'Christian Science Monitor' Narrowing Its Editorial Cartoonist Search

By: Dave Astor The Christian Science Monitor is still deciding who will replace Clay Bennett as the newspaper's editorial cartoonist.

"We've narrowed it down to about a dozen cartoonists," said Clayton Jones, the Monitor's chief editorial writer and editor of the commentary pages. "There are a lot of good ones out there."

Some of the candidates have applied to the Monitor and others have been sought out by the paper.

Jones, who was contacted today by E&P, said he doesn't know exactly when the hiring decision will be made. He did mention that the Monitor would "preferably" like to have the cartoonist as a staffer, but there's a chance the person could be a contributor regularly doing exclusive cartoons for the paper. And Jones said creating animations for CSMonitor.com (along with print cartoons for the paper and site) is a possibility for the new hire.

Why does the Monitor, unlike some newspapers these days, feel having its own editorial cartoonist is important? "It's another voice on the opinion page that's done in a different format than text," replied Jones. "And it draws high reader interest."

Bennett, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner, left the Monitor last fall after a decade at the paper. Since that departure, the Monitor has run cartoons by Brian Barling -- a staff cartoonist at the paper in the 1980s and a backup to Bennett for the past two years. The Monitor has also published syndicated cartoons, including the United Media-distributed work of Jeff Stahler of The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and Robert Ariail of The State in Columbia, S.C.

Bennett joined the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press on Jan. 1. Among the reasons for his leaving the Monitor was a desire to move back to the South and to do local cartoons as well as national and international ones.

"The Monitor offers an excellent environment for any cartoonist to deal with international and national topics," said Jones, noting, for instance, that the cartoonist can draw on the expertise of the paper's writers. "And we offer a lot of freedom of expression."

Also, a new cartoonist will be coming to the paper during a milestone year -- the Monitor turns 100 this November.