On Thursday, September 18th ABC announced that the Jimmy Kimmel Live show has been canceled indefinitely. ABC suspended the show permanently after comments Kimmel made in his opening monologue about Charlie Kirk’s death. Days later, the program stated that they would be reinstating the show following immense backlash due to censorship concerns.
Senior Evelyn Douthit said,“In my opinion, it makes me really uncomfortable, because if Jimmy Kimmel gets censored, who are we censoring next?” Douthit’s comment leads us to ask, if we can censor the media, where do we draw the line concerning free speech?
This is the second late-night talk show to be canceled this year, with the Late Show with Stephan Colbert also being canceled, by CBS. The station released a statement explaining that the show had been canceled for “purely financial reasons” however, there was some speculation that the administration had been putting pressure on the studio to cancel the show.
In the Jimmy Kimmel situation, it is clear that his show was canceled based purely off of his words.
The New York Times wrote an article about the cancellation, stating that “Mr. Trump celebrated what he termed a ‘cancellation’ by declaring it ‘Great News for America’ on Truth Social. He later said other hosts who criticize or mock him should lose their right to broadcast.”
Talk shows can often be controversial since they rely heavily on jokes and political satire. However, that has always been the beauty of talk shows: their ability to poke fun at political topics that can sometimes be hard to digest.
In the case of Jimmy Kimmel, the comment he made about Charlie Kirk’s murderer resulted in ABC (owned by Disney). The company faced political pressure from the administration to cancel the 22 year long show.
Journalism and AP English teacher Mr. Fitzgerald explains, “It seems like there is political pressure from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) targeted at others’ opinions. It does seem like political pressure to prevent someone from expressing themselves freely.”
ABC and Disney have faced a lot of backlash after canceling the program leading the company to choose to reinstate the program, starting Tuesday September 23rd.
Talk shows are a great outlet for criticizing politics while also spreading joy through their inclusion of humor. Fortunately, Kimmel’s show was put back on the air but it doesn’t change that he was being censored in the first place.