They’ve made us think, laugh, cringe, exasperated! Now Mike Thompson and Nicky Loomis trace the history of political cartoons and opinion pages in American newspapers, and discuss the role they’ve played in national dialogue through the years.

Editorial cartoonist/animator Mike Thompson is winner of the 2017 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for cartooning, a two-time winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’ national award for cartooning, the Overseas Press Club Award, the National Press Foundation Award, the National Headliner Award, the Scripps Howard Award and the national Women in Communications Clarion Award.

Nicky Loomis is Opinion and Engagement Editor at The Desert Sun. She has worked as a reporter and columnist for the Pasadena Star News and AP and has been published in the L.A. Review of Books, New York Daily News and the L.A. Times.

This program presented in partnership with the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation and is sponsored in part by a generous gift from Gerald and Lori Ernst.