Political Cartoonists and the Law

Abstract

Political cartoonists feel various forces for ‘censorship’ on and in their work. Often these are informal pressures that are based on moral or commercial interests, or the amorphous notion of ‘good taste’.1 This chapter seeks to focus on the formal legal pressures on cartoonists. We suspect that cartoonists fear (and are led to fear by cautious editorial staff) more legal sanction than is likely to be the case, and that ‘legalling’ of cartoons before publication is often a cover for other sensitivities. But we first need to look at the state of the law.