Wait, that article doesn’t say what he said that got him dumped. Does anyone know?
Kimmel said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”
Well that seems like an overreaction to me.
Huh. That really really doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that should get you fired.
That’s right up there with the time an NPR host raised his voice.
The Onion never fails.
This looks like the FCC threatened ABC, and that’s why they pulled the show. That is, i don’t think this is “cancel culture”, i think it’s outright government censorship.
From the nyt:
Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chair, sharply criticized Mr. Kimmel’s comments on a podcast earlier on Wednesday.
From FIRE (a free speech group)
The government pressured ABC — and ABC caved. The timing of ABC’s decision, on the heels of the FCC chairman’s pledge to the network to “do this the easy way or the hard way,” tells the whole story. Another media outlet withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort and exact retribution on broadcasters and publishers who criticize it.
From the wall street journal:
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Kimmel during an interview with conservative political podcaster Benny Johnson on Wednesday and suggested the regulatory agency could take action against the broadcast licenses of ABC-owned stations. Owners of some ABC TV stations, including large broadcaster Nexstar Media Group NXST 1.46%increase; green up pointing triangle, told the network they were dropping the show.
Chatter on Bluesky is that the networks are looking to get out of late night comedy, and at this was an easy excuse for ABC.
So for the MAGAs the excuse is then just part of their Bullshitvik revoltusion.
That actually has been an ongoing movement. They just don’t bring in revenue like they used to and networks can simultaneously save on salaries/production costs (however minimal) while making straight cash leasing out the time slots to infomercials or what have you.
As happened earlier this year when Taylor Tomlinson resigned from After Midnight. Rather than continue with a new host, they just axed the whole thing. Lead-in (and After Midnight producer) Colbert soon followed, that one no doubt also partially occasioned by CBS’s need to get regulatory approval from the Trump regime for their corporate merger.
So censorship is an easy excuse for canceling a show, while losing money is a hard one?
Not sure if this was posted upthread, but I’d be very curious to hear what Ernest Owens has to say now.
Say now about what exactly?
How is it relevant, specifically? Please quote the words you think are relevant to what’s going on now.
It appears that MAGA is now trying to “cancel” anyone who was insufficiently mournful of Charlie Kirk’s death.
I was always skeptical of the tactic of trying to get people fired for saying offensive things. I guess my friends on the Left, the supporters of so called “consequence culture” never thought that it would be used against them.
It’s always been used against “the Left”, as long as they didn’t have great wealth or power. What’s relatively new is that, thanks to social media, everyone may face consequences for their actions and speech, at least to some degree, regardless of wealth and power. And open bigotry can now include such consequences.
A thoughtful discussion can be had (and – even in my time as a Doper – has been had), at great length, when the torch-and-pitchfork crowd ‘cancels’ somebody for their speech.
But a line is crossed, and was crossed, when the government does it.
This Kimmel episode … rids the Trump administration of the burdensome fig leaf of having to contrive some form of legal, proper, ethical, ‘normal,’ or Constitutional rationale for its actions.
Let’s think through the consequences of getting someone “canceled”. If you succeed, you render that person unemployable. Eventually, their unemployment benefits run out. And if they can’t find another job and aren’t independently wealthy, they sink into poverty. If they can’t pay their rent or mortgage, they get evicted. If they get evicted, and they don’t have friends or family they can fall back on, they end up on the streets.
So, before you try to “cancel” someone… I think if behooves you to pause and reflect on whether this person is so terrible that they deserve to be on the streets. There are some people on the Right that are so terrible (like Neo-Nazis), that this tactic might be warranted on Utilitarian grounds. But other than that, I rarely care to join in with an online cancel mob.