ABC announced late Wednesday that it is suspending Kimmel indefinitely. In his shows on Monday and Tuesday night, the late night host correctly noted that conservatives are trying to use the killing of Charlie Kirk for political gain. On Wednesday, FCC chairman Brendan Carr, in an appearance on conservative Benny Johnson’s podcast, suggested that he might punish ABC for Kimmel’s remarks and suggested that local ABC channels refuse to air Kimmel’s show. Nexstar, a company that owns TV stations across the country and is seeking FCC approval of a merger, then announced its ABC affiliates would not air Kimmel’s program.
But this is not an isolated incident. Far from it. In December, Disney, which owns ABC News, opted to settle a defamation suit against Trump by donating $15 million to his presidential library. As the FCC was considering whether to approve a merger between Skydance and Paramount, the company that owns CBS News, longtime executives at CBS News resigned, facing pressure to cover Trump more favorably. In July, the network reached a $16 million settlement with the president over his lawsuit objecting to CBS coverage of the 2024 campaign. Trump backers are now being appointed to key roles at CBS.
ABC, CBS, the Journal and the Times are some of the largest and most prestigious journalism organizations in the country. A president going after them all amounts to declaring war on the free press. And it’s not just journalists. Stephen Colbert, host of the late night show on CBS, had his show canceled a few months ago. The network said it was a financial decision, but Colbert was a harsh critic of Trump. Now, with Kimmel also off the air at least temporarily, it’s hard to ignore the potential that comedians who slam the president nightly won’t be on the air for long.
This is all very scary. The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR and other outlets are still doing a lot of great investigative journalism that paints Trump in a bad light. The New York Times does great investigative work, too, like Monday’s scorcher on the Trumps and United Arab Emirates and multibillion-dollar crypto/AI chip deals, and it has some very anti-Trump columnists, such as the excellent Jamelle Bouie. But Trump, with his combination of regulatory power and lawsuits, is almost certainly making these big news outlets a bit more gun-shy about criticizing him. And I worry even more, potentially, about smaller outlets like this one and other valuable liberal magazines and websites that perhaps can’t spend millions of dollars to defend themselves from Trump’s lawsuits.
“Under authoritarianism, by contrast, opposition comes with a price,” they added. “Media outlets may be hit with frivolous defamation suits or adverse regulatory rulings, businesses may face tax audits or be denied critical contracts or licenses, universities and other civic institutions may lose essential funding or tax-exempt status, and journalists, activists and other critics may be harassed, threatened or physically attacked by government supporters.”
I have my gripes about “legacy” media such as The New York Times, which has been far too slow to recognize the radicalism of today’s Republican Party. But we desperately need a robust defense of free and independent media that criticizes the government. Trump is now a threat to all journalism, from left-wing Substacks to The Wall Street Journal, which has a very conservative editorial page but more honest news coverage. Democracy dies without a free press. We can’t let Trump kill our press and therefore our democracy. Jimmy Kimmel is the newest victim of Trump’s silencing of critics but sadly, it’s almost certain that he won’t be the last.
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