Death threats over Texas flooding cartoon force museum journalism event to be postponed
Jul 11, 2025, 8:40 AM | Updated: 9:42 am
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — An event in support of local reporting was postponed after death threats against a journalist for his newspaper editorial cartoon about the catastrophic flooding in Texas, according to a union.
An online fury erupted this week over an editorial cartoon in The Buffalo News by Pulitzer Prize-winner Adam Zyglis showing a man in a MAGA cap being swept away by the Texas floodwaters. Nose deep in the water, the man is holding up a sign that reads “Help” and a speech bubble floating downstream says: “Gov’t is the problem not the solution.”
At least 120 people were killed in the Texas flooding and more than 170 were missing.
The Buffalo Newspaper Guild said a happy hour event Thursday at the Buffalo History Museum called “Drawing Support for Local Journalism” was postponed amid the backlash. The free, public event was planned to highlight the need for local journalism at a museum exhibit of Zyglis’ work.
But the guild said plans to protest and confront Zyglis at the event led to death threats against the cartoonist “and a deluge of other direct threats to hurt him and his family.”
“We wholly condemn the individuals who have chosen to twist a positive, public event into an attempt to terrorize and silence Zyglis, spread fear among journalists and their supporters, and distort the mission of a free press,” the guild said in an online post.
Zyglis posted the guild announcement on Instagram and commented: “Threats to me and my family are never an acceptable response to disagreeing with an editorial cartoon.”
The guild said the event will be rescheduled.
