Say it isn’t so. Stephen Colbert must go. At least that’s the apparent conclusion of CBS executives as the late-night host was unceremoniously canceled by the Tiffany Network. CBS claims the sudden cancellation was due to financial reasons. Colbert’s last show is scheduled for May of 2026, which is less than a year away.
Donald Trump took little time in gloating about the late-night host’s sudden dismissal stating in a Truth Social post. “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings … I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
If that doesn’t sound like a wannabe authoritarian gloating about the demise of a high-profile media critic, what is a gloat supposed to sound like?
Trump is truly in a league of his own.
Colbert’s firing all comes amidst the backdrop of his recent bold criticisms of a settlement between the parent company of CBS, (Paramount Global) and Trump concerning an allegedly doctored interview broadcast on CBS’s fabled “60 Minutes” documentary news program that featured failed 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Trump got into the CBS coffers to the tune of $16,000,000 million dollars. The fired late-night host has described Trump’s apparent economic windfall as a “big fat bribe.”
In some circles Colbert’s strangely-timed dismissal announcement also has the unhealthy appearance of a bribe, of sorts, undertaken to appease the government overlords and smooth the way for the corporate merger of Paramount Global with Skydance Media, a privately held conglomerate estimated to be worth, at least 3 billion dollars on the low end, and as much 9 billion dollars on the high-end.
That’s a large spread indeed, but whatever Skydance’s true valuation, the billion-dollar merger with Paramount Global does not happen without the final approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Whatever the real reason for Stephen Colbert’s soon to be separation from CBS, it’s a bad look for one of America’s four major television broadcast networks. If there’s a pattern here, both Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, and Jose Feliciano, for that matter, could find it, if only not, because one of three is deceased.
May he rest in peace.
Stephen Colbert will be gone from America’s television screens within the next ten months, or so. Surely, it won’t be for long because the late-night comedian is too talented of a critic of what’s wrong with America’s current mentally deranged administration.
A White House that seems to have a genuine distaste for the tenets of democracy and the rights of free speech given to all Americans via the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Here’s a reminder of how cowardly the mainstream media in the United States of America appears to be right now. Even before Trump’s reelection both the Los Angeles Times, under the ownership of billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong and the Washington Post, under the ownership of billionaire Jeff Bezos refused to endorse a political candidate. In both cases, newsroom rumors were suggesting of impending endorsements of Kamala Harris’ candidacy over that of her republican opponent.
The two wealthy newspaper owners put a stop to the publication of the Harris endorsements.
That’s pure corporate cowardice and there was no indication at that particular moment in history, that Donald Trump would sweep to a comfortable victory in the Electoral College, with Harris falling decisively short of the numbers necessary to win the presidency.
Since the embarrassment of two of the nation’s leading newspapers suddenly finding important reasons not to endorse a presidential candidate – in since forever – other interesting events have taken place.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinsky scurried to Mar-a-Lago to meet with President elect Trump immediately after his resounding win. That meeting looked like what it was, because it was what it was.
No explanations necessary. MSNBC, on soft delicate footsteps, moved on from the married “Morning Joe” co-hosts strange maneuver.
We just don’t talk about that anymore.
A well-known and highly respected television journalist on CNN, Jim Acosta, who also happened to be a sharp, and uninhibited critic of Trump’s crazy bull-in-a-china shop presidency, lost his mid-morning network slot, during a rush reshuffling of programming and was offered a late-night consolation prize that would begin at midnight, and run until 2 a.m.
Of course, Acosta declined the offer and subsequently left CNN.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with television journalism taking place at midnight, or thereabouts. Afterall, this is not the 1960’s limited TV landscape anymore. An audience is out there. But the CNN actions seemed punitive, as if the organization was eager to get rid of a pointed Trump critic on a network that had recently hired controversial, to put it mildly, conservative mouthpieces to spew right wing talking points, as CNN moves onward to become Fox News lite or whatever.
Hint to CNN. The people who watch Fox News on a regular basis, don’t care about who or what’s on CNN. Case closed.
The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Joe and Mika, excuses aside, have all felt the heat, and bent the knee, falling over like so many shiny black dominoes on a card table in order to make nice with the red cap wearing MAGA squad, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It is disgusting. It is weak. It is unseemly.
The United States of America is a long, long way from becoming Turkey, Bulgaria, Poland, or God forbid Hungary. All governments that stifle the expression of free ideas from their press outlets, whether newspaper, broadcast, radio or the internet. But as those dominoes in America keep falling, one by one, in Donald J. Trump’s favor, the information available to the public will be a lot less all encompassing.
There’s no such thing as a free press that is almost free. It’s either free or it’s not free.
ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, Newsmax, Bloomberg, CBN, BET, Telemundo and many, many others. They are voices that all need to be heard, and available equally, and do not in any way need to be in agreement.
Or anything close to agreement.
America needs to stay on the side of free unlimited dispersion of news, ideas and opinion for its private citizens and the press. Authoritarian wannabes notwithstanding. And just in case anyone out there is napping, both houses of the Republican-controlled congress just passed legislation cutting already approved government funding for NPR and PBS.
Stay tuned, while you still can.
Clowns In Politics
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Oliver M. Greene is a freelance writer and online content creator, as well as a keen and discerning observer of the American political landscape.
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