Each year at our annual luncheon, World Press Freedom Canada director Guy Badeaux  (pen name: Bado) announces the winner of our international editorial cartoonist contest, which celebrates the journalists who illustrate the state of the world through pictures, metaphors and snappy lines.

Editorial cartoons are the soul of a newspaper, anchoring the editorial pages with the news-driven caricatures and biting commentary.

Sadly, the pool of cartoonist talent is being drained as media companies cut staff.

The loss of cartoonists is of course part of the overall trend of declining resources for journalism. The decline is leaving North Americans more poorly served for news and commentary.

Last month, Michael de Adder was dropped after 30 years at The Chronicle Herald, the Halifax newspaper purchased in August by Postmedia Network Inc. De Adder is an internationally renown cartoonist whose work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. He was recently awarded the Order of Canada.

In the United States, the McClatchy chain let go of three Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonists as it continues its cost-cutting efforts. The company says its 29 daily newspapers will no longer publish daily editorial cartoons.

The three are John Ohman at the Sacramento Bee, Joel Pete at the Lexington Herald-Observer and Kevin Siers, a freelancer who published regularly in the Charlotte Observer.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Star Tribune, an independent paper based in Minneapolis, is moving its full-time cartoonist Mike Thompson to a freelance role.