Letter: A suspect decision

Today I found out that the Concord Monitor has laid off Mike Marland, political cartoonist. If we had not just renewed our subscription to the paper, I would be writing to cancel it. I am instead writing to appeal to the paper to undo this egregious error in judgment.

Marland’s cartoon is the first thing I read on the opinion page. Birch and Finch is the first thing I read on weekends. The reason given for firing Marland is “a cost-cutting measure.” I demur. I find the choice of firing the political cartoonist just as the press is under fire from the new administration to be suspect.

As we enter into this time of right-wing entitlement and power grabs it is important, as the great political cartoonist Herblock said, for the press to speak out “and if the occasion arises, raise bloody hell.”

And in New Hampshire no one does that better than Mike Marland. I am asking the paper to have courage and reconsider this decision.

BARBARA LAVERICK

Wolfeboro