Jimmy Kimmel Illustration (Courtesy of Mike Goad)
Alexia: Hi! I’m Alexia Bailey, a sophomore here at CU Boulder. While I may just be in my second year, I’m here to share everything I’ve picked up so far, which is a surprising amount of information. “What’s Eating at Alexia” is my unofficial and unfiltered guide to some of the things that being a CU Boulder Buff brings. Think of it as your guide to navigating everything that makes CU Boulder, well, CU Boulder. Whether you’re a freshman finding your footing or a senior with “no body, no crime” level grievances about finals week, I’m here to share my takes, tips and honest observations on everything from the sometimes-unpredictable Buff Bus system to navigating campus protests (or dodging them entirely). College is a wild, unforgettable ride, and “What’s eating at Alexia” is here to make sense of some of it, one opinion at a time.
George Orwell imagined a farm where the animals policed each other’s speech. Today, it’s not barnyard pigs but television executives and regulators doing the job.
On Sept. 15, Jimmy Kimmel, on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” opened his late-night monologue by blaming the “MAGA gang” for spinning the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. It wasn’t Kimmel’s sharpest joke, nor was it completely factual at the time, but it was his opinion. Two days later, ABC took him off the air indefinitely after station affiliates threatened a boycott, and after FCC Chair Brendan Carr publicly condemned Kimmel’s comments and hinted at possible “remedies,” a thinly veiled warning that carried the weight of government power.
That word should make you nervous. When government regulators start hinting at punishment, “network discretion” isn’t really discretion anymore. It’s intimidation.
Here’s the thing: ABC can fire whoever it wants. Kimmel doesn’t have a constitutional right to a talk show. But the First Amendment does mean that the government can’t silence you just because your words anger people in power. When the FCC Chair piles on, it’s not just about a late-night host; it’s about setting a precedent that political speech is dangerous if it crosses the wrong line.
This isn’t abstract. Think about it: if regulators can scare a multibillion-dollar company like ABC’s parent company, the Walt Disney Company, into pulling its star comedian, what does that mean for smaller voices? For journalists? For student reporters? If they can make Kimmel disappear for a week, they can do the same to a journalist or to any ordinary person whose posts rub the wrong people the wrong way.
By September 22, Jimmy Kimmel was reinstated on air following intense internet backlash and a surge in Disney+ cancellations, the streaming service owned by the Walt Disney Company. The fact that the talk show was taken off the air in the first place is deeply concerning and has delivered a strong message: step too far into political territory, and your voice can be pulled without hesitation. That’s the real takeaway here. It’s not about liking or defending Jimmy Kimmel. It’s about whether you want speech in this country to be protected by principle or hostage to politics and profit.
As a journalist, it’s pretty clear where I stand on the freedoms that the First Amendment allows the American public. Any restriction on speech is not simply a network matter; it is a restriction on freedom and democracy as a whole. By taking Jimmy Kimmel, a comedian, off the air, even briefly, the powers in hand attempted to shrink the space where Americans can laugh, question and criticize. No, Kimmel is not a journalist, but if even satire can be silenced, then so can reporting, dissent and dialogue. It’s become clear that this was never just about Kimmel; it was about how fragile our protections become when those who hold power decide that some Americans may speak freely while others must be punished into silence. And when that happens, we will find that Orwell’s warning has come home, not with pigs and pastures, but with executives, regulators and a public too quick to cheer “censorship!” until it comes for them.
All this leads me to ask: if a joke can get pulled off the air, then what chance does the truth have?
Contact CU Independent Opinion Editor Alexia Bailey at alexia.bailey@colorado.edu
