by Herman Manson (@marklives) When the cup is half full, its hard being a satirist, as Jeremy Nell, who works under the name Jerm, found out.
Nell, until recently the cartoonist for The New Age, had his contract terminated by editor Moegsien Williams because, says Nell, his political cartoons were, according to Williams at least, not “aligned with the paper’s vision and mission.”
The New Age, funded by the politically connected Gupta family, launched “to focus on the positive side of news,” according to its own website, and this has been construed by critics as being pro-government. Williams is the paper’s fourth editor in two years.
Nell says initially news of his effective firing from The New Age didn’t generate much attention from mainstream media (there was quite a bit of outrage in social media circles) until Zapiro took up his cause in a cartoon that takes the mickey out of the New Age editors.
