The aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk last week has made the First Amendment an issue being discussed not only by the public but also one hitting home for talk media practitioners. Wednesday’s suspension of the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” program by ABC/Disney after television giants Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group complained about Kimmel’s comments on Kirk’s death and said they would stop carrying the show dominated the news cycle. While FCC Chairman Brendan Carr stated at the POLITICO AI & Tech Summit that the FCC should not be investigating social media posts celebrating Kirk’s slaying, saying, “I think you can draw a pretty clear line, and the Supreme Court has done this for decades, that our First Amendment, our free speech tradition, protects almost all speech,” his statement comes not long after Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested her office should be investigating hate speech, infuriating many conservatives who outright reject the concept of hate speech. ABC/Disney’s decision to air or not air the Kimmel program is not an infringement of Kimmel’s First Amendment rights but both Sinclair and Nexstar have mergers or acquisitions before federal bodies – including the FCC – and some critics of the Kimmel suspension note that the Trump administration will consider Kimmel’s ouster a “friendly” move. It is also worth noting that FCC Chairman Carr appeared on the Benny Johnson podcast and called Kimmel’s statements “some of the sickest conduct possible” and added, “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney… We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Finally, there are those who are pointing out that Charlie Kirk was an adamant supporter of the First Amendment who would disagree with the calls to suppress free speech – even callous speech mocking his own death.
