Jawboning and Jimmy Kimmel

 https://www.thefp.com/p/jawboning-and-jimmy-kimmel-free-speech-censorship?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The host appears to have been so isolated in his Bluesky bubble that he actually believed that Tyler Robinson was a man of the right when all the evidence suggests just the opposite. If ABC on its own had fired the host for clueless material, that would have been entirely within their rights.

But that is not what happened. Instead, Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr went on Benny Johnson’s YouTube show and offered Disney-owned ABC a choice. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said the country’s top regulator of broadcast television. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

This is what’s known as jawboning—when state actors use threats to inappropriately compel private action. That’s an awfully nice broadcasting license you have there, Bob Iger. Shame if anything happens to it because of your Jimmy Kimmel problem.