Tag Archives: free speech

Protest in Hollywood over Kimmel Show Suspension

Posted on by
Protesters on Hollywood Blvd. on Thursday night

A few hundred protesters gathered in Hollywood on Wednesday night to protest ABC’s decision to pull the Jimmy Kimmel show, at least for the time being. I’ve never seen the show. If I’d heard that he was going off the air for low ratings, it wouldn’t have made any difference to me. But it appears that ABC pulled the show because of pressure from the Trump administration over comments Kimmel made in the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting. This is really disturbing.

Crowd listening to speaker at protest.

According to both the New York Times and Fox News, in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, Kimmel said on air that the right was working hard to portray the killer as a leftist in order to score political points. Apparently, Kimmel mistakenly believed that that killer had right wing views. Brendan Carr, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission appointed by Trump, was angered by Kimmel’s comments, which he believes were part of a concerted effort to lie to Americans. According to the New York Times, Carr stated that broadcast companies needed to “find ways to change conduct and take action”, or the FCC might take action against them.

Unfortunately, while Carr claimed that Kimmel’s statements were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” I couldn’t find any reports that he gave other example of those lies, or that he talked about who was involved in the effort. No doubt he’s pointing the finger at the “liberal media”, a loosely defined term that seems to include any broadcaster or publisher that presents news that could be seen as critical of Trump.

Plenty of signs objecting to ABC’s action.

None of the published accounts I’ve read quote Kimmel as saying anything negative about Kirk himself, nor does it seem like he made any comments that could be perceived as condoning the killing. He made an inaccurate comment about the killer. TV personalities say things that are inaccurate all the time. They often make inaccurate statements because of their own personal bias. They often say controversial or shocking things because that draws media attention. This is true of celebrities on the right and the left. American popular culture rewards people who create controversy.

As many people have pointed out, when Trump was re-elected he claimed that he was going to restore free speech in America. But just in the last two years, he’s aggressivley gone after news organizations that have published stories he doesn’t like, suing the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and CBS for billions of dollars. Now it looks like the Trump administration is willing to use the power of the FCC to punish broadcasters that don’t fall in line.

Free speech is under attack. This is a scary time for America.

LAPD Turns to Media Suppression

Posted on by
Photo by Brian Feinzimer for LAist.

More bad news.  There were early reports that members of the media were held by the LAPD during the protests over the removal of the Echo Park Lake homeless encampment.  It’s now clear that at least four reporters and an unknown number of legal observers were detained by the LAPD.  Two reporters were actually taken to jail before being released.  The journalists who were detained identified themselves as members of the press when they were taken into custody.  Actually, it seems like that’s the reason they were taken into custody.  The LA Times offered this account by reporter James Queally….

Eventually the two officers detaining him called over a sergeant, and Queally again said that he was a working reporter. The sergeant told him that it didn’t matter, Queally said.

“He was less than interested with the fact that I was press,” Queally said. “I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? We really doing this?’ And he said, ‘Yes, this is the policy tonight.’”

So the sergeant knew that Queally was a reporter, and stated that his detention was in line with the “policy” the LAPD was following that night.  It would be really interesting to know who established this “policy”.  Was it LAPD Chief Michel Moore?  Was it Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, in whose district the police were operating?  Was it Mayor Eric Garcetti?  The LAPD’s actions were clearly restricting free speech, preventing the press from doing their job.  We need to know who formulated this policy, which is clearly an effort to suppress the media.

It is interesting that two Councilmembers, Kevin De Leon and Mike Bonin, both criticized the LAPD’s detention of journalists.  Nithya Raman posted a statement on Twitter decrying the use of force in ejecting the Echo Park homeless community, but didn’t mention the treatment of the press.  I couldn’t find any other comments by Councilmembers on this issue. 

A link to Saturday’s LA Times’ story is below.  Apparently the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU have both come out with strong statements. 

We shouldn’t let this slide.  This week’s meeting of the LA Police Commission has been cancelled, but this needs to come up at the next meeting.  When journalists who are clearly identified as journalists are detained by law enforcement without having committed a crime, it means the government is trying to shut the media down. 

Reporters, Legal Observers Cry Foul after Being Caught Up in LAPD’s Mass Arrests at Echo Park Protest