The Media Research Center’s kick-him-when-he’s-down war on Jimmy Kimmel continued with a Sept. 18 post by comedy cop Alex Christy raging against those who argued that Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk could be viewed as a joke:
Reacting to the news that ABC has suspended Jimmy Kimmel, the assembled cast of Wednesday’s Laura Coates Live on CNN did not appreciate the difference between a comedian who pushes the boundary of politically correct discourse and an individual who just happens to have a comedy show spreading falsehoods.
Comedian Pete Dominick made the fundamental category error when he declared, “I mean, it’s just really important that people understand that comedy isn’t—there is no sacred space. It’s comedy. 9/11, cancer, the Holocaust, the worst things, I opened for Joan Rivers. She made the most offensive jokes I’ve ever heard, and she had a huge following. The market can decide, but this is an attack on the career and integrity of every comedian, writer, and performer. And we have to remain in solidarity and speak out together.”
Kimmel was not suspended for one of his thousands of jokes. He was suspended for a piece of commentary that played with the conspiratorial idea that Charlie Kirk’s killer was a man of the right. There is a big difference between Kimmel saying something conservatives don’t like versus hinting at something that is just not true.
Christy didn’t mention that it’s his literal job to be the conservative outraged by something said by a late-night comedian that he didn’t like. He also didn’t mention that, as we noted, his employer tried to pass off Rush Limbaugh’s vile insults of Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and “prostitute” as “humor.” He also didn’t explain why comedians should be rigidly held to facts, though his employer has mocked fact-checking of satire websites.
The MRC’s nepo-baby leader, David Bozell, made yet another appearance in the safe space of the right-wing media bubble to rant about Kimmel:
Thursday morning on WMAL’s “O’Connor and Company,” MRC NewsBusters took center stage in a lively chat about Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension from ABC. The conversation, featuring MRC President David Bozell, kicked off with a quip about two of the more grueling jobs at MRC, handled by Alex Christy, who covers the late-night “comedy” shows, and Nick Fondacaro, who monitors the cackling crew at The View.
[…]The focus was on Kimmel’s suspension after his Monday monologue, where he snidely remarked, “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.”
MRC’s Alex Christy posted the clip on X, amassing 15.2 million views and a sharp rebuke from Elon Musk: “Jimmy Kimmel is disgusting.” That was the final straw of thousands of straws, when ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its lineup late Wednesday, replacing it for the time being with the much more entertaining Celebrity Family Feud, with future programming TBD, after pushback from affiliates like Nexstar and Sinclair.
It was not mentioned that both Nexstar and Sinclair have likely ulterior motives for dumping on Kimmel to curry favor with the Trump administration — Nexstar because it’s seeking federal approval for a merger and Sinclair because it’s always been a right-wing company. Bozell then spun away the implicit threats leveled by the head of the FCC designed to intimidate ABC into punishing Kimmel:
He then asked Bozell if the suspension was about political speech or something deeper, “and what do we know about the FCC’s involvement, if any involvement?” He noted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr “didn’t threaten anything,” speculating affiliates consulted Carr for options like pulling Kimmel’s show.
Bozell highlighted the public’s frustration: “Grassroots Americans had had enough. They were willing to cut the cord. Sinclair and Nexstar are trying to preserve the cord, as it were. That’s their business model, cable. Kimmel was in the cord, and his comment about MAGA protecting the killer was beyond the pale.”
Curtis Houck was similarly in denial about the role Carr played:
On Thursday, the “Big Three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC had full stories on their flagship morning news shows mourning the indefinite suspension of ABC late-night partisan tool Jimmy Kimmel, bemoaning an alleged conspiracy between the Trump administration and local TV conglomerates to censor a “Trump critic.”
ABC’s Good Morning America was predictably the worst. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos screeched in the tease “response from leading Democrats” to the network “suspend[ing] late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel after a threat from the head of the FCC appointed by President Trump kept calling for a Kimmel suspension over comments about Charlie Kirk’s death.”
Trump “appointed.” Consider how often or little the liberal media do this with judges and officials chosen by Democrat presidents.
Houck huffed that an ABC correspondent ” falsely claimed Carr himself suspended Kimmel” — but given Carr’s clear threat to ABC, that seems like a distinction without a difference.
Bozell returned to demand that ABC fire Kimmel:
MRC President David Bozell urged ABC to end its relationship with Jimmy Kimmel in an interview Thursday on the NewsBusters Podcast.
He applauded the affiliate station groups at Nexstar and Sinclair for taking exception to Kimmel’s “horrible remarks” denying that Charlie Kirk’s shooter Tyler Robinson was a leftist who came obsessed with gay rights and “trans rights.” Kimmel claimed the MAGA crowd was “desperate” to avoid the supposed fact that Robinson was a Trump supporter.
“In the cord-cutting era, these companies are trying to preserve the cord, and trying to preserve customers from cutting the cord. I do not blame the tens of millions of people who may want to do that after seeing Jimmy Kimmel try to suggest that the assassin was of MAGA.”
Bozell blamed Kimmel for spreading bad information. “Either Jimmy Kimmel is a terrible liar or he’s woefully ill-informed. Either way, he does not deserve the grace of being able to broadcast into our television screens as quote, ‘entertainment.’”
He had a message for Disney and ABC: “It’s about time you start to figure out that the country has changed its tune here and have had enough…it’s not just conservatives. It’s tens of millions of normal, red-blooded Americans who are not even politically inclined that are sick and tired of turning on their local ABC affiliate and hearing a guy spew such bile, such filth – not just at MAGA, the political movement of President Trump, but suggesting that people should die outside of hospitals because they were unvaccinated, and a zillion other examples. Fire this man, for once and for all.”
Again: Bozell’s father and his co-workers not only defended LImbaugh for saying objectively more disgusting things, it built a website telling people to “stand with Rush” lest he feel the consequences of his words. This is utter hypocrisy, nothing more.
Tim Graham dutifully parroted the company line in that Sept. 18 podcast:
ABC stations revolted when late-night host Jimmy Kimmel uncorked some revolting remarks about the murder of Charlie Kirk, lying against all evidence that the suspect is a Trump supporter.
Kimmel claimed on Monday that “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.”
ABC could be a response to Nexstar and Sinclair stations announcing they wouldn’t air the Kimmel show.
Again, no mention of Nextar’s and Sinclair’s ulterior motives. Graham then huffed:
At NewsBusters, we never expect any leftist platform to be cancelled, or any leftist personality to be suspended. We were shocked at Kimmel, just as we were shocked at CBS announcing an end to Stephen Colbert’s show.
For the last ten years, these “comedians” have been viciously anti-Trump, and our only job has been to document it — and in our Alex Christy’s case, doing a joke count to precisely measure the degree of Democrat-pleasing “comedy.”
No mention, of course, of right-winger Greg Gutfeld or his employer’s lack of joke counts for his Fox News show. Graham grumbled further:
The Left has created a narrative that Trump caused Kimmel’s suspension — and that his FCC chairman Brendan Carr is acting on his “authoritarian playbook.” In their story-telling, Kimmel is a free-speech hero. Every vicious journalist or comedian against Trump is part of the “independent media.” They sound very dependent on Democrat talking points. The late-night shows tilt against Republicans in their joke counts and overwhelming favor Democrats as their pampered guests.
Graham didn’t disclose that Carr did effectively threaten ABC into punishing Kimmel. He sounded very dependent on Republican talking points in his and his employer’s war on Kimmel.