John Gruber, at Daring Fireball (under the biblical title “Curse Not the King”):

In the way that fish take water for granted, Americans take true freedom of speech and freedom of the press for granted. It’s the culture we were born into, the air we breathe. And to my mind, the fiercest and most effective form of criticism — especially political — is mockery. Mark Twain, America’s first great (and perhaps still greatest) humorist, said, “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

No one in Russian media mocks Vladimir Putin, lest they find themselves falling out one of Russia’s easily-fallen-out-of windows. No one in Chinese media mocks Xi Jinping. Back in 2017 the CCP went as far as to censor images of Winnie the Pooh, because Xi resembles Pooh so clearly, and people naturally find that amusing. Trump, clearly, has authoritarian instincts and desires, but US media — print, web, podcasts, YouTube, social, and TV — has been replete with unrelenting mockery aimed at him. There’s no better example of that than late night talk shows: Colbert on CBS, Jimmy Kimmel on ABC, Seth Meyers on NBC, Jon Stewart and his fellow hosts on The Daily Show at Comedy Central, John Oliver and Bill Maher on HBO. Vociferous, unrelenting critics of Trump, all of them. (And it works both ways: Greg Gutfield’s Gutfield! is a ratings success at 10:00pm for Fox News.)

That’s been one of the canaries I’ve been monitoring in the Trump 2.0 drift-into-authoritarianism coal mine. So long as Trump is getting skewered by comedians on major TV channels nightly, in some sense, we’re doing OK.

But while our Constitution and cultural fabric protect our media from government interference, there’s no such protection from ownership interference.

Solid piece—well researched, with terrific framing. Gruber really captures much of my shock, anger, and frustration when I learned of Colbert’s cancellation.

While I stopped watching late-night shows years ago, Colbert’s was the one show whose clips I’d catch semi-regularly. He was funny, nerdy, and we were (seemingly) politically aligned.

I could (if I squint really hard) understand Paramount firing Colbert if they were unhappy with his performance—or his politics—but to also end The Late Show is astonishingly short-sighted, and screams of pretext, a desire from Paramount to punish (silence) Colbert, while providing (in-)sufficient cover for doing so: “We’re not getting rid of Colbert; we’re exiting the late-night business!” It reeks of political animus disguised as an economic choice.

Thirty years of history, evaporated, just like that.