You can watch a video version of this here.
Jimmy Kimmel has been “indefinitely suspended” by ABC for comments made about the reaction to the alleged shooter of Charlie Kirk.
He said on his Monday monologue:
“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.”
I recently posted a video talking about how 1st amendment protections generally are for government conduct and not for private conduct like employers. Meaning an employer can fire an employee for their speech and it is not a violation of the 1st amendment.
So you would think the same is true here. ABC, a private employer, its parent company Disney, is biggest affiliate next star, all decided they do not want that comment to represent their business? Well it is a bit more complicated
Industry insiders said Senior TV executives initially supported Jimmy Kimmel saying what was said was not over the line but during Meetings were held between ABC, Disney, and Network Affiliates the support weakened because of feared retaliation from President Donald Trump.
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brandon Carr during an interview before the suspension said this in reference to Kimmel’s comments
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Carr further said. “The public interest means you can’t be running a narrow partisan circus and still meeting your public interest obligations.”
And to be clear this is not the FCC in recent memory has normally defined the “public interest” requirement. But using that definition and narrow partisan circus,” how is the highly partisan Fox who settled a massive defamation suit for lying about voting machine companies in 2023 not under threat as well?
So here we have the FCC apply a different rule for different viewpoint. the government may not impose a content‑based restriction on speech—that is, a rule that targets the ideas, subject matter, or viewpoint being expressed. Such restrictions are presumed unconstitutional and are subject to strict scrutiny, the most demanding standard of judicial review. This would be viewpoint discrimination and a violation of the 1st amendment.
It should be noted the largest ABC affiliate Nexstar, who was the driving force for the suspension announced last month it had entered into a $6.2 billion merger with media company Tegna which would require approval from the FCC.
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