The MRC's Double Standard On Kimmel, Part 3
When Jimmy Kimmel was restored to his late-night show after a week's suspension over remarks related to Charlie Kirk, the Media Research Center was forced to stop gloating.
After days of gloating that Jimmy Kimmel got suspended by ABC over his comments regarding Charlie Kirk, the Media Research Center seemed a little sad about the development Curtis Houck had to announce in a Sept. 22 post:
On Monday afternoon, ABC announced it had decided far-left, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel would be allowed to return to his eponymous show Tuesday night, six days after the shocking and welcome suspension for his vile comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination and spreading a conspiracy theory that the suspect might have been a Make America Great Again supporter.
Being a loyal shill for his employer, Houck made sure to note that “even by the admission of The New York Times, our Alex Christy helped go viral and subsequently drove outrage from advertisers, local affiliates that forced Disney’s hand.” He then whined that “CNN was ebullient in sharing the news about their triumphant hero, who’s a personal friend to many in the liberal media (including The Lead host Jake Tapper).”
Meanwhile, the MRC’s hate-watchers of “The View” finally got some satisfaction after being deniedthe previous week, with intern Isaac White doing the hate-watching du jour:
After avoiding last week’s looming story of parent company ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel, The View finally broached the subject on Monday and hours ahead of ABC announcing Kimmel would return on Tuesday.
Of course, this didn’t come without a self-righteous lecture on the importance of free speech and how those on the show embody the American principle.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg opened, “Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel? I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? So you know no one silences us.” That darn First Amendment strikes again.
Obviously, the program needed to be cleared of any suspicion that they needed approval from Disney to even mention the suspension. “And when the news broke last week about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, we took a breath to see if Jimmy was going to say anything about it first. We did the same thing with Stephen Colbert,” Goldberg added.
Their response to the Colbert cancellation was slow as well. But every far-left talk show is on edge right now.
White didn’t bother to support his claim about “far-left” talk shows.
The MRC’s nepo-baby boss found another right-wing safe space to spout his anti-media narrative without fear of ever being challenged:
MRC President David Bozell joined The Joe Concha Tunnel to Towers Foundation Show Sunday morning to break down the real reason ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel.
Kimmel didn’t get suspended for bad jokes; he got fired for lying. If he wasn’t lying, his bubble is such a left-wing cocoon that he didn’t know what he said was patently false. That’s why he’s suffering this fate. Affiliates want to preserve their business and customers, who are saying, ‘Stop beaming this guy into my screen. I’m not paying for this anymore. I’m going to cut the cord and go to Charlie’s network, Joe Concha’s streaming podcast, or Tucker’s network to be informed and entertained.’ There are options now.
Bozell explained to Concha’s national audience Kimmel’s suspension wasn’t about free speech. “There’s an old adage in the television business: keep the affiliates happy,” Bozell said.
“Yes, Jimmy Kimmel has the freedom to say whatever he wants, but from a business perspective, he has to keep the affiliates happy. If you’re going to lie or woefully misinform your audience and then be given the opportunity to correct the record—and according to the Hollywood Reporter, he wanted to double down on it instead of correcting it—the affiliates really have no choice. There are about 120 markets across the country, and about 60 of them told ABC. No más. We don’t want to put up with this guy anymore. Our customers are cutting the cord, and we’re in the cord preservation business.”
Houck returned to grouse that non-right-wing media celebrated Kimmel’s return, unlike his fellow MRC censors:
CNN was feeling warm and fuzzy Monday afternoon in reacting to Disney’s decision to allow Jimmy Kimmel to return Tuesday night to his late-night ABC show, declaring it “a critical moment when it comes to free speech,” “a huge moment in American history,” and akin to The Avengers coming together with Hollywood, “the left,” and “Kimmel’s audience” forming to make an “unstoppable” force.
CNN News Central had chief media analyst Brian Stelter deliver the news:
[…]
The liberal media still don’t get it and how much of the country has had enough of their decades of hate.
You mean like how much of the country had enough of Rush Limbuagh when he went on a three-day misogynistic tirade against Sandra Fluke — a tirade that the MRC aggressively defended and rewarded?
Jorge Bonilla gushed that two major TV ownership groups will refuse to air Kimmel:
As reported by Ben Mullin of The New York Times, Nexstar has just issued its statement announcing that they will continue to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live! “pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”
[…]
Thus, Nexstar joins Sinclair in maintaining its refusal to air Kimmel barring some significant show of contrition. As our own Curtis Houck notes, that’s over half of ABC’s affiliates refusing to carry its late-night offering. Pyrrhic victory, indeed.
[…]
It remains to be seen what is the end result of these negotiations, and whether the announced pre-emption holds before Kimmel returns to air. Sinclair previously announced that they were airing a special on Charlie Kirk’s life on Friday and in that Kimmel timeslot, before releasing it on YouTube.
Sinclair is on the record demanding that Kimmel apologize for his statements and make “a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA.” But The New York Post reports that no such apology is forthcoming[.]
Bonilla failed to mention the likely ulterior motives both groups have to continuing to censor Kimmel’s show: As we noted, Nexstar is seeking Trump administration approval for its planned merger with Tegna, and Sinclair has always been a right-wing shill.
Bonilla concluded by huffing: “We’ll know more after Tuesday night once Kimmel’s moral lecture is in the wind. Will some vague expression of regret suffice for Sinclair, or do they hold out for the requested apology and personal donations? Time will tell.” Then again, the MRC though Limbaugh’s lame semi-apology for his disgusting smears of Fluke was more than sufficient to defend his hate.
More whining
Having been forced to stop gloating over Kimmel’s suspension due to his reinstatement, the MRC quickly moved to whining that non-right-wing media didn’t believe, like it did, that Kimmel deserved more punishment. Bonilla grumbled:
The legacy newscasts decided that Disney/ABC’s restoration of Jimmy Kimmel Live! would sit at the top of the A-block- top story on ABC and NBC, and second story on CBS. In many ways, this editorial decision exemplifies both the media’s disconnect from the public they claim to serve, and the insular circling of the wagons for one of their own under duress.
[…]
Beyond this little oasis of reporting from NBC, the legacy newscasts did what they do best: anti-inform their viewers, sow left-wing narratives, and take care of their own. Disney might be Kimmel’s corporate parent, but everyone was interested in “helping out” with comms.
You mean like how Bonilla’s employer helped with comms for Rush Limbaugh after he felt the consequences of spending three days denigrating Sandra Fluke?
Alex Christy similarly huffed:
Three of the four late night comedy shows used their Monday episodes to celebrate ABC and Disney folding to liberal demands to bring back Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday, although nobody seemed to want to discuss his actual comments about MAGA “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
NBC’s host of Late Night, Seth Meyers, asked CNN anchor Jake Tapper, “All right. Jimmy Kimmel. He’s a friend of both of ours. You know him. I know him. We know he’s a good person. Obviously, this news is very exciting. But what was your original take on how this all went down starting last week?”
Tapper huffed that, “I mean, I thought it was pretty much the most direct infringement by the government on free speech that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
He also claimed, “This was the FCC chairman saying, ‘Local affiliates, it’s time for you to say you’re not going to air Kimmel anymore.’ And then Nexstar, the largest owner of local affiliates, needs approval from Brendan Carr himself to let this merger go through. ‘Yes, sir? How high do you want me to jump, sir?’ They do it. And it’s just insane. It was just insane.
As of the publishing of this story, Sinclair has said it is not ready to allow Kimmel to return. That would suggest that, whatever one thinks of Carr’s remarks, he did not have the impact on the original situation that Tapper thinks he does.
Christy continued to whine that Carr got caught trying to intimidate broadcasters into censoring Kimmel upon threat of their broadcast licenses:
Late night outrage at Carr has allowed them to avoid reckoning with why everyone got mad at Kimmel in the first place. It has allowed them to ignore the fact that their conspiracy theorists do not dress up with Viking helmets but are instead called “professor” and considered to be intellectuals.
Even though Christy was obsessed with demanding that Kimmel’s “actual comments” about Charlie Kirk be endlessly repeated, he won’t repeat what Carr said — “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way” — that is drawing so much criticism, let alone acknowledge that such bully tactics are offensive to those who actually care about free speech.
MRC nepo-baby leader David Bozell ran to yet another right-wing radio safe space — in this case Rich Valdés — to “to share his thoughts on Jimmy Kimmel returning to late night.” Christy returned to whine that Kimmel was defended:
Before ABC announced it was lifting Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension on Monday, HBO’s John Oliver used Sunday’s Last Week Tonight to express not only his confusion about why people got so mad at Kimmel in the first place but also to claim Kimmel’s point about MAGA being “desperate to weaponize Kirk’s death” has “aged pretty well” given the suspension.
Unlike some people on the left, Oliver actually got the root cause for Kimmel’s suspension correct, “But the pretext that’s been used to indefinitely suspend Kimmel’s show is just laughably weak. Because while you may have seen headlines saying he got in trouble for remarks about Charlie Kirk himself, or even remarks about his death, that’s not strictly accurate. The comments that got him in trouble weren’t about Kirk. In fact, Kimmel’s first comments after his murder were a post reading, ‘Can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents, and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.’”
Oliver then teed up a clip of Kimmel’s remarks by adding, “What got Kimmel in trouble was a passing reference on Monday night. Now, at the time, there were still rumors flying around regarding the killer’s motivations, including that he was on the far-right, something Kimmel alluded to like this.”
[…]
What Oliver calls “rumors” were actually just conspiracy theories. It was clear from reports on what the family had told investigators and interviews by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox that the shooter was on the left. The only “evidence” to support the right-winger thesis was that the family was MAGA, as if 22-year olds always agree with their conservative parents on politics.
As it was, Oliver didn’t see what the big deal was either then or now, “Yeah. That was it. Weirdly, I was actually a guest on his show that night, and I didn’t even register that comment, and that’s only partly because I wasn’t really paying attention.”
And, yes, he whined about about Brendan Carr being discussed:
Before moving onto FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s role in the story, Oliver concluded, “The point is, Kimmel didn’t denigrate Charlie Kirk or make light of his killing. The worst thing you could say is that he appears to have been wrong about the shooter’s ideology, which—okay! But he was also pointing out that many on the right seemed desperate to weaponize Kirk’s death, an argument that’s aged pretty well, given, y’know, everything that’s happened to Kimmel since.”
No, if anyone is weaponizing Kirk’s death, it is the people who are trying to say the assassin was right-wing despite there being exactly zero evidence for this. The fact that Kimmel made that Bluesky post that Oliver quoted above somehow manages to make Kimmel’s remarks even worse because he should have known better.
You mean Christy’s employer has not been weaponizing Kirk’s death by obsessing over it and cheering that critics of Kirk are losing their jobs? Weird how that works.
Craig Bannister checked in from the propaganda ghetto that was one the MRC’s “news” division CNSNews.com:
Liberal talk show host Jimmy Kimmel returns Tuesday after being suspended on September 17 for false and malicious comments regarding the assassination of conservative Charlie Kirk – but, three-fourths of adults weren’t watching “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” before he was pulled.
Results of an Economist/YouGov poll, conducted September 19-22, released Tuesday finds that 75% of U.S. adult citizens either never watch (58%) Kimmel’s show or do so less than once a month (17%).
Given that the majority of Americans do not watch any single TV show, it’s unclear what the relevance of Bannister’s article is.
Bonilla grumbled some more that non-right-wing media don’t hate Kimmel as much as he does:
The legacy media are content to further self-debase by reducing themselves to heralds of the triumphant return of Free Speech Martyr Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television. In so doing, they are turning their focus on the holdout affiliate groups still refusing to air Kimmel unless he can show proof of human decency.
ABC World News Tonight once again straddled that line between corporate synergy and leftwing sycophancy. Like a Colossus.
We don’t recall the MRC demanding that Limbaugh show proof of human decency before spewing his vicious hate at Fluke — to the contrary, it built an “I Stand With Rush” website for him. Maybe Bonilla should seek proof of human decency from his own co-workers before he demands it from Kimmel.
Not apologetic enough?
Before the MRC could fully whine about the return of Kimmel, it was necessary for Jorge Bonilla to have a fit of Stelter Derangement Syndrome:
Jimmy Kimmel’s much heralded return to the airwaves finally happened. As expected, there has been significant gushing over Kimmel’s monologue. Among those gleefully squeeing, CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter.
[…]
To hear it from Stelter, Kimmel is this virtuous philosopher-king who is now stepping into the role of “educator” and “public servant”. The elite regime comic is now going to serve and educate YOU, you ungrateful rubes.
Stelter’s initial squeeing doesn’t address the substance of the monologue, and I’m not going to get into it beyond noting that Kimmel had a very low bar to clear: show a modicum of regret for smearing half the country by insisting, despite tons of available evidence to the contrary, that Charlie Kirk’s killer was part of “the MAGA gang”.
An actual apology would’ve gone a long way towards good will, and towards bringing the pre-empting affiliate groups back into the fold. Instead, Kimmel delivers a misdirective statement with no apology.
Stelter frames this as a triumphal return for Kimmel, “a comeback in every sense of the word”. Some may see it that way. Others, especially those expecting to see some act of contrition, will emerge disappointed and perhaps even angry. Stelter is right about this being “a fight that’s not going away.” Just not the fight he or Kimmel expected, which will continue.
Comedy cop Christy delivered the whine, complaining that Kimmel was not apologetic enough:
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air on Tuesday after his suspension resulting from a previous episode where he stated conservatives were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” As Kimmel addressed the matter, he omitted the prevalence of conspiracy theories on the left that led to conservative outrage at his comments.
[…]
While the tone of Kimmel’s remarks differed greatly from the fiery response he reportedly wanted to give last week, it still did not mention the conspiracy theories that led to conservative anger that Kimmel discussed last Monday and that was then directed at him. Nor does it mention why the killer thought violence was needed.
Because liberals think Kimmel was suspended because of Trump and Carr, Kimmel had to get a few jabs in at their expense. He claimed both men were free speech hypocrites and mocked Trump’s claim that he has no ratings, “Well, I do tonight. It’s—you almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried his best to cancel me, instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein Files to distract us from this now.”
And, yes, Christy whined that Kimmel mocked Carr:
When he did come back, Kimmel returned to Trump and Carr as actor Robert De Niro appeared in a skit as a mob boss-like Carr. De Niro told Kimmel that, “It’s just me, Jimmy, the chairman of the FCC, gently suggesting that you gently shut the [bleep] up.”
After Kimmel wondered about free speech, De Niro informed him, “Speech, it ain’t free no more.”
Kimmel wondered how much speech costs now, and De Niro claimed it, “Depends on what you want to say. Like, you want to say something nice about the president’s beautiful thick yellow hair or how he can do his makeup better than any broad, that’s free,” but “if you want to do a joke like he’s so fat he needs two seats on the Epstein jet, that’s gonna cost,” which De Niro suggested would be a “couple of fingers, maybe a tooth, depends on how constipated he is.”
Christy offered no evidence that Carr’s threats against the broadcast licenses of ABC and its affiliates played no role whatsoever in KImmel’s suspension, meaning that it’s perfectly reasonable to believe Trump and Carr did get Kimmel suspended. He concluded by huffing:
As for the future of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel’s address probably satisfied his corporate Disney overlords, but whether it was enough to satisfy Sinclair and Nexstar is yet to be seen. It certainly did not meet Sinclair’s publicly-stated call for a full apology.
Would any apology have satisfied Christy? Doubtful.
Houck followed up with his own whine that non-right-wingers loved Kimmel’s monologue:
ABC, CBS, and NBC were exuberant on their lead Wednesday morning news shows over far-left late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s “triumphant” return late Tuesday to ABC after his six-day suspension, radiating joy for Kimmel’s “emotional,” “heartfelt,” and “passionate” monologue that doubled as a “searing defense of free speech.”
All those pathetic adjectives were leveled despite the fact that Kimmel’s lengthy monologue never included an apology for his September 15 smears of the late Charlie Kirk, Make America Great Again supporters, and President Trump.
Starting with Kimmel’s own network, ABC’s Good Morning America was steadfast in its love. Leave it to co-host and former Clinton flack George Stephanopoulos to sing Kimmel’s praises. Correspondent Trevor Ault picked up the baton with a hack-tastic defense of Kimmel by arguing “he never meant to make light of Charlie Kirk’s death”:
[…]
Having made his friends happy, one could presume Kimmel would declare last night mission accomplished?
We suspect no apology would have satisfied Houck either. He followed up by touting a fellow right-wing ranter:
On CNN, their paid ranks of actual conservative political commentators — Scott Jennings, Shermichael Singleton, Brad Todd, and David Urban — can only do so much and be in so many places at once.
Thankfully, other, unpaid conservatives are capable of holding serve, as exhibited by former Congressman Peter Meijer (R-MI) schooling a Joe Biden regime official on Tuesday’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt over Jimmy Kimmel, Google censoring conservatives, and the left’s warped sense of emotion over Kimmel being put in timeout versus Charlie Kirk being murdered.
Dan Kohn — who was Deputy Assistant to the President under Biden — had inadvertently cued Meijer up when discussing the Kimmel suspension, whining “it is madness” anyone would support Kimmel’s suspension while the Trump administration has been “silencing opposition” day and night.
Meijer wasn’t having it and interjected with a simple statement: “Who was silenced? Nobody was silenced!”
[…]
When Koh replied “Kimmel was taken off the air” and “universities [are] afraid to speak their mind,” Meijer reminded him the ultimate decision was made “by a private company.”
Meijer then gave everyone a basic education about broadcast networks: “[E]very single one of the reasons why the FCC has a role is because these are broadcast stations with a monopoly that was granted by the government.”
Rebutting the notion that the Trump administration suspended Kimmel, Meijer noted “[t]he reason why Jimmy Kimmel got himself into the first place is he was repeating a lie believed by one in three Democrats that the person who assassinated Charlie Kirk.”
The whataboutism came when Meijer huffed that “A lot of conservatives were silenced on social media platforms because the government threatened those social media companies. Facebook, Google, Twitter. You can go down all the list.” No evidence was offered that any of those people were “silenced” solely because they were conservative.
Steve Mazlberg — a right-wing radio host who for some reason is now writing for the MRC — had some huffiness to contribute:
This past Tuesday night, as many Jimmy Kimmel supporters and detractors watched his return to the helm of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, they saw his monologue, and if they hung around past the first break, they saw the first skit.
That skit featured actor Robert De Niro, who was playing the role of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. Carr has been accused of threatening ABC/Disney to dump Kimmel’s show, or face consequences. Kimmel ripped Carr in the first segment, quoting Texas Republican Ted Cruz who accused Carr of acting like a mob boss. So who better to play the role of a mob boss than De Niro, who has appeared in numerous mob-type movies. But there is something that I bet almost all of those watching Tuesday night’s show didn’t know.
Back in October of 2016, De Niro made a video to get out the vote, which included him calling then candidate Donald Trump, stupid, a dog, a pig, a bull-sh&t artist, you get the picture. But it didn’t stop there, De Niro added that he’d “like to punch Trump in the face.”It’s sad that this is just another example of violent rhetoric from the left that never gets talked about.
No mention that, just 10 days earlier, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade called for the execution of homeless people. That seems like pretty violent rhetoric, no?