,000 households per week in 33 counties of Iowa.

I did my research and only submitted the facts in my cartoon.

That’s okay, hopefully my children and my grandchildren will see that this last cartoon published by Farm News out of Fort Dodge, Iowa, will shine light on how fragile our rights to free speech and free press really are in the country.

The cartoon, published on Friday, was met with an email from Farm News the following day alerting him that his art was no longer needed.

According to KCCI News,

Friday’s editor said a seed dealer pulled their advertisements with Farm News as a result of the cartoon, and others working at the paper disagreed with the jokes made about the agriculture corporations.

“When it comes to altering someone’s opinion or someone’s voice for the purpose of wealth, I have a problem with that,” said Friday. “It’s our constitutional right to free speech and our constitutional right to free press.”

The Offending Cartoon

As Food activist Robyn O’Brien said on her blog:

If these companies didn’t want anyone to see this message, they sure chose the wrong way to handle this.

According to KCCI News, who featured Friday in a video, Farm News editors have not responded with comments.

Muzzle a Farming Cartoonist – Face the Consequences!

You can’t keep a good man down – Rick Friday skewers them all…

His cartoon published yesterday:

Here are his previous posts from the last few days on the topic of his censorship for stating the truth:

 

Share his cartoon from his Facebook page and share this article so we can bring dire attention to farming inequality and censorship!

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Heather Callaghan is an independent researcher, natural health writer and food freedom activist. You can see her work at NaturalBlaze.com. Like at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.