Late Night Says Goodbye?

By: MJ Saunders ‘29

So you want to watch the evening news? You wouldn't watch the talk shows for news, yet that is where censorship is found. If the facts were the problem, then the news channels would be just as censored as the talk shows. What is the problem are the voices that are saying what they think out loud. The humanity of the statistics and job reports is the threat, not just the numbers themselves. 

It started with Stephen Colbert and the cancellation of his show. The justification was for financial reasons as per a statement from parent company CBS. Late night TV is not as profitable as it used to be, but clearly, it is controversy or opinions that

are not profitable. Colbert has been critical of the president and administration for a long time, but only just before was he criticizing CBS and their settlement of the lawsuit filed by the president for their criticism of him in their articles and tv coverage.

Photo courtesy of CBS.

Most recently was the explosive drama of Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel was abruptly suspended indefinitely for a comment that said how Trump’s supporters were attempting to portray the shooter of Charlie Kirk as anything other than conservative and trying to “gain political points”. This sort of commentary is not new from Kimmel, as he has been very regularly critical of the current administration, as is within his rights as an American citizen. Of course, freedom of speech does not come without freedom of consequence, but to fire someone over their political comments has implications that lead to fear of retaliation from the administration. Of course, there will be policies and expectations from the parent companies of these talk shows, but if one of the offences that leads to termination is speaking negatively of the administration, then that is a much greater issue. On September 23rd, Kimmel was rehired, but not before parent company Disney lost up to $6 billion after the termination of his show as subscribers canceled their subscriptions. Money runs everything, of course, so perhaps there is some financial benefit to not angering the administration, but not enough to lose that many subscriptions at once. 

Clearly, it is a fine line to walk between the balance of opinion and keeping the social order, and the opinions of those on the late night talk shows are the ones that are hurt in the process.