We Can Stop the Federal Censorship Commission
Jimmy Kimmel’s firing is a tipping point in public opposition to Trump’s media crackdown
It’s been a whirlwind 36 hours since news broke that ABC was yanking Jimmy Kimmel off the air — a new low in corporate-media capitulation to the Trump regime.
As soon as Free Press sent a press release blasting the move on Wednesday night, I received an instant reply from one local ABC program director who insisted that “the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely was a decision by the ABC Television Network” — and not the local affiliate.
In roughly the time it took me to type the words “censorship and extortion,” local stations were already getting so many angry incoming messages that they had set up auto-responders for anything with “Kimmel” in the title. Within hours, organic calls for protests and boycotts were popping up everywhere. The name “Nexstar” was trending. People were mad as hell.
As they should be.
Shakedown Street
ICY(somehow)MI, here’s what went down this week.
After Jimmy Kimmel mocked Donald Trump and made some comments on his Monday-night episode about right-wingers attempting to exploit Charlie Kirk’s murder, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr went on the Benny Johnson podcast (an outlet perhaps best known for being paid to spread Russian propaganda). From this august platform, Carr threatened to pull ABC’s TV licenses if the network didn’t punish Kimmel for his remarks, saying — in his best two-bit mobster impression — “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
This is not normal or legal. This is a government official saying “nice broadcast licenses you have there; would be a shame if something happened to them.” As Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC explained, “This administration is increasingly using the weight of government to suppress lawful expression.”
In fact, this is the kind of government censorship and “jawboning” the First Amendment is meant to guard against. “The Supreme Court has made clear that that’s unconstitutional in all circumstances,” free-speech expert Genevieve Lakier told WIRED about Carr’s not-so-thinly veiled threats. “You’re just not allowed to do that. There’s no balancing. There’s no justification. Absolutely no, no way may the government do that.”
Makena Kelly
All-too-willing accomplices
Suspiciously soon after Carr’s anti-Kimmel rants, Nexstar — the nation’s largest owner of local-broadcast stations, including two-dozen local ABC stations — announced it would no longer carry Kimmel’s show. This is the same company that’s been trying to trash the few remaining limits on local-media ownership and promising Trump it would stamp out “activist journalism.”
This is the same Nexstar that wants the Trump FCC to rubber-stamp a $6.2 billion takeover of the broadcast chain Tegna. As if this quid pro quo wasn’t obvious enough, Nexstar announced it planned to submit its application for merger review just 30 minutes after it publicly trashed Kimmel. Nothing to see here!
Not to be outdone, Sinclair — which controls hundreds of stations nationwide that it forces to air pro-Trump propaganda — declared that it would preempt Kimmel’s show until the host made a personal donation to Charlie Kirk’s far-right political organization. (Carr later went on CNBC to defend this unreal demand, saying “Sinclair has every right to call for that” and called the broadcaster pushback “a much, much healthier dynamic for the country right now.”)
Mickey gets goofy
CEO Bob Iger and the top brass at Disney/ABC faced a choice: Take a stand to support their star and his staff — and the First Amendment — or fold like a cheap umbrella. You already know how this ends, but it’s worth restating that Jimmy Kimmel did nothing wrong. But the corporate execs still caved and rewarded the utter dishonesty and deceit of Trump, Carr and the right-wing noise machine.
According to reporting by the Status newsletter, a major factor in this pitiful capitulation was Disney’s own pending mega-deals. “Disney’s decision comes as the company is working to complete a high-stakes deal with the NFL, one that is crucial to the future of ESPN,” Oliver Darcy wrote. “Securing those rights requires federal regulatory approval, and the company can hardly afford to pick a fight with Trump’s Washington while the deal hangs in the balance.”
This short-sighted boardroom logic is what’s killing the media and threatening to take our democracy down with it. Let’s not forget ABC’s previous appalling decision to settle a ridiculous Trump lawsuit targeting George Stephanopoulos back in December for $15 million. The company handed Trump a trophy, and since then, he hasn’t stopped bludgeoning them with it.
There’s a simple lesson all of these institutions — the media, law firms, universities, Congress — refuse to learn: When you appease Trump, he just keeps demanding more and more. “I have read someplace that the networks were 97 percent against me again, 97 percent negative, and yet I won and easily,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday. “I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr.”
The downward spiral
Those shivers you’re feeling are the realization that this could get a lot worse. Carr crowed to Fox News on Thursday that “the consequences will continue to flow.” If his intimidation campaign combines with even more media consolidation, those consequences will be dire for the media and a democracy that’s already on life support.
As I discussed this week with David Sirota on The Lever’s podcast, the road to this moment was paved with decades of runaway consolidation. Allowing huge swaths of our nation’s media to fall into the hands of a small group of self-interested billionaires — many of them ideologically aligned with Trump — has made the media so much easier to coerce and control. As the number of media companies shrinks, it gets that much easier for Trump and Carr to tighten the screws.
David Sirota
Once these already co-opted broadcasters can buy up whatever they want, they’ll swallow up any independent outlets and substitute their zombie content for competing voices. If the Tegna deal goes through, Nexstar will control three of the top-four network affiliates in a dozen markets, including Indianapolis, Little Rock and Topeka. They’ll control the top-two stations in Cleveland, Denver, Portland, St. Louis and 40 other markets.
Once these companies get that big, then it’s just a question of who will eventually buy Nexstar. Is it Trump-loving Larry Ellison & Son, who already control Paramount/CBS and now covet Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN — and maybe soon TikTok, too? Maybe Rupert Murdoch’s heir apparent? Donald Trump Jr. and a cabal of crypto-bros? Elon Musk?
Who will stop them? Not Brendan Carr.
Reaching an inflection point
That’s a bleak picture, dystopian even. So why am I feeling so optimistic?
Because you can see the public waking up to this danger, rejecting the administration’s claims and objecting to ABC’s cowardice. This story is breaking through. It’s on the front page, leading newscasts, dominating other late-night monologues, and reaching people who don’t normally spend a lot of time thinking about the FCC and media consolidation.
My colleagues and I talked to podcasts, radio shows, local-TV newscasts, and reporters all across the country this week.
Others are finding their voices. The Hollywood labor unions spoke out forcefully against Kimmel’s cancellation. So did congressional Democrats (really!), who called on Carr to resign immediately. Senators like Chris Murphy and Ed Markey powerfully condemned Carr’s Federal Censorship Commission. Even a few Republicans expressed trepidation about how far the Trump FCC had gone. For a For a second there, Ted Cruz sounded a lot like ... well, me.
Hundreds of people, including the Free Press team, showed up on Thursday to loudly protest outside Disney headquarters in Los Angeles. The energy was high, the honking from passing cars constant and the sign game strong. (Personal favorites: “Did Bob Iger even watch Andor?” and the Mickey glove holding up a middle finger.)
Plus, all those calls were pouring into ABC affiliates nationwide. Our team scrambled on Thursday morning to build a call tool so anyone could quickly find and contact their local affiliates. Thousands of people used it in just the first few hours.
You can try it out for yourself. And if you don’t see your nearest station, we put together a spreadsheet with all of them. Trust me, they’d love to hear from you.
Something important is happening here. Opposition is growing to Trump’s rampage against free speech and press freedom. Brendan Carr’s actions are leaving people angry and appalled. They’re tired of corporate media’s capitulation, cowardice and corruption. They’re speaking out and showing up.
And in this dark hour for the country, that gives me real hope.
Teamwork
Free Press’ Alex Frandsen has an excellent new piece in Next City about how local governments can respond to the crisis in journalism and the devastating cuts to public media. “If the collapse of local news has taught us anything,” he writes, “it’s that we have to pursue a broad range of bold, innovative solutions. This moment calls for policy experimentation and democratic pathfinding, roles that city governments are uniquely equipped to play.”
Also this week, Free Press joined in support of an effort led by Alex Curley of Semipublic calling on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to release more data and station records to the public before it winds down operations.
Alex Curley
The Medill School of Journalism’s Local Journalism Initiative and Current, which provides essential coverage of public media, are also involved. As I wrote to CPB’s top leadership: “This information has great public value and will help public media supporters, advocacy groups like mine, academic researchers, journalists, philanthropic funders, and state and local officials better understand the financial health of local stations, better equipping them to lend aid to those local outlets facing true emergencies.”
The kicker
“Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country’'s leader on TV without repercussions.” – Chris Hayes
About the author
Craig Aaron is the co-CEO of Free Press and Free Press Action and a guy with two first names. Follow him on Bluesky.
