The Guardian’s razor gang gets cutting

March 27, 2026 — 2:00am

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In this week’s On Background, The Guardian comes for its cartoonists’ contracts, ABC top brass take home the bacon, and Lachlan Murdoch strikes it even richer on the Rajasthan Royals.

Will the last dog on the moon please turn out the lights?

It has been a funny old 18 months for The Guardian in Australia. After losing editor Lenore Taylor, political editor Katharine Murphy and high-profile blogger Amy Remeikis, you’d think the organisation would want stability.

No dice. The Guardian has decided to cut reader favourite cartoonist First Dog on the Moon, also known as Andrew Marlton, down to a rolling six-month contract.

It’s an odd move, considering First Dog is part of the furniture at the Guardian. Some staff have gone as far as describing the cartoonist as an “institution”, a pillar of the publication’s 13 years of success in Australia, and one of the remaining individuals readers actively seek out.

“They absolutely love First Dog,” one told On Background. What’s more? His sketches have become an integral part of what The Guardian has termed the Berger Project, which is essentially a big push to build its audience on platforms such as Instagram in the hope they will eventually make it back to the main website.

(The name is inspired by the art critic John Berger, who wrote Ways of Seeing, and refers to the different ways an audience might view the Guardian.)

Marlton........

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