Cartooning involves a lot more ability to editorialize. Even if the words are the same, subtle alterations in depictions can convey what the cartoonist wants.
In addition, in a world of StableDifffusion and AI generated graphics, are we really wanting to train teens to get their news via (human for now) generated depictions of current events?
Even if you are there you still don't see the whole event, just the tiny part that is within view. Everyone has to rely on the evidence gathered and presented by others.
They admit as much in the article, by stating that they want to strike a tone that is not too positive and not too depressing. It isn't a journalist's job to do either of those things.
A charitable take is that they want to be honest without disillusioning kids. They want kids to feel included in understanding current events, without making the world seem utterly hopeless (and thus inflicting a nihilistic world view).
An uncharitable take is that they are grooming activists. They don't want it to be too positive so kids feel an urge to right some wrong, and they don't want it too depressing so they think there's still some agency to be advocated for.
I once visited a photography exhibition about propaganda in Nazi Germany.
Photos look much realer than most drawings/paintings so people assume what they're depicting must be real. Since the technology was new, most people just believed it, and so the Nazis could sell them anything as the truth.
Of course it is and people recognize it as such and therefore their circulation is very low. So naturally they’re trying to get public funds to put it into schools and into defenseless kids heads through subversion.
Cartooning involves a lot more ability to editorialize. Even if the words are the same, subtle alterations in depictions can convey what the cartoonist wants.
In addition, in a world of StableDifffusion and AI generated graphics, are we really wanting to train teens to get their news via (human for now) generated depictions of current events?