Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I have used that headline. I also used it in 2017 in a post I began thusly: “I detest Jimmy Kimmel. I loathe him. He is the most revolting of all the Left-Licking late night and cable progressive comics, worse than Colbert, Maher, Samantha Bee, all of them. All of them combined. He is an ongoing blight on the ethics of American society, and yet he is self-righteous in the process.” My opinion of Kimmel has, if anything, deteriorated since I wrote that.
Nonetheless, fair is fair and ethics are ethics, and Kimmel’s suspension by ABC for a comment that was so much less objectionable than his biased, unfunny, obnoxious blather nightly is cowardly and indefensible.
ABC (part of the woke Disney empire) announced tonight that it was pulling Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” because the late night host inaccurately described the politics of the man who assassinated Charlie Kirk.
What did Kimmel say that was so horrible? In Kimmel’s opening monologue on Monday night, he said, “We hit 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 doing everything they can to score political points from it.” Of course, what really was going on was the Axis desperately trying to shift accountability for the murder to the Right, even though that false narrative was contrived and absurd on its face.
But really: so what? Kimmel was only mouthing what supposed journalists (actually Axis of Unethical Conduct agents and propagandists, but that’s what they pretend to be) were writing and saying on various news publications and TV shows, and their dupes on social media were parroting the lie. Lots of people believed them because bias has made them stupid; maybe poor Jimmy did too: he’s not all that bright.
And he’s a comedian, at least officially. He isn’t supposed to be a truth-teller, and anyone who has watched him over the last 20 years or so knows enough not to believe the creep if he said that up is up and down is down. This wasn’t like the Washington Post’s Karen Attiah, deliberately falsifying a Kirk quote in order to claim he was a racist.
Apparently the Kimmel decision came after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, suggested that the FCC might take action against ABC because of Kimmel’s remarks. Well, Carr was abusing his authority, there was no chance that such action would have held up in court, and ABC/Disney should have replied, “Bite me!” If the network doesn’t mind Kimmel torturing young children for yucks—remember, Jimmy Kimmel is an ethics villain and should have been fired years ago—it certainly shouldn’t punish him for believing the Axis’s lies…and ABC is a card-carrying member of that cabal.
The ethical course for ABC now is to reinstate Kimmel immediately, apologize to him, and then fire him for the right reasons. He sucks, he’s not very funny, and he’s a miserable human being.
Oh, I almost forgot: the shooting of Kirk and the reaction to it is officially an Ethics Train Wreck.
Ethics Alarms 
Eventually, the Supreme Court is going to have to deal with these “Nice business you’ve got there, shame if anything were to happen to it” threats that government has been using to undermine the rights of individuals since at least the Obama administration. That’s how banks were “persuaded” to withhold services from gun-related businesses, that’s how Social Media giants were “persuaded” to implement draconian and partisan censorship. We need firm caselaw that recognizes that so-called “private” censorship done under state regulatory pressure is state censorship.
I think they had been looking to yank him off the air for a while, and this was just the trigger they needed. Not sorry to see him removed, though, he’s an asshole who does not deserve to be protected. This also isn’t the first time he’s been sacked.
I think they had been looking to yank him off the air for a while, and this was just the trigger they needed.
Very likely. He had to know he was on thin ice too.
His show has been hemorraging viewers, averaging 1.4 million per night, even less than Colbert’s average viewership. This was simply a pretext to can him.
jvb
The things is, it’s always the “asshole who doesn’t deserve to be protected” that gets targeted when somebody wants to establish a precedent that degrades everybody’s rights.
I agree that the optics are bad. I saw Carr’s statement earlier in the day and it raised red flags It could be that ABC got cold feet.
But just because everyone else in the news media was doing it doesn’t mean it was acceptable for Kimmel to do it. The MSM’s reasoning – that Robinson’s family being Republican meant that Robinson himself was a Republican – was a ludicrous stretch of the imagination that, had it been the right-wing media talking about a murderer from a Democratic family, would have been roundly mocked by Kimmel and his ilk. If Kimmel were actually working in a capacity as a comedian, he would have mocked the news media for such distorted logic.
And that’s the other problem. Is Kimmel, like Colbert and Stewart, really just a comedian? That’s the Jester’s Excuse and it’s rationalization by other comedians in the past has been mentioned here. The left-wing talk show hosts regularly spew venom that often borders on misinformation, but hide behind the fact that they are “just joking” to get away with it.
Kimmel is a comedian who hosts a talk show in the 21st century. There are times when he is not trying to be funny and is engaging in political commentary that is designed to sway audiences (or, in Kimmel’s case, appeal to his low-information viewers’ biases) the way Stewart and Colbert did. He’s just less funnier than they are.
But, if we’re going to go with everyone else does it, then what Carr did was not much different from the Biden administration warning Big Tech about allowing information it didn’t like to be disseminated would/could/might be punished.
“That’s the Jester’s Excuse“
AKA Schrödinger’s Douchebag
PWS
Exactly! He wasn’t joking. He was disseminating the same Democratic Party Talking Points that the news media was spreading all weekend. That’s not entertainment; that’s propaganda.
I’m confused. Several days ago there was a list of people who made vile social media comments and the list was culled to to say which should be fired and which should could keep their jobs. Then we had clueless Kilmeade who made a stupid off the cuff comment on a live morning show on a cable network and it was said that he had to be fired immediately because not doing so would indict the entire network. Now we are coming to the defense of a guy who uses a team of writers and editors to create his monologues saying what he said was not so bad.
I am an free speech absolutist and want the market to decide who stays and who goes. ABC is granted a license to use public airways which is regulated by the FCC. The FCC routinely decides what is in the public interest which establishes the rationale for granting those licenses. Kimmel slandered 75 million people with that comment and potentially set the stage for more bloodshed. That is not in the public interest. For that reason I am not going to say that Carr abused his authority. Carr alone cannot sanction ABC.
When 75 million people hear the comments of Kimmel and decide to walk away from all of ABC programming that will have a significant effect on their business. That is how the market works and ABC executives are anticipating a significant backlash and are protecting the interests of the thousands of other employees at ABC and its investors who would would be harmed by the consumer backlash.
It’s my understanding that local ABC affiliates objected and caused headaches for the network. It’s possible that ABC was already having problems with Kimmel so decided to pull him. It’s also possible they decided to do it after Carr’s comments so that they could avoid the backlash that CBS got when Colbert was cancelled since ABC could make the argument that the Trump Administration via Carr threatened them.
Indeed… Nexstar (an owner of multiple ABC and other network outlets) had stated their stations would no longer carry the show…
Fox News and CNN are cable news networks and therefore do not have/need an FCC license. Sinclair and Nexstar broadcast in rural areas where not everybody is on cable. This requires an FCC license. They carry ABC. Sinclair alerted the FCC to Jimmy Kimmel’s statements as a violation of FCC rules.
I was hoping that ABC would remove Jimmy Kimmel organically, although they did not. I don’t like the FCC’s involvement. I don’t like affiliates choosing to pre-empt Kimmel because they have deals un the works that may require FCC approval. If you objected to the Biden administration pressuring Facebook, or you miss your Mrs. Butterweorth’s bottle, you should also object now. On the other hand, if you were silent during those times, I’ll thank you not to have an opinion now.
My take, worth exactly what it cost:
Well said Glenn. My only contention is that if we have an FCC to “protect the public interest” which in itself is ill-defined I cannot say Carr abused his authority. We still ban words over the airways that far too many use in their daily lexicon so we already ban speech because some arbitrary decision on what constitutes “decency” on the public airwaves.
Private employers can do as they please and if “jawboning” by the FCC Chair to effectuate some amorphous public interest standard is improper then why spend any money monitoring licensees?
CM
Just to be clear, I didn’t say that he abused his authority, or at least, that’s not how I am thinking about it. He just said too much, and made too direct a connection.
It would not be a threat to say the FCC is looking at that statement in the light of the public interest provision of the Communications Act. After all, that’s what the FCC does. But to imply that ABC’s license could be affected was over the line. There is a lot of enforcement actions short of that that could’ve been possible.
So my statement was that he went to far. Is that an abuse of position? Debatable, but I’m not quite going that far. However, rational minds may disagree on that point.
Once again, Glenn Logan to the rescue.
The U.S. government – regardless of who is running it – needs to quit tinkering with the free-speech rights of its citizens…that is (or should be) sacrosanct. Before ANY government official makes ANY statement regarding words spoken by a citizen, that official should run it by someone who knows more about the Constitution and Constitutional law. Turley or Dershowitz or Marshall…someone with some knowledge AND backbone…should be on retainer with the Justice Department as a sounding board.
I’m pretty sure President Trump and many others in his Administration are gutted by Kirk’s assassination, but that is no excuse to get sloppy with First-Amendment rhetoric…and that’s what this administration is doing in this situation. AG Bondi’s statements favoring criminalization of some “hate” speech – whether they are hyperbole are not – are ghastly.
They need to tighten things up, because the left-wing sharks will feast on this stuff like a flounder with a paper cut.
Regarding abuse I was clarifying my earlier point that I took some exception to the main post’s claim it was abuse. I should have more clear.
ABC was caught in the classic military pincers strategy.
On the one side, they had the group saying they were pulling Kimmel, which was costing them money. On the other side, the FCC saying that didn’t look like a comedy routine, that looked like (pick a violation of community standards) we need to look in to that, which would put them in the position to have to defend Kimmel.
Since a large majority of the populace sees the Kirk assassination for what it is, to be seen defending it is another black eye they don’t want. They were caught on two sides of losing large(er) amounts of money, worse still if Kimmel was a money loser to begin with.
Networks have often negotiated with the FCC throughout time on what community standards are, or have been willing to pay fines because the business case was that good (think Howard Stern when he was on the radio station).
They could’ve told the FCC “bring it on, we’ll go through hearings” if they thought it was worth it. It’s a federal regulation that will have procedures for making a determination; it is emphatically NOT what the Biden administration did, there is nothing that regulates content on the internet, they just bullied.
ABC made a business decision, and the Trump administration was playing ball under the rules.
I don’t think that’s unethical.
Bad Bob
I am glad you made the distinction between FCC statements regarding licensed public airway content and Biden era pressure on social media concerns. I would be as outraged as others on free speech grounds if the Kimmel program was broadcast only on unregulated cable or Internet channels. Kimmel is not barred from speaking he can develop his own podcast or YouTube channel if he wishes. How often have I heard that you may have free speech but your speech may have consequences.
I also find it interesting that some groups are afforded free speech while others have politicians trying to stop them from speaking. The ones that comes immediately to mind are the Charlottesville groups was was white nationalists (who had a permit) and the other was a group that was protesting the removal of historical statues. Progressive politicians worked diligently to create the false narrative that both were racists. We all know that Schumer and others in Congress along with the press kept telling us that Trump said the white supremacists “were fine people”. For the life of me, I find it idiotic to plan a counter protest at the same time unless you want violence. Apparently that is the goal. Had everyone simply turned their backs to the Alt-Right groups and ignored them there would have been no violence and Heather Heyer would be alive today. Rebuttal speech cannot happen simultaneously if you want to be heard.
Here is a hypothetical. If any broadcast network thought it could attract a significant audience with white nationalist themes would the people screaming about free speech be as vocal about protecting free speech as they are in protecting their favored speech. The follow up question would be should the FCC chairperson have some public statements about the societal interest in such broadcasts. It cannot be a one way street if we have equal rights.
You mentioned Howard Stern and I was thinking along the lines of the Greaseman (Doug Tracht) who was a shock jock in the DC area when the MLK holiday was first enacted. He made a joke that was in such poor taste that the FCC intervened he was suspended for awhile. Later he made a joke relating to the dragging death of James Byrd in Texas. For that he was fired. Tracht should have been fired if, and only if, his statements were a direct threat or that his audience was abandoning him. I say the same thing for all the ladies on The View. If they make money for the station I give them full freedom to spew any BS they want so long as others have the opportunity to speak against them.
The FCC sets standards and imposes sanctions on stations routinely. The problem is that standards seem to change in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Maybe that is part of the price we pay for free speech. Sometimes not knowing where the line is is a better deterrent against pushing the limits of free speech which might just promote more civil discourse. The FCC will act according to what it perceives as socially acceptable behavior on the airwaves it regulates. Saying it must allow all speech negates the need for it’s existence.
I do not see an ethics issue with the decision of ABC to pull Jimmy Kimmel. ABC is a business, and they look at the bottom line. The decision to pull Kimmel is the same as the decision to pull Colbert. Both comedians were harmful to the bottom line as they had stopped being funny. If shows start losing money, viewers disappear, ad revenue disappears them the televised media will look whether that show needs to continue. As ABC affiliates in the red states were unwilling to continue broadcasting the Jimmy Kimmel show ABC had to make a decision. In other words, it was a business decision. (I will leave it to Jack if this statement belongs at the list of Ethics Rationalizations).
I have problems with how the FCC handled it. The government should not police speech. The government should also not pressure any company to police speech on their behalf, or fire employees for their speech. Instead the proper role of the government is to secure the rights of the citizens. I am concerned about the Trump administration’s handling of free speech. Pam Bondi is the biggest ethics dunce here. First, she went on a Fox News show, stating that she wanted employers to fire people for bad social media posts regarding the Charlie Kirk assassination. My take is that employee decisions are none of Pam Bondi’s business. Employers can handle these decision very well themselves, as was proven by the massive firings last weeks when they became aware of all the inappropriate posts and employee actions (e.g. Office Depot) after the assassination. To make matters worse, Pam Bondi went on a podcast calling for hate speech laws; and I am not going to spend any more words in this comment on how bad this is.
The Supreme Court should be mentioned here as they decided to punt on Murthy v. Missouri. This case is the “jawboning” case, looking at the government’s mixed role as a regulator and user, in which the government may be seeking to coerce platforms to engage in unconstitutional censorship or may also be a user simply flagging objectionable posts as any user might. Sadly enough, the Supreme Court judged that the plaintiffs had no standing, allowing future administration to continue to pressure platforms on matters of speech. If SCOTUS had ruled on this in favor of the plaintiffs, Jimmy Kimmel would now have a valid First Amendment case.
Am may I ask, why does the FCC still exist today? As the mainstream media is dying, and most people get there information and entertainment online or via Spotify do we still need it?
“I have problems with how the FCC handled it. The government should not police speech.”
At the time the FCC was created, there was limited bandwidth available for broadcasting, and it was created to keep companies from monopolizing the airwaves.
Within the realm of free speech, the same concept applied – companies could monopolize the ideas that were presented, so the concept of a community standard was applied, and there are FCC commissioners that would review things, make recommendations for this, that, and the other.
The signals are now digital, and there are many new avenues of transmission, but they’re still using that bandwidth as far as I know, and the bandwidth of the spectrum is still finite.
That said, the networks are on “new” systems like Amazon and YouTube, etc, so they could still keep Kimmel on if they thought it was a good business decision, but apparently they still make a lot of money using the old system?
I’m a lot less worried about the government using the bully pulpit, because we can vote new bullies in.
How Google and YouTube have their thumb on the scale is a LOT more worrisome.
A simple request: Can’t Jimmy be given a Nelson? Also, I wonder whether the “suspension” will be made permanent? He may be back on the air next week.
Despite my bad feelings about the FCC involvement, I still believe that Jimmy Kimmel is the ethics villain in this case. The statement that got him in trouble is:
“We hit 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 doing everything they can to score political points from it”.
Is Jimmy Kimmel here propagating a lie, namely that the killer is a MAGA Republican, or at least one from the right? This theory has been effectively debunked, and Ji,mmy Kimmel should know this.
Lying is a violation of FCC regulations that prohibit news distortions or hoaxes:
The broadcast by a station of false information concerning a crime or catastrophe violates the FCC’s rules if:
This implies that technically FCC may be correct in their handling of the case. Interestingly, FCC action was triggered by a big owner of TV stations, Sinclair, who together with Nexstar, suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.
As much as I dislike Kimmel, I find myself agreeing that what he said falls far short of celebrating Kirk’s murder.
That said, to answer the “what’s really going on here?” question, we have the previous example of Al Capone. He committed many murders and should have been convicted and sentenced for that, but instead he went away for tax evasion. I think Kimmel is much the same: he’s radioactive to ABC, and any excuse to drop him would do. This comment about who the shooter really is just provided the excuse they needed to do what they intended to do all along.
–Dwayne
“The Postman Always Rings Twice”
It is interesting to note that the same leftist who always cheered in cancel culture are now horrified about the firing of Jimmy Kimmel. See for instance Chris Hayes from MSNBC linked below. I could also have linked Sen. Charles Schumer.
So despite my misgivings about the involvement of the FCC (which is within the law as I understand, thereby my impression is that this does not create a First Amendment issue), I think the hypocrisy of the left on this issue astounding. As the left invented cancel culture, this is simply an example of chickens coming home to roost. The left is forced to live by the rules they have created.
It is also telling that the left seems to be more outraged by the cancellation of the Jimmy Kimmel Show than the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Good catch, CVB!
PWS
And here is Chuck Schumer in 2023.
“It is also telling that the left seems to be more outraged by the cancellation of the Jimmy Kimmel Show than the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
Classic talking point memo dictated misdirection duly spouted by all the lefty barking seals.