Carr, Kimmel, and the Threat
Try as I might, I can't get worked up over this one.
“When you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible. As you’ve indicated, there are avenues here for the FCC. So there are some ways in which I need to be a little bit careful because we could be called ultimately to be a judge on some of these claims that come up, but I don’t think this is an isolated incident.
In some quarters, there’s a very concerted effort to try to lie to the American people about the nature, as you indicated, one of the most significant newsworthy public interest acts that we’ve seen in a long time. And what appears to be an action, appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican motivated person, if that’s what happened here with his conduct, that is really, really sick.
They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with an obligation to operate in the public interest. But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
Obviously, look, there’s calls for Kimmel to be fired. I think you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. And again, the FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at, and again, we may ultimately be called to be a judge on that.”
- Brendan Carr, Chair of the Federal Communication Commission on Benny Johnson’s The Benny Show
I’m supposed to be up in arms about this. A lot of the free speech warriors I usually agree with are pretty mad and I don’t want to mess up the party, but I’m having trouble rousing myself over this one. Initially, I had all the right and proper reactions, but take a look. Its not what it’s presented as. I don’t see a wrong. It’s annoying that Carr said anything at all because it gave pretense for water muddying and chaff throwing. He should have kept mum and let things play out as they did. But he spoke and all I can say is, “So?”
I’m not alone. On his America This Week podcast with cohost Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn said,
“I was like the optics, if only he’d not said the hard way or the easy way, if only he’d not. But now watching him, first of all, it was a much more legalistic, neutral and careful presentation than it looks when you read it. You know what I mean? He wasn’t swaggering around like Don Corleone. He was being somewhat measured.”
He’s right. Listen to to how he says what he says. Anybody who’s ever tried out for a play can attest that there’s more that one way to read a line. Kirn says he was being measured. I thought he was pointing out the obvious. Kimmel put both ABC and the FCC in a bind. Self police. Let’s not make this a big thing.
The comment Kimmel made that got him in trouble was this:
“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.”
There’s been some obfuscation. It’s the above that people were mad about. After the brouhaha was well under way, apologists presented a longer clip that included a video of Trump and a pretty good joke and pretended that it was the joke and not the slander that offended so many. That’s rear guard stuff and it’s frustrating that it might be the narrative that wins the day, but it wasn’t the joke that angered folks. Kimmel’s been making jokes about Trump for years. We knew all about the murderer by monologue time. Kimmel accused his political enemies of something horrible that he knew or should have known was false and he did in a scripted bit on broadcast television.
It’s no use accusing Carr of censorship because he’s employed as a censor. We’ve agreed that the airwaves belong to the public and so, through elected proxies and those appointed by elected proxies, portioned off frequencies and awarded them to approved entities with all manner of conditions. The FCC sees to it that the conditions are adhered to. We don’t think about it much and by disposition and national character don’t like the idea of anyone telling us what we can and can’t say, but we’ve signed on and the practice hums along in the background. Every time we don’t see naked cavorting on NBC or don’t hear a sitcom character calling another sitcom character a fucktard, that’s the FCC at work.
Those lucky enough to have reserved bandwidth on publicly owned air are required to adhere to standards for the privilege. I had no idea rules about equal time still exists until Ace at Ace of Spades HQ mentioned it on his site the other day. He was surprised. He had no idea either. But it does. That the FCC hasn’t been active in enforcement shouldn’t make the rules go away. Or maybe it does.
Here’s laxity for you. Newsbusters surveyed guest appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; all broadcast network television shows. Of the political guests appearing in the first half of 2025, the shows combined to host 106 liberals – what criteria they used to decide who is liberal or not is not known to me but of them 30 were Democratic or a Vermont Senator who caucuses with Democratic politicians - and 1 conservative. For comparison, the final day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention featured the same amount of Republicans. I don’t watch any of those shows, but I do see clips of fawning interviews and supplicant hosts. The DNC is getting ton of free advertising for their cause and the FCC has done nothing.
The late night shows are losing money across the board. We’re told it’s a cutthroat business, but Steven Colbert survived for years losing tens of millions. How does that happen? Why does that happen? Nightly reassurances that all with the liberal worldview isn’t how they’d describe themselves, but it’s what they’ve become. Does a money-losing platform that regularly features politicians from one party in non-combative – (Fawning!) interviews sound like a contribution to that party? I doubt you’d get anywhere making that charge, but I’d love to see a TV executive blindsided by the question. That’d be actual entertainment. Again, the FCC has done nothing. I don’t know if this qualifies as desuetude or not, but non-enforcement may explain why Kimmel thought the rules didn’t apply to him. That said, it’s not the equal time accommodations giving him trouble at the moment.
From the FCC’s Consumer Guide, “The FCC prohibits broadcasting false information about a crime or a catastrophe if the broadcaster knows the information is false and will cause substantial ‘public harm’ if aired.” There aren’t egregious examples of talk show hosts poisoning public discourse with statements they now to be false lying about for Kimmel to point to and claim “everybody does it” like he could with equal time. He violated the agreement by which ABC and all it’s local affiliates operate.
So what is Carr’s sin?
He pointed out that Kimmel’s conduct was reprehensible. We knew that. He said that there’s a concerted effort to lie to the American people about Kirk’s murder. That’s evident. He pointed out that ABC et al have licenses that puts the network under the auspices of the FCC. We all knew that too. He said there’s a hard and an easy way to remedy the situation, as if no one knew that. He framed the situation. The bastard.
The easy way would be for ABC to act and take care of the issue in house. The hard way would be for the FCC to come in absent contrition by the network and apply the law, which is their job. “Don’t make me do what I’m supposed to do,” isn’t as menacing as I’m supposed to act like it is. He gave them an out. Listen to the audio. Kirn’s right. He isn’t menacing at all. I can’t get worked up about government official saying, “If you don’t handle this internally, you will not be exempted from the rules.”
This isn’t a First Amendment Issue. The government is not telling Kimmel he can’t say what he did, merely that the people who host don’t abide him saying it on the stage they provide. He knew that already. Go on cable. Rent an auditorium. Start a Resistance Podcast (TM). Nag people walking down the street. You won’t be locked up.
If it’s a free speech issue at all, it’s one that should have been dispatched before an agreement to proceed under stricture was arrived at.
The impetus for Kimmel’s suspension was a brewing revolt among large affiliate holding media companies. Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group told ABC they would no longer air Jimmy Kimmel Live! until the host apologized for his slander. He refused and ABC suspended him. It’s charged that Carr’s interview pressured the affiliates into demanding ABC punish Kimmel. I’m trying to see a problem with a government official charged with enforcing rules pressuring those in his purview to demonstrate an expectation from their employees that those rules are obeyed.
Nexstar is hoping for approval on a merger. Carr is among those who decide if such mergers are allowed. It’s suggested that Nexstar only demanded ABC punish Kimmel to curry favor with Carr because of the impending decision before him. Again, if that is the case, what did Carr do wrong? He didn’t ask Nexstar to go against the law or policy to benefit the administration Carr serves under. He suggested the opposite. Follow the rules. Is it absurd that a commissioner expects a large and powerful media company to abide by the rules as a requisite for him to bless their transformation into a larger and more powerful media company? Isn’t he supposed to ensure that they do just that? That they act for the public good? More importantly, that they don’t condone public harm? Is this news to anyone?
Matt Taibbi puts Carr’s podcast statement as coming right before Kimmel’s announced suspension. He thinks allows that Carr’s statement swayed ABC or the affiliates, maybe both. “The optics clearly look like somebody was reacting to because it was like 38 minutes later or something like that that-” Maybe. I think there are a lot of moving parts. If you make a big decision like that, you already know how the affiliates, Kimmel and his people, and people at the FCC who aren’t on a podcast are thinking. It’s a big money decision. The show had been hemorrhaging viewers and costing ABC a good deal of money. There isn’t a need to react in 38 minutes even if Carr had come out all hellfire and brimstone.
I can see ABC and Disney seizing on an opportunity to take PR shelter to get rid of an expensive liability and let the media rain down on Carr instead of them; seize the moment to publically release a decision that had already been made. Not sure, but again, what did Carr do wrong?
As is usually the case when someone on the left does something wrong, Republicans are under fire. This time for not flying into a tizzie over Carr’s comments as they did so Biden and Obama’s “jawboned” banks and social media companies to deny conservatives access to financial systems and debate. There’s no parallel. Carr is charged with maintaining a speech code over the air waves. The government is barred from enforcing a speech code over Americans in pretty much all other spheres. You do not have to be silent on certain subjects in order to have a savings account or mouth off on twitter. The government is barred from “jawboning” organizations to act as their proxies to do the same. Carr “threatened” to enforce the law. Obama and Biden coerced others to act where they were legally forbidden to do so in order to achieve extra legal goals.
I tried to be upset. I really did. I just can’t do it. At each fluttering accusation I’m stuck with “Isn’t that his job?” There are actual offenses against freedom of speech. Save your powder for Pam Bondi and her “hate speech” nonsense.
A good counter argument to mine from Jacob Sullum from Reason can be found here.