Last weekend I was in New York doing a panel keynote at the College Media Association (CMA) convention with Steve Sack, Adam Zyglis and Taylor Jones.

There was a great, receptive crowd of about 600 college newspaper editors and faculty advisors in attendance. Our panel was sponsored by USA Today, one of our clients. The CMA printed out a nice display of Charlie Hebdo tribute cartoons from our collection (http://darylcagle.com/charlie-hebdo-exhibit) which had previously been on display at Vanderbilt University.

The CMA hired eight security guards just for our event, at a cost of $4,000.00, and they rented metal detectors to screen attendees. Also, the NYPD had undercover officers distributed into the crowd, so there was a public expense as well.

The terrorists have succeeded in making editorial cartooning events an expensive burden; events and exhibitions are being cancelled around the world in response to terrorist threats and security concerns. I have to thank the CMA for daring to host cartoonist keynote speakers given their security concerns and the significant hassle and expense that we burdened them with.