The Buffalo Newspaper Guild announced Thursday that they are postponing a happy hour event at the Buffalo History Museum after receiving “death threats” aimed at a cartoonist whose work was highlighted in a museum exhibit.
The Buffalo Newspaper Guild confirmed that they were postponing the event in a statement, citing “serious concerns about public safety and direct threats that have warranted intervention by Buffalo police.” The announcement comes after Adam Zyglis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Buffalo News, faced public criticism over a cartoon he posted to Instagram on Monday that seemingly mocked victims of the tragic and deadly flash flooding in Texas.
Zyglis’ cartoon shows a man being swept away in water while wearing a Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat and holding up a sign that reads “help.” The cartoon, which appears in the opinion section of the paper’s website, also depicts a floating speech bubble in the water, which reads “gov’t is the problem not the solution.”
The cartoonist captioned his Instagram post “tomorrow’s lines… that argument’s gone in a flash.”
“The free, public and nonpartisan event was intended to promote a message about the need to protect this community by safeguarding a strong, local free press amid pressures being faced by news organizations across the country and here in Western New York,” according to the guild’s statement. “However, public criticism of an editorial cartoon about Texas flooding published Tuesday in The Buffalo News, and malicious campaigning for individuals to protest and confront Zyglis at this event, has resulted in a series of death threats against Zyglis and a deluge of other direct threats to hurt him and his family.”
“We wholly condemn the individuals who have chosen to twist a positive, public event into an attempt to terrorize and silence Zyglis, spread fear among journalists and their supporters, and distort the mission of a free press,” the guild added in its statement.
Zyglis wrote Thursday in an Instagram post that “threats to me and my family are never an acceptable response to disagreeing with an editorial cartoon.”
More than 170 people were still missing and at least 121 people were confirmed dead as of Friday afternoon in the aftermath of flash floods that ravaged Central Texas, CBS News reported.
Democratic New York Rep. Tim Kennedy wrote Thursday in a statement posted to X in response to the Buffalo Newspaper Guild’s announcement that “freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy — and threats of violence against journalists are an attack on all of us.” Kennedy added that he thinks Zyglis “uses his art to challenge, question, and inspire.”
Additionally, Erie County GOP Chairman Michael Kracker wrote Thursday in an X post that while he agrees with “the Buffalo News’ assertion that a free press and free speech are essential components of a strong democracy,” he found it “shocking that the Buffalo News’ first comments on their vile cartoon are about the cartoonist and a happy hour, not how despicable and hurtful his content was to the victims of the Texas floods.”
“We can and must respectfully condemn the Buffalo News for its shameful and heartless decision to publish a cartoon that disrespected the victims and families in Texas,” Kracker added. “But do so with the respect and empathy the Buffalo News failed to.”
The Buffalo Newspaper Guild and Zyglis did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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