“Stephen Colbert - NEG_1724” by Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons terms.
The Writers Guild of America voiced concern that Paramount is “sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval.”
The Writers Guild of America is calling on New York’s attorney general to launch a bribery investigation into Paramount Global following the cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
WGA, some of whose members worked on the CBS show, said in a statement that while “cancellations are part of the business,” a “corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society.”
“Paramount’s decision comes against a backdrop of relentless attacks on a free press by President Trump, through lawsuits against CBS and ABC, threatened litigation of media organizations with critical coverage, and the unconscionable defunding of PBS and NPR,” the union said.
WGA noted that the show’s cancellation—which CBS insisted was a “purely financial” decision—came after Colbert criticized Paramount’s $16 million settlement of a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump.
In a July 15 segment, aired 48 hours prior to his show’s cancellation, Colbert called the settlement with Trump a “big, fat bribe” aimed at greasing federal approval of Paramount’s pending merger with the entertainment company Skydance. Paramount owns CBS, and Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has reportedly been monitoring the network’s coverage of the president.
The day of the Colbert segment, the CEO of Skydance met with Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr to discuss the pending merger.
In its statement, WGA urged New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate “potential wrongdoing” at Paramount, which is headquartered in New York City.
“Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that ‘The Late Show’ cancellation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval,” the union said. “We call on our elected leaders to hold those responsible to account, to demand answers about why this beloved program was canceled, and to assure the public that Colbert and his writers were not censored due to their views or the whims of the president.”
Ahead of the official settlement announcement, California’s Senate launched an investigation into whether Paramount “violated state laws against bribery and unfair competition” by offering Trump $15 million to end the legal fight, Semafor reported.
After news of the settlement deal broke earlier this month, Democratic U.S. senators called for a federal investigation.
“With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration’s approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “Paramount has refused to provide answers to a congressional inquiry, so I’m calling for a full investigation into whether or not any anti-bribery laws were broken.”
I don’t watch tv or know anything about the companies involved but now seems like a productive time not to support then if you’re currently doing so :)
Yup. I cancelled my subscription and cited this as the reason. Honestly this was an easy decision since they cancelled Lower Decks and there isn’t a lot of stuff on the service to keep me interested. And my kids will survive without paw patrol.
High seas is the way to go.
Dude, that’s not a solution to this. The show is canceled, you can’t just pirate it once they stop making it.
They might have been referring to a boycott of Paramount
Yes but I can pirate other shows and movies they make if I like to watch them.
Already for Strange New Worlds
Hopefully he revives the Colbert Report
While it was entertaining, it only confused conservatives. Nowadays I feel like he could parade around in a Nazi uniform and right wingers still wouldn’t realize it was a satire.
I’d prefer he takes host at the Daily Show
That should be kleppers at this point.
They’re all pretty good, but damn I sure like Desi sometimes. She has great timing and delivery.
Fridays!
His show is pretty predictable after that many years anyway.
I don’t think being unpredictable was their goal.
The Garfield gambit.
kid gets kidnapped off street, dropping remainder of sandwich
“Eh he already ate most of the sandwich anyway”.
Just making the main point the main point: the blatant, no-so-shadowy corruption and failure of decision making from those in positions of power.
Seems hard for you to believe that there are other reasons to quit a tv show in the age of the internet with lots of competition. I still don’t understand why they keep the antiquated format.
I don’t think the point of a late night show that comes on every night was to be unpredictable… That would be a strange critique for any late night talk show.
He is a humourist. A humourist that does and says nothing unexpected is, in fact, not humourous. He is a humourless humourist.
It’s so bad. But I stopped watching because it’s often mean spirited. For example, Seth never makes fun of someone’s appearance, and I was seeing Colbert do it every show for a week. Colbert will attack something a person has no control over, for cheap laughs. He panders to boring people who want to feel politically engaged without having to actually be politically engaged. He is a corporate product that exists solely to promote other corporate products. Fuck Colbert. The world is better off without the CBS The Late Show.
Imagine missing the point as bad as you did.
You can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. And I attest that intentions matter more than people understand, and corrupted intentions can defeat any positive outcome. But in this case, I don’t fuckin’ mind. Fuck him in the ear, looks good on him. Maybe he won’t get in bed with ParamountDisneyFoxViacom again. Maybe next time he’ll try to build his integrity instead of selling it.
Out of curiosity, whose appearance was he making fun of?
Username checks out
I don’t get it.
Agreed. I lost all respect for the show when they started making fun of the appearance of others. At the same time he brands himself as the Christian family guy. Talk about hypocrisy
