Anyone who has ever discovered their own unflattering likeness in an editorial cartoon has silently - or not so silently - yearned for the extinction of the ink-stained wretches who express their views on the day's events with pen and ink.

Unfortunately, if the corporate bean counters who increasingly run newspapers continue to get their way, the unhappy subjects of the cartoonists' sharp tipped quills may finally get their wish. And that would be a tragedy, indeed.

Cartoons and caricatures have adorned American newspapers since before the Revolution. They have bred anger, activism and no small amount of controversy. A good cartoon can capture the essence of an issue in a way that no written piece ever could. They can be insightful, emotional and evocative.

Who can forget the breath-taking cartoons that captured our heartbreak, our fury and our resolve in the days after 9/11?

But newspapers are increasingly facing financial challenges. Fewer and fewer Americans are reading them. Stiff competition from generally free Internet-based news sources has taken a bite out of circulation. Websites offering free classified ads are draining a critical profit center. As a result, the era of the local, family-owned newspaper is swiftly drawing to a close.

Large publicly traded companies like Gannett (which owns USA Today and dozens of local papers like the Louisville Courier-Journal) and Knight-Ridder (whose papers include The Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Jose Mercury News) have a fiduciary obligation to shareholders to maximize profit, even if it comes at the expense of journalistic quality. And as ad revenues and circulation decline, cut-backs are inevitable and editorial cartoonists have become top targets.

Why?

Syndication. A newspaper no longer need pay its own editorial cartoonist. Instead, the local paper can simply purchase cartoons drawn elsewhere, preferably from the service run by its corporate parent.

In recent years, the Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Baltimore Sun, among others, has raised this practice to new heights. After Jeff MacNelly, the Tribune's famed Pulitzer-prize winner cartoonists died in 2000, the paper decided not to fill his position. The cartoonist at the Sun is about to accept a buyout package and depart the paper. And the Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times recently laid off Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez.

To be sure, the L.A. Times' folly is our gain, as Michael Ramirez's work now appears on this site [link to Ramirez cartoons].

The real losers are newspaper readers who, once again, find that they are paying a little more to get a little less. And don't think readers aren't noticing. They are. They resent the low-brow, focus-group generated homogeneity of chain newspapers like those published by Gannett. They lament the loss of local reporters in favor of more cost-efficient wire stories. And they grow weary of the slanted, garbage journalism that continues to undermine newspapers' credibility.

When it comes to editorial cartooning, newspapers' cuts are likewise at the expense of readers. Gone will be the days when the local cartoonist picks on the governor, insurance commissioner, mayor and county commission.

The corporate types running newspapers think they can get away with it because readers won't notice. After all, if it doesn't make the paper, how will anyone ever know?

Luckily, the American Associate of Editorial Cartoonists is getting the word out. On a recent day they dubbed "Black Ink Monday," more than 85 cartoonists created over 100 cartoons on the subject. Here's hoping they get the response they need from readers to change a few bean-counters' minds.

Regular readers of this space know that we've been a frequent critic of today's media. And, to be sure, most editorial cartoonists are on the leftward edge of the ideological spectrum. But in America, a free and open dialogue is important. And for more than two hundred years editorial cartoonists have helped spur on discussions through their wit and their unique ability to capture the essence of issues in a way that mere words never could. We may not always like what they say or how they say it, but they have an important place in the debate.

And in our system, where all politics really are local, allowing corporate newspapers to silence important community voices really would be a terrible loss.

More broadly, the bean-counters have it wrong. Cost-cutting isn't the right way to regain profitability. If newspapers want to stop hemorrhaging subscribers and ad bucks, it's time to stop slashing content and start putting out a better product. If you offer a superior news product, your customers - and the marketplace - will reward you for it.