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In Donald Trump’s first term as president, he tried to get the mainstream media in line but largely failed. Yes, he ranted about the enemy of the people, insulted journalists and taught his followers to hate the press. But the guardrails mostly held and the spines of media owners stayed fairly stiff.
This time, his project to keep the media on a tight leash – and therefore control the message – is going much better. At least from the point of view of a would-be authoritarian.
That was made clear this week when the broadcast network ABC abruptly pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air. That move followed Kimmel’s Monday night monologue in which he talked about Charlie Kirk, the far-right provocateur shot to death last week in Utah.
Kimmel’s on-air comments criticized Trump, but he also went out of his way to condemn Kirk’s murder and he slammed both ends of the political spectrum for their “extraordinarily vile” responses.
“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,” Kimmel said.
The next thing you knew, the Trump-appointed FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, was making a guest appearance on a rightwing podcast, apparently threatening to pull federal licenses. Objecting to Kimmel’s suggestion – made before more evidence came to light – that the shooter was part of the Maga movement, he urged broadcast affiliates to “push back” on Disney – or else.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said Carr, sounding a lot like a Bond villain. “These companies can find ways to change conduct … or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
No need to say more, apparently. Nexstar, the nation’s largest owner of local TV stations, quickly decided to remove Kimmel’s show from their offerings, and soon Disney brass were pulling Kimmel off the air, at least for the time being.
Kimmel’s sudden defenestration may be a political success for Trump but it’s a dire sign for free speech in America.
The move “marks a dark new level of capitulation and censorship of speech more redolent of autocracies than democracies”, according to PEN America, the free-expression advocacy organization.
The Trump administration’s bullying appalls first amendment champions. Just as bad is the way so much of big media has rolled over like a docile lapdog, eager to obey in advance.
The administration “is becoming increasingly brazen in its abuse of government power to silence its critics”, said Jameel Jaffer, who heads the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, adding that “too many of the powerful institutions that could stand up to this thuggery are capitulating instead”.
Each instance of bullying emboldens Trump and his allies, and each instance of capitulation lays the groundwork for more cowardice.
Just a few months ago, it seemed shocking when ABC News settled a suit brought by Trump over on-air remarks made by star anchor George Stephanopoulos. Most first amendment experts believed that the network could have successfully defended the case, but instead ABC buckled, even including an apology with the financial settlement.
Not long afterwards, an even more defensible suit against CBS News over the routine editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris went a similar route.
Parent company Paramount Global settled the case. Soon after Stephen Colbert criticized that settlement, calling it a bribe, his CBS late-night show was cancelled.
The media has been cozying up to Trump in earnest since last fall, often with the owners’ commercial interests all too obvious. Paramount Global, for example, was eager for federal approval of a huge merger with another media giant.
The Washington Post, at the behest of its owner, Jeff Bezos, killed its editorial endorsing Harris just before the presidential election, and since then, has taken a sharp right turn in its opinion coverage. And the Los Angeles Times, under its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, has made similar Trump-friendly moves on the paper’s opinion pages.
Elated and on a roll, Trump recently filed suit against the New York Times, the hometown institution with which for decades he has had a love-hate relationship.
The Times has vowed to defend the case, which is laughably weak despite the whopping $15bn price tag for supposed damage done to candidate Trump before the 2024 election.
“This lawsuit has no merit,” the Times responded. “It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting.” The Times publisher, quite accurately, called it frivolous.
Such a stalwart response is heartening but all too rare. Instead, too many media companies are bending the knee – and then cowering as Trump grows ever bolder.
What good is the first amendment when so many in power don’t seem to know it exists?
