Last week, my daughter Susie Cagle, a journalist and cartoonist, sat down with Cartoonist Rights Network International’s Executive Director, Robert Russell, to discuss how she was wrongfully arrested twice by Oakland, California police. In fact, a charge from her first arrest, failing to leave the scene of a riot, has never been dismissed by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

Susie also talks about the state of media, and how paid reporters who have been laid off have been replaced by citizen journalists, individuals who are personally passionate about the topics they’re covering and documenting, which allows police and government officials to ignore their rights as journalists.

“The mayor of Oakland in February or March, called them fake journalists, fake media, and we need to figure out a way to separate them from the real journalists,” Susie said. “It really goes to show a deep misunderstanding of what’s happening in media right now.”

And here are some of Susie’s drawings. To see more, visit her Web site or follow her on twitter @susie_c.

I’ll soon be traveling to France for the editorial cartoon festival at St. Just le Martel, along with our very conservative cartoonist, Eric Allie and my brilliant, cartoonist daughter, Susie Cagle.  I put together an exhibition of cartoons for St. Just, by American cartoonists on the American presidential election, and I’ll be giving a seminar.  I’ll probably sit around and do drawings for the fans too; Eric, Susie and I will be there October 4th through 7th.

See my hour-long seminar on Saturday, October 6th, at 10:00am in the conference room of the “center.”  On Friday, October 5th I’ll lead off a panel on depictions of presidents, translated into French, at 4:00pm in the same conference room.

My cartoon exhibition, featuring over 100 cartoons by myself and 18 more Cagle Cartoons cartoonists, drawing about the presidential election, is in the “lounge,” open from 9:00am to 7:00pm daily from Saturday September 29th through Sunday October 7th.

I’ve heard about St. Just for years, and this is my first time going.  Few American cartoonists go, but the international guys tell me they love it and the festival has gained quite a reputation.  The little town near Limoges just decided that they love editorial cartoons and would have a big cartoon festival every year for political cartoons.  They even built a big museum for editorial cartoons in the middle of a cow pasture.  Families from the small town put the visiting cartoonists up in their homes – the whole town really gets behing this thing.

It is hard to imagine anything like this ever happening in the USA.

My daughter, graphic journalist Susie Cagle, has posted a new series of drawings from Occupy Oakland, which she has been covering for various media outlets.

“Occupy Oakland has captured the nation and even the world’s attention at times,” she writes on Truth-Out. “But those times have not been for Occupy Oakland’s thoughtful direct actions or peaceful marches, but instead for the brutality of its suppression by police.”

Click here to view all of Susie’s drawings