I don’t like tasteless jokes making fun of tragedy, but that is free speech, and even if it sickens me, I will defend it.
What I will not defend is someone spreading outright lies and calling it free speech, and that is what Jimmy Kimmel did on his late-night show regarding the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk.
Well, his network just held him accountable, but as usual, it is all being blamed on the bad orange man.
The other night, during his monologue, Kimmel called out Republicans for saying that the alleged assassin was a leftist.
He told his audience, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
As you can see, that is just a statement, not a joke, not even an attempt at a joke, just a blatant lie.
Ownership and the network took exception to the statement.
From the reports I read so far, the ownership group demanded that Kimmel make an apology, and he refused, so the show was shelved indefinitely.
Nexstar's broadcasting chief, Andrew Alford, stated, “Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views or values of the local communities in which we are located.”
He continued, "Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue."
This was Kimmel being held accountable for lying on a very large platform, nothing else. And let’s be honest, it is far from the first time that he has lied about something related to the conservative world on his show.
I have had this conversation with several liberal friends already, and they were all fuming, saying this is cancel culture and the right has turned into snowflakes.
Obama also took this narrative, stating, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”
How did I shut them all down? I asked them one simple question… Do you think Alex Jones deserved what he got when he was sued, eventually losing his show, for lying about the Sandy Hook shooting? Everyone responded, “Yes.”
I then told them, “If you were okay with Jones being called out for lying about Sandy Hook, how can you be upset that ABC and Nexstar are holding Kimmel accountable for a huge lie about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin?" My opinion is that if you agreed that Jones took it too far and paid a price, then you cannot be upset about this. At the same time, if you think Jones got a raw deal, you should be advocating for Kimmel here. I thought Jones’ comments were vile, and while I will defend free speech even when I do not like it, I will not defend purposeful misinformation, especially from someone with a platform like both of them have/had. And this was purposeful misinformation.
