By DENNIS SHERE
For Chicago Tribune

Editor’s Note: This op-ed was published in the June 29 edition of Chicago Tribune.

When the Pulitzer Prize committee announced the 2022 winners in early May, one category was missing: There no longer is a prize for editorial cartooning. The entries will now be considered alongside "illustrated reporting and commentary."

As a former editor for the Journal Herald in Dayton, Ohio, with ties to two prominent editorial cartoonists – one won a Pulitzer, and the other was a finalist – I believe the omission of the category is a mistake.

The Pulitzer committee's decision more than hints at the overall challenges that print newspapers have faced for a long time but managed until the past 20 years or so to overcome. Deciding not to honor a subset of the content that has helped keep them afloat suggests that the fight to survive in print journalism already may be lost. It will be a terrible shame.

The Tribune's editorial cartoonist, Scott Stantis, has had a distinguished career with the paper since 2009. His razor-sharp artist's pen conjures words and clever drawings to focus on Chicago's politically messy landscape. I don't know anything about Stantis' personality, but I'm guessing he has a private wit that appeals to him as it does to other editorial cartoonists who demonstrate a bizarre flair on occasion.

For example, Mike Peters, a Pulitzer winner, once dressed up as Superman, hid on a window ledge and leaped into an editorial board meeting to suggest his role wasn't as insignificant as board members thought it was. Another time, he showed up wearing costume clothing to illustrate the point that the editors considered editorial cartoonists to be clowns. While he was pontificating, someone ran his street clothes down to a dry cleaner and handed him the slip to reclaim them.

But the fun and games obscure the singular role editorial cartoonists play in the content of a daily newspaper. No matter how brutal or erudite a written editorial may be, it cannot drive home what an unforgettable little drawing and a few words can in a fraction of a second. When a past contender for the presidency was putting his supporters to sleep with boring speeches, there undoubtedly were lots of words to describe his bland personality. But it was a cartoonist, Peters, who drew a woman smiling and waving while the blank-faced candidate stood behind her in a rumpled suit. Peters said it all: "Behind Every Woman ... there's an incredibly dull presidential candidate."

Bob Englehart, the editorial cartoonist for my newspaper, highlighted his best work in a book with the apt title, "Never Let Facts Get in the Way of a Good Cartoon." I had the opportunity to skewer him somewhat playfully in a column headlined "I am Bob Englehart's editor." Behind my attempt at humor was a column with a serious message: "The editorial cartoon often serves as a counterpoint. It is blunt and caustic in a manner we can never be with written words. ... The cartoons make you laugh. Or your blood boil. They hit home. You talk about them with your friends."

Obviously, some readers didn't always appreciate Englehart's humor or point of view. So they turned their anger toward those who let him spear some issue or politician who was in desperate need of a figurative backstabbing. As some readers observed, the editors were getting paid big bucks to deal with the grief that their employee, the cartoonist, caused. What readers failed to understand was that we relished those moments when they got upset.

It meant they were doing more than glancing at a page filled with words dull editorials and other opinions that went over their heads. They stopped to chuckle or fume over a little block of words and drawings. The editorial cartoon was perhaps the most looked at face of the newspaper.

Unfortunately, that is not as true today as it was then.

When the Tribune hired him, Stantis said he was bullish about the future of newspapers. He said the newspaper believed in editorial cartooning as "an integral part of that future." I wonder if that is true today. One startling fact: There were about 250 editorial cartoonists nationwide when Stantis came to Chicago. Now, one source estimates there are 20 still working for newspapers.

The future for editorial cartoonists is likely to be as rocky as other aspects of print journalism. One major chain, Gannett, is cutting the frequency of editorial pages in its 250 newspapers. It has determined readers don't like to be lectured or told what to think. That conclusion, if accurate, may become even more pronounced as the nation remains severely divided, and opposing sides view each other with outright hostility.

The Pulitzer committee ought to applaud what editorial cartoonists still do to prop up democracy. They should restore the top prize for the best efforts.

Dennis Shere was a contract criminal defense attorney on a case involving one of the two defendants in the Brown's Chicken massacre case.