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Comment by potato3732842 | Hacker News Reader

The desire to not catch a (arguably deserved in some individual cases) bullet is an incredibly unifying sentiment on both sides of the isle and between the elected officials, the permanent bureaucracy and those aspiring to be either.

It just baffles me that people think they can say things that "turn up the heat" or "endorse the furtherance of current trends" and not expect some part of system (including big companies that more or less operate at the pleasure of regulators/government) to turn right back around and attack them.

I'm not saying I expect everyone to be as jaded as me, but know where your pay comes from.

Edit: Looks like Kimmel didn't say anything specific endorsing it and my last sentence was accurate more than I wanted it to be.

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Call me old fashioned, but I do expect for things like this not to happen in an open, democratic society whose founding document explicitly declares free speech to be sacrosanct.

Update: "things like this" is meant to refer to the act of suspending Kimmel's show in response to the specific, rather innocuous, comments he made in his monologue

Which "this" are you referring to, the shooting, the endorsement of it or the firing over the endorsement of it?

All of them are bad but the ones on the left end of the sentence are more bad than the ones on the right.

Edit: The endorsements and firings broadly speaking, not regards to anything specific to Kimmel or ABC

Kimmel in no way endorsed the shooting

How did Kimmel endorse the shooting? Make an argument. Show me where and how he endorsed the shooting.

Kimmel didn't endorse the shooting. At "worst", he sorta-but-not-directly suggested that the shooter was a member of the MAGA crowd. Which he might have been; it's still quite unclear what his politics were. (And plenty of right-wing personalities on the internet had criticized Kirk in the past, so it's not like Kirk was universally beloved on the right.)

Kimmel didn’t even criticise Kirk. He’s a mainstream TV comedian and nothing he said “turned up the heat”.

The reality is very simple: Nexstar wants federal approval for a merger. They know engaging in this censorship increases the likelihood of their merger being approved. So you’re exactly as jaded as you should be, just with the wrong target.

I guess I really nailed it with that last sentence then.

Nah, reality is even simpler than your conspiracy. These late night guys are money losers and they are looking for a reason to drop them. The fact that they nightly insult 80 million potential viewers with their arrogant and unneeded leftist opinions is bad for business. It doesn’t matter how Jimmy and his leftist writer feel, that’s their business they should keep out of the job. They need to maximize shareholder value by putting on the best show possible.

It’s not about “Jimmy”, it’s about his audience.

then what you do, is just not re-up the contract or buy it out. That could have been done at any time.

If that were true they’d just shelve the show. It’s entirely within their power to do so and always has been. They don’t need an excuse.

Out of the two, “company wants to win favor with Trump for a merger” is actually the simpler theory.

Yeah, this is the first time most people have thought about Jimmy Kimmel in years.

> It just baffles me that people think they can say things that "turn up the heat"

I don't think that's an accurate characterization of his statements, even if what he did say was factually inaccurate.

The FCC doesn’t pay Kimmel.

ABC, who pays Kimmel, would be financially very, dis-served to have the FCC or IRS or any other big bit of government up their ass, even if it does ultimately come to nothing.

Are you saying that the government might seriously harass and damage a media company for speech they don't like? And this is normal?

Maybe ABC could stand up for freedom of speech instead of caving to a wannabe dictator?

What a refreshingly novel idea. I wonder if it will get any uptake.

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