So Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show on ABC has been taken off the air indefinitely following comments he made in a monologue about the shooting death of Charlie Kirk.
That’s how most media outlets described what happened. That’s how I described what happened in Thursday's Poynter Report.
But that’s not exactly right.
As many pointed out in the past day, it would be more accurate to say ABC pulled Kimmel’s show off the air following comments made by FCC chair Brendan Carr.
On a conservative podcast, Carr essentially called for Kimmel’s show to be taken off the air, saying, “Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Within hours of Carr’s podcast appearance, Nexstar Media Group — which owns ABC affiliates in 32 markets across the U.S. — announced it was pulling Kimmel’s show “indefinitely.” ABC followed by saying it was taking Kimmel off the air.
Carr then praised the decision in a social media post Thursday, writing, “Broadcast TV stations have always been required by their licenses to operate in the public interest—that includes serving the needs of their local communities. And broadcasters have long retained the right to not air national programs that they believe are inconsistent with the public interest, including their local communities’ values. I am glad to see that many broadcasters are responding to their viewers as intended.”
This is quite a different stance than the one Carr has taken in the past.
In February 2019, Carr tweeted, “Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest.’”
In 2021, Carr wrote in a statement, “A newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official …”
In 2022, Carr posted, “President Biden is right. Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people in to the discussion. That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.”
In 2023, Carr tweeted, “Free speech in the counterweight — it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”
Want more hypocrisy?
As The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg noted, “President Trump received thunderous applause during his second inaugural address in January when he vowed to ‘immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.’”
“Trump and many on the right, for years, have griped about “cancel culture” — something Trump, himself, called “the very definition of totalitarianism.”
“Yet,” Rutenberg writes, “he is now conducting the most punishing government crackdown against major American media institutions in modern times, using what seems like every tool at his disposal to eradicate reporting and commentary with which he disagrees.”
And those tools are working. To borrow a phrase from a certain box office hit set in the 1970s when the White House flexed its muscle to maintain power and snuff out criticism: follow the money.
CBS and its parent company, Paramount, recently settled a Trump lawsuit because it needed FCC approval to merge with SkyDance. At the moment, Nexstar is looking to buy another huge local station owner, Tegna. Approval of the deal will require the FCC to bend the rules.
The Washington Post’s Lili Loofbourow wrote, “It’s hard not to connect those dots. It seems possible, and even probable, that Nexstar indefinitely preempted Kimmel’s show because Trump’s FCC chairman made it clear there would be consequences — which might have to do with the Tegna deal — if he didn’t.”
In addition, CNN’s Jake Tapper noted that Disney and CEO Bob Iger also have something at stake here. Disney and Hulu want to acquire Fubo — another deal that needs approval from the Trump administration.
Tapper said, “Bob Iger is going to have to make a decision, a legacy-defining decision, that could put him at odds with the Trump administration. Or it could put him at odds with the principle about whether or not a government should be pushing private companies to cancel speakers and speech they don’t like.”
Carr is using phrases like “public interest” as the reason why Kimmel’s show is off the air. Trump tried to distance himself from accusations of censorship by saying Kimmel had bad ratings. However, ratings wouldn’t be a reason to suddenly cancel a show without warning, nor did Nexstar say anything about ratings when it pulled the show.
It’s clear that Kimmel’s show has been pulled because they — Trump and his followers — simply don’t like Kimmel and the things he says. This isn’t anything new. Trump’s dislike of Kimmel goes back years. When CBS announced earlier this summer that it was canceling Stephen Colbert’s show, Trump posted on social media, “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.”
American Civil Liberties Union’s Democracy and Technology Division director Christopher Anders said in a statement, “This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke. The Trump administration's actions, paired with ABC's capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”
Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker tweeted, “This is the playbook, folks. If you're not paying attention now and doing something about it, then you're going to have to sit down the rest of your life because democracy is being taken away. Do not be quiet in this moment.”
But that’s exactly what’s happening, as some media companies wilt under the threats of Trump and other government officials.
Longtime ESPN personality Dan Le Batard, who now runs his own media company and podcast, crushed Iger, saying, “Seeing Jimmy Kimmel not have the protection of something as powerful as Disney because corporate interests in media are filled with such cowardice that you have a situation where not even Bob Iger has the money or the power to stand up to the threat that is presently upon the shores of everyone in media because of how compromised they are by a series of mergers and money interests. And to see Bob Iger show this kind of cowardice and bend the knee again, again with Trump, not the first time because what happens here is once you’re a coward who’s extorted, the bully is going to keep extorting the coward.”
Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote, “Trump has long benefited from a massive parallel right-wing ecosystem, from Fox News to talk radio to a host of MAGA streamers and influencers. But since Trump won election last fall, more and more of the corporate titans who control the U.S. media have come under his thumb. When Trump attempted similar extortion tactics during his first term, the heads of media companies and owners of news outlets were willing to fight him in court. But since his election in November, executives at companies like Disney have proved far more willing to bend to his will.”
Gertz added an ominous warning that’s hard to disagree with: “Trump’s endgame is clear. He wants to ensure that media outlets don’t produce coverage that criticizes him or his administration, but instead convey an endless stream of propaganda about his accomplishments. He wants every outlet to be Fox News. And at this rate, he may get it.”
