The jewel in Rupert Murdoch’s crown, The Wall Street Journal, has renewed criticisms of the Trump administration, this time slamming the indefinite suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show.
In a Thursday editorial, the Journal’s editorial board wrote, “The political cycle of using government to punish opponents is taking the country into dark corners that will result in less freedom, and less free speech, for all sides.”
The Wall Street Journal, typically a newspaper that leans conservative thanks to Murdoch’s stewardship, has spent much of Trump’s second term publishing editorials critical of the president.
ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air after Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke its broadcasting license in response to Kimmel making a joke about President Donald Trump’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death.
The president has a lengthy, antagonistic relationship with Kimmel that dates back to his first term in office.
The piece goes on to claim that the FCC is a relic of a bygone era where there were only three networks; the fact that it does not regulate cable TV or the internet reflects this, the board argues.
The editorial board wrote, “Regulatory power in the hands of a willful president can too easily become a weapon against political opponents, including the media,” before going on to argue for deregulation of the airwaves.
“As a private company, Disney has the right to run or cancel shows as it wishes. Perhaps in this case, it saw pressure from the government as an excuse to drop Mr. Kimmel, who had turned his show into a daily anti-Trump diatribe. But anyone who thinks this is the free market at work is ignoring the ways government can punish companies,” the Journal argued.
The paper, owned by on-again, off-again friend of the president Rupert Murdoch, said that the pressure placed on Disney “looks to be a case of cancel culture on the right,” born from years of Trump supporters watching as “the coastal elites of media and entertainment showed their contempt for middle American values.“
“We want to be clear that none of this justifies the right’s resort to regulatory censorship. As victims of cancel culture for so long, conservatives more than anyone should oppose it. They will surely be the targets again when the left returns to power,” the piece cautioned.
The paper’s editorial board has criticized Trump’s ongoing feud with Harvard University, his attacks on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, his handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, threats he made to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, his response to Vladimir Putin’s attacks on Polish airspace, and his attempts to blame bad news on former President Joe Biden.
Most recently, the paper earned the president’s ire by publishing a birthday letter Trump sent to his longtime friend and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The initial report revealing the existence of the letter prompted Trump to file a $10 billion lawsuit against Murdoch and the Journal.
The post Murdoch Paper Warns Jimmy Kimmel Move Taking U.S. in ‘Dark Corner’ appeared first on The Daily Beast.
