Axed: The Age cartoonist Michael Leunig slams ‘tacky tabloid’ after abrupt end to 55-year tenure

by Nathan Jolly

September 3, 2024 9:10

One of Australia’s most esteemed cartoonists has been dumped from The Age, in a manner he calls a “blunt and unfortunate way to end it”.

Michael Leunig has been filing cartoons for The Age since 1969, but has now been given the axe in what he described to The Australian as “a throat-cutting exercise”.

His anger was further enflamed by an acknowledgement of the end of his 55-year tenure at the paper in editor Patrick Elligett’s subscriber email, which said Leunig had “filed his last editorial illustration for The Age” but didn’t explain this wasn’t Leunig’s choice.

“There was no mention of the fact that he gave me the axe,” Leunig said.

“I was expecting it, as I have parted ways with The Age philosophically, culturally. I don’t read it really, I just scan it. It’s a sad story because I began there when it was a substantial newspaper.

“It’s almost embarrassing now to say that I worked for The Age, it’s become like a tacky tabloid.”

Michael Leunig. Photo: Sam Cooper, Greenbelt Festival

He said Elligett’s email to readers was a “blunt and unfortunate way to end it”, adding that the public reaction to his retirement is “astonishing and overwhelming”.

“I didn’t realise how much the work had meant to so many people,” he said.

Leunig took a more philosophical tone on his own website, writing: “I’d had a growing expectation that I would be disposed of by the big shots at Nine Entertainment and in the fateful phone conversation with the editor, when he said he was sorry, I told him in all honesty that everything was okay and that I actually felt exhilarated. Suddenly, there at last after all those years in newspapers, in one bound I was free; free to have a life without the compliance and worry of thankless mainstream media deadlines.

“Certainly I will now need to work hard and tighten my belt a little but otherwise I have been refreshed and granted a precious new chapter of life in which to plant trees, to paint pictures, to talk to the birds and kangaroos, to harvest my own vegetables and avocados, to appreciate all those who have helped and encouraged me, to be with friends and loved ones, to get on with the memoir and various projects; to be surprised and changed, to be grateful, to listen to music and birdsong, to grow, to wonder, to die… and of course, to be a funny old grandfather in the garden.”

Mumbrella has contacted Nine Entertainment for comment.

First published at Mumbrella, September 3, 2024