In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell warned against a future totalitarian government that exercised control over its citizens through historical revisionism, media censorship and fake news (aka propaganda).
Forty one years later, we are living in a world where the mere threat of media censorship leads institutions to “obey in advance.” Nothing highlights our current mediascape’s interaction with the White House like the murder of Charlie Kirk. Who needs “Big Brother” to illegally crack down on institutions and the First Amendment when mega-corporations accede in advance to threats?
With no evidence, President Trump immediately attributed Kirk’s death to “radical Left political violence.” He made no mention of recent radical right attacks on and murders of Democrats.
News organizations voluntarily whitewashed Kirk’s words and politics as well as trumpeted the right’s call for vengeance before a suspect had been identified. This is from The Conversation, an academic blog focused on public scholarship; this information was not in the laudatory media postmortems:
[Kirk’s] Professor Watchlist has been denounced by faculty associations as a blacklist that chills academic freedom. Journalistic investigations by outlets such as The New Yorker raised questions about Turning Point’s finances, including allegations of blurred lines between nonprofit educational work and partisan campaigning.
Kirk was criticized for spreading misinformation, such as false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and misleading statements about COVID-19 vaccines and mask mandates. He suggested that public health measures were a form of government control, rhetoric that public health experts argue undermined trust during a crisis.
More broadly, his sharp attacks on political opponents – he framed them not merely as wrong but as dangerous – drew accusations that he fueled polarization and inflamed tensions on American college campuses and beyond.
“How you die does not redeem how you live,” the Rev. Howard-John Wesley said in a sermon at Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, on Sunday. (Amen.)
Rev. Wesley pointed out the double-standard evident in both news media and White House response to Kirk’s death:
“Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated, but I’m overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff, calling this nation to honor and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent all of his life sowing seeds of division and hate into this land, and hearing people with selective rage who are mad about Charlie Kirk but didn’t give a damn about [Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D)] and her husband when they were shot down in their home,” Wesley said.
Nevertheless, few traditional media news stories told readers and listeners about his misogyny, bigotry, homophobia and transphobia. The Guardian was a notable exception:
Traditional news media reported, with a straight face, the Trump demand to fly flags at half-staff for four days. No mention of slain Democrats who received no such tribute. No mention of the standard period after the death US Senators and Representatives: half as long, two days.
A posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. Non-contextual news stories said Trump ordered Kirk’s body to be flown on Air Force 2 from Utah, where he died, to his home in Arizona. A civilian, not a veteran. Not an elected representative. A civilian.
In the two weeks since Kirk’s death, Trump’s rhetoric has intensified. “After Kirk Murder, Trump and Allies Vow to ‘Destroy’ Progressive Groups.” “Trump Invokes Kirk’s Killing in Justifying Measures to Silence Opponents.” “Trump administration says it will target far-left groups for Kirk’s assassination.”
And then there’s Jimmy Kimmel, the ABC late night host; Disney owns ABC.
On September 16, Kimmel addressed Kirk’s murder in his monologue. Kimmel made no direct commentary about Kirk; he focused on the response to Kirk’s murder and acknowledged its accompanying grief. He also poked fun at Trump for his comments about the under-construction White House ballroom when asked about Kirk’s death.
On September 17, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr addressed the monologue on right-winger Benny Johnson’s podcast.
“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.”
He also warned that local stations would be “running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC” should they air Kimmel Live.
Shortly afterwards, local-TV conglomerate Nexstar announced it would not broadcast Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future.”
In short order, an ABC spokesperson told Deadline that “Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be preempted indefinitely.”
To be absolutely clear: Disney didn't cancel Kimmel because of something he said. They canceled Kimmel because of something Trump said.
— Goldy (@goldyha.bsky.social) September 17, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Is there a reason Nexstar might want to curry favor with the FCC?
I’m glad you asked, because it’s similar to the cancellation of Late Night with Stephen Colbert on CBS: a pending merger that needs FCC approval. The month following Colbert’s cancellation, the FCC approved the Paramount-Skydance merger. Of course, Paramount/CBS had already settled with Trump for $16 million because he was upset about a clip on 60 Minutes.
Moreover, after Paramount/CBS announced the news about Colbert this summer, Trump called on Kimmel to be next:
Nexstar wants to acquire media company Tegna, another conglomerate of local TV stations. The $6.2 billion merger would yield a company that owns more than 265 local TV stations. This merger would exceed regulatory limits. So not only does Nexstar need approval, it needs the FCC to vacate the ownership rule.
And Disney/ABC settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump last year for $15 million. They had already bent a knee.
The First Amendment and democracy are coming in a distinct second and third to Disney’s short-term stockholder value. The Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people. If so, both Disney and Nexstar lack moral intelligence and excel, instead, at short-term greed.
First Colbert, now Kimmel.
Last-minute settlements, secret side deals, multi-billion dollar mergers pending Donald Trump's approval.
Trump silencing free speech stifles our democracy. It sure looks like giant media companies are enabling his authoritarianism.
— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) September 17, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Do the right thing, management guru Peter Drucker wrote 24 years ago:
Peter Druker (2001) differentiated leadership and management as doing the right things and doing the things right, respectively. Lennick and Kiel (2001) argued that moral intelligence is not values-free and points one in the direction of doing good. “Moral intelligence directs our other forms of intelligence to do something worthwhile” (p. 24). This implies that moral intelligence leads one to do the right things, and cognitive, emotional, and social intelligence aid one in doing things right.
This morning, Democratic leadership stated this arm-twisting might “be part of a corrupt pay-to-play scheme.”
Today, Trump went further in his rhetoric of retribution: “maybe [network TV] license[s] should be taken away” for perceived negative reporting (“against” him) during his 2024 campaign for president. FCC chair Carr would make the call, he said.
Carr also told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that “we’re not done yet” with the changes in “the media ecosystem” that are consequences of President Donald Trump’s election last fall.
Neither Disney nor Nexstar have the moral integrity of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, who are now in litigation with Trump. Should they settle out of court, like many law firms and universities, their actions will be a further death knell for democracy and the First Amendment.
In 1983, 50 companies controlled 90% of the U.S. media market. That number is now down to 5.
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) September 18, 2025
Life in 2025 suggests Orwell failed to anticipate both the extent of corporate economic power (monopolization) and corporate focus on short-term profit (“shareholder value”) over the republic in which they operate. What happened to “speak truth to power”?
The First Amendment is clear: Trump does not have the power to force corporations to heel by “abridging” their speech. So, too, was this Supreme Court last year, in National Rifle Association of America v Maria T. Vullo: “[g]overnment officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”
The fact that for two weeks media corporations have been obeying in advance is a clear demonstration of our sliding ever-closer to the dystopian world Orwell foresaw. Voluntarily, not by force.
OF RELATED INTEREST:
**The Constitution protects Jimmy Kimmel’s mistake.
**Trump floats pulling licenses if networks are ‘against’ him after Jimmy Kimmel suspended
**An escalation in every way
**Let’s be clear about what happened to Jimmy Kimmel
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Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com