LOS ANGELES: ABC’s abrupt suspension of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel under pressure from the Federal Communications Commission is the latest demonstration of the power President Donald Trump wields to bend media, entertainment and digital platforms to his will, as he uses political pressure to mute criticism and punish institutions he sees as biased against him.
The move, which came after Kimmel‘s remarks about the accused killer of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, has jolted the US media and entertainment industries and intensified free-speech fears as the Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke broadcast licenses from stations that carry what he called “garbage.”
Major media and tech companies are now controlled by Trump supporters or billionaire business leaders who lined up behind Trump during his inauguration, donated to his inaugural fund, or visited the White House bearing gifts. Billionaire GOP donor Larry Ellison’s Oracle is part of a consortium of investors with the inside track to take control of the US operations of the video-sharing platform TikTok.
This week, the Trump administration announced it had agreed to a framework for a deal with China that would allow the sale of TikTok’s US assets to continue to operate in the US.
Companies such as CBS, Meta Platforms, and the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have made editorial or operational changes following Trump’s re-election in ways that lay the groundwork for less adversarial coverage of the president.
“There is a continued lurch to the right throughout much of our major media in the United States right now,” said Victor Pickard, professor of media policy and political economy at the Annenberg School of Communication at University of Pennsylvania. “I expect to see more of this to come. There’s no countervailing force against it.”
The decision Wednesday night is the second time since Trump’s re-election that ABC parent company Walt Disney has taken action in response to on-air comments. In December, ABC News agreed to give US$15 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit Trump had filed over remarks that anchor George Stephanopoulos made involving sex abuse claims brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll.
“They’re all terrified,” said Steve Kroft, who was a longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent, specifically citing the nightly broadcast news. “The thing that scares me the most about this administration is this retaliatory mindset, to go after its enemies. And I think they’re clearly going after the news people. That’s the top of their list.”
