From the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, to Matthew Dowd’s firing from MSNBC, this week has been filled with outrage and backlash over comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk.
This wave of high-visibility cancellations is actually not the real story. What we need to be paying attention to here is this: defining the fine line between what we say and how we say it.
In the aftermath of nearly every national tragedy, social media floods with claims designed more to inflame than to inform. Tragedies have become a polarizing issue along with everything else - from healthcare to the environment - and that creates an opportunity for those on the opposite side to capitalize on a disturbing narrative and turn statements into career-changing events.
What needs to happen is that both sides of the debate are held to the same standard. Are we doing that? I’m not so sure.
There are no shortage of high-profile cancellations of media personalities - liberal and conservative alike - for various on and off-air opinions and comments made. What is different in this situation is that what Kimmel said was factual but delivered with the wrong tone. To paraphrase, he commented that political leaders are using Kirk’s death to score political points, and as you can see, that is well documented. The issue is in how he said this statement, and that’s what struck the wrong tone.
While everyone is in agreement that we should never exploit someone’s death for politics, this is a pattern that has repeated over the years and from both parties. What is concerning most of all is where we draw that line - between what we say and how we say it - and how that is perceived by others.
Organizations, TV networks included, should be sensitive to the comments made by their employees. But, when truth-telling is punished because it does not arrive wrapped in comforting tones, we risk creating an environment where censorship grows and only the bland or safe statement survives. Public discourse shrinks, not because the facts aren’t there, but because people feel afraid to say something for fear of backlash. This is where the act of censorship becomes more offensive than the words it seeks to silence. And, this is absolutely not ok.
We should be far more troubled by a culture that punishes credible observations than by a late-night host striking the wrong tone while saying exactly the reality we are seeing unfold. Democracy depends on the ability to name what is happening, even when it unsettles us. Especially when it unsettles us.
Censorship of facts is a symptom of a deeper problem: the erosion of credibility as a standard. Increasingly, media decisions are not about whether something is true, but whether it offends. That should concern everyone, no matter where you stand, because once offense becomes the benchmark instead of factuality, even credible viewpoints can be silenced.