A.I. “slops” over into political cartooning at The Baltimore Sun
“Such an embarrassment,” says Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, the human cartoonist fired by The Sun last year
Above: AI-produced editorial cartoon that the Baltimore Sun published on September 4, and a cartoon from the early 1990s by the Sun’s Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher.
When the Baltimore Sun fired its celebrated political cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher last year with an unceremonious “Sunday’s going to be your last day” phone call, it felt to him and his fans like the ultimate indignity.
But in an even more mortifying development, The Sun has begun publishing cartoons produced not by professionals like Kallaugher. Or by human beings at all.
Welcome to the brave new world of A.I. journalism.
“When news of this broke I was annoyed and frustrated,” Kallaugher wrote on his Substack. “The Sun had let me go a year ago only to replace me with AI slop.”
“Such an embarrassment from a once reputable publication,” he added in a Facebook post.
The first of these slop productions (see image above) depicted A.I. Baltimoreans and an A.I. Mayor Brandon Scott in A.I. Fells Point, all looking so generic it was enough to make locals long for the uniquely creepy characters in Catherine Pugh’s “Healthy Holly” children’s books.
“Produced using Artificial Intelligence tools by the Baltimore Sun Editorial staff,” read the caption on the “cartoon” published on September 4.
The next day the paper posted this image of chin-rubbing aides listening anxiously to the mayor:
Happening Now: A.I. News
All this comes as some TV and print organizations, including The Sun, are experimenting with artificial intelligence to generate, supplement and analyze the news, with the stated assurance that such computer-powered content is always “edited” by humans.
That was the promise earlier this year when The Sun ran a couple of A.I.-produced news analysis pieces.
WMAR-2 has recently gone further. Last month, the ABC affiliate in Baltimore, owned by E.W. Scripps, adopted a 24-hour streaming model enabled by artificial intelligence.
The channel’s 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. news broadcasts are now programmed to stream prerecorded stories in place of live, on-air reporting. Banter between news segments from such longtime anchors as Kelly Swoope has been replaced by canned graphics.
The new setup will “improve our operating model and better serve our audience,”!says Scripps CEO Adam Symson, who also vowed, “We are not wavering on our commitment to quality journalism.”
For Swoope and a dozen other WMAR anchors, producers and photographers, the change has led to layoffs, which across the chain has amounted to 12% of Scripp’s total national workforce.
“A war on Iran” was KAL’s prescient last cartoon published by The Sun in June 2025. It was subsequently removed from the paper’s website. BELOW: A September 11 A.I.-generated cartoon in The Sun.
Threat to Creative Thought
Earlier this week, the Association of American Editorial cartoonists (AAEC) issued an open letter of condemnation addressed to The Sun, which has been roiled by editorial changes since it was acquired in January 2024 by David D. Smith, the conservative, Trump-aligned chairman of the Sinclair Broadcasting based in Hunt Valley.
“Whatever the intent, the only message The Sun actually delivered was that it has finally and completely surrendered any remaining claim it may have had to journalistic legitimacy and its former place among the nation’s important newspapers,” the group’s president Marc Murphy wrote.
“We, the free press, are losing that cutting edge to A.I. slop” – Herb Block Foundation.
“The AAEC condemns the use of AI for its theft from artists, its misuse of our planet’s resources, and its threat to original, creative thought,” Murphy said, calling on The Sun to abandon the practice.
Trif Alatzas, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Sun, did not respond to questions and a request for comment by The Brew.
A self-portrait of the artist at work. (UMBC)
On Thursday, the Herb Block Foundation followed up with more blistering words, calling the machine-generated cartoons “insipid” and “borderline immoral.”
They “certainly do not qualify as satire or opinion journalism,” wrote foundation board member Rob Rogers. “We, the free press, are losing that cutting edge to A.I. slop.”
What made the images particularly offensive, according to the foundation – named after the famous Washington Post political cartoonist – was The Sun’s earlier firing of Kallaugher.
“KAL came up with his ideas for his cartoons without the aid of robots and drew everything by hand,” said Rogers.
Kallaugher was awarded the Herblock Prize in 2015. The work of the two-time Pulitzer finalist, who aas at the Sun for 31 years, still appears in The Economist and in his Substack.
More about The Sun in the David Smith Era
• Sinclair Broadcast’s David Smith buys Baltimore Sun (1/15/24)
• Baltimore Sun’s new owner David Smith gave $100,000 to a PAC supporting Sheila Dixon (1/18/24)
• One year after Sinclair’s David Smith bought Baltimore Sun, union looks back (1/15/25)
• Baltimore Sun fires its longtime cartoonist, Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher (7/1/25)
• Baltimore Sun Guild journalists face gag order imposed by owner David Smith (9/20/25)
Veteran Sun photographer and Guild member Amy Davis confronts David Smith about stalled union contract talks outside the Tagliata restaurant owned by his nephews, Alex and Eric Smith, in December 2024. (Fern Shen)