Month: September 2025

In an earlier life -1970, to be precise – I worked at WJZ-TV, the ABC station in Baltimore, MD. I produced and directed The Arnold Zenker Show, a daily 9:00-10:00 am, LIVE talk show.

Arnold was smart, good-looking, and could strip away BS like a surgeon with a scalpel. Prior to his talk show, he had been a lawyer for CBS network in New York and once, during a strike, subbed for Walter Cronkite. He was smitten by the experience and moved to Baltimore to try his hand at on-camera work.

During those days, we used to love poking the Nixon White House, not on every show like Colbert or Kimmel, but frequently.

One day, I came across a LIFE Magazine article about an FBI agent who had been fired by J. Edgar Hoover “with prejudice”. LIFE wanted to interview him but lost track of him in Baltimore. I made a few calls and a few hours later: “Hi. I hear you’re looking for me.“

He appeared the next morning, a courteous, modest, somewhat subdued man in a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie, right out of the FBI’s dress code book, if they had one.

His story, which Arnold gently brought out, was both sad and infuriating. Hoover’s “with prejudice” prevented him from getting another job, to the point where he had to leave his wife and kids, and work incognito.  

An hour or so after the show, I got a call from Ron Nessen’s office. He was Nixon’s Press Secretary at White House. It wasn’t to compliment us; they wanted a tape of the show. 

I went upstairs to the VP’s office and told him I “might’ve” screwed up. He shook his head, leaned back in his chair, then smiled and said, “you tell them we’ll be glad to make a copy of the show. It’ll cost $5,000 and will require an Ampex videotape machine that costs $100,000.” 

(In 2025 that equates to $41,749 for the tape, and $834,990 for the machine.)

I called the White House and left the message –  and they never called back.

In those days, the most TV stations a company could own was seven. The reason was to prevent any one company from having too much control of the media. The Reagan Administration considered that over-regulation and overturned it in 1984. Additional stations under one owner, they said, would not threaten “the diversity of independent viewpoints in the information and entertainment markets.”

Today, Nexstar owns 197 stations, 32 of which are ABC affiliates. Disney owns ABC network. Tegna owns 64 stations, 13 of which are ABC affiliates. Paramount owns both CBS network and 28 stations, 15 of which are CBS affiliates. 

This summer Paramount needed FCC approval for an $8 billion dollar merger with SkyDance, a media conglomerate. Currently Nexstar is waiting for FCC approval for a $6.2 billion dollar merger with Tegna.

As most of us know, Trump hates criticism. As most of us also know, Late Night comedians love poking him with satire, which narrows his eyes and reddens his face.  

Not long after Trump started whining in July about Colbert’s jokes, Paramount/CBS cancelled Colbert (effective next May). Immediately afterwards the FCC approved the $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger. 

The media front-paged it.  Colbert fans boycotted CBS and Paramount. 

When Trump whined again, this time about Jimmy Kimmel, FCC Chairman Carr suggested the network suspend Kimmel, saying “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Sinclair Broadcasting dropped the show from its 41 ABC stations and Nexstar and Tegna refused to air Kimmel on their 43 ABC stations. (Note: Nexstar and Tegna still need FCC approval for their $6.2 billion dollar merger).

That’s when Disney/ABC caved and took Kimmel off the air.

And then, finally, Late Night audiences, as well as hundreds of Hollywood heavyweights and millions across the country, erupted at Trump and the FCC and at Disney/ABC.

So Disney/ABC caved again. Effective Tuesday, Sept 24 Kimmel was back on the air. He knocked it out of the park.

These two incidents are not just examples of the President trampling the First Amendment. They’re not just examples of why the seven station rule should never have been dropped. 

They’re examples of corruption – at the highest level of our government.

And they’re part of a deliberate pattern. Trump has used the power of the government’s purse to bring universities to heel, withholding billions of already committed federal dollars from them. He has used the Justice Department to bully law firms into giving him millions of dollars of free legal services. This month, it was the FCC and the media’s turn. Not to mention the people he’s fired for disloyalty.

Who’s next?

This systematic corruption and abuse of power is symptomatic of every dictator who took over a country, from Stalin to Hitler to Orban, to name just a few. 

Wouldn’t it be great if the Late Night comedians inspired the whole country to stand up to this dictator and take back the democracy he and his cronies are deliberately destroying? 

When the country was still basking in the sunshine of new found freedom, two politicians, a Vice President and a Secretary of the Treasury, got so angry at each other they had a duel. The Treasury Secretary’s shot hit a tree branch above the VP’s head; the VP’s shot hit the Secretary in the stomach. Ouch!

The good news? No-one died that day. 

The bad news? On the next day, July 12, 1804, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton died. The rest of the political class was so disgusted at the whole event that Aaron Burr was ostracized out of politics.

What caused that much animosity?  Not jealousy over a woman. Not anger over a football game (this was wa-a-a-y before the Eagles ever played the Cowboys). Not one of them stealing the other’s horse (horses were a big deal then, the difference between life and death if you were alone in the wilderness). 

Nope. They had dueled over political conflicts for years. Hamilton led the Federalist party; Burr led the Democratic-Republican party.  And over the years some nasty words were flung back and forth.

Sound familiar?

The US was founded on political conflict between the British  kingdom and the wanna-be democracy. After that was resolved with violence, there was conflict over interpretation of the Constitution. These conflicts were generally conducted with civility. But, over time, things got more and more heated. 

Right up to the Civil War. Which was very uncivil.

Today politicians generally just duck and weave around disagreements. They rarely personally insult their adversaries. That’s one reason they can be so boring on Sunday morning shows: no one wants to end up with a Hamilton stomach ache. Instead they refer to even their worst enemies as “colleagues across the aisle”.  From the end of the Civil War forward, its been an unwritten rule of politics:  Don’t get personal. 

Until about 10 years ago. That’s when the king of personal insults came down the escalator and started flinging personal pejoratives like confetti at a birthday party.

Michelle Obama’s famous “when they go low, we go high” was an attempt to keep things civil. It didn’t work. 

Rather than unify the country, for the last ten years our current leader has divided the country.

Anyone who has read newspapers, watched TV, or followed on social media has witnessed it:  from mimicking the disabled to a constant stream of insults like “crazed lunatics”, “radical left”, “they don’t mind executing babies after birth”, “vicious”, “corrupt” “treasonous”, etc…

To his fan base he’s candid, authentic, real. To the others, he’s obnoxious, mean, nasty.

And that has resulted in more and more “nasty” speech from the right aimed at LGBTQ people, immigrants, liberals, etc… in social and traditional  media.

Which has resulted in more and more “nasty” speech from the left aimed at corporations, conservatives, rich people, etc… in social and traditional media.

See the pattern here?

Add to that stew of disdain a growing authoritarianism. Major government leaders, as well as entire departments of the government, are being subjected to loyalty tests, from the FBI to the Defense – oops! –  War Department, FEMA, State, DOJ. The National Guard has been sent to DC, LA and is being considered for Chicago, New Orleans, New York. Then there are the new Tarriffs which are alienating life-long allies, and the mass deportations.

Which brings up a fundamental of human nature: Fear and helplessness lead to anger. Wars have been started over fear and helplessness. Vietnam happened because the US was afraid of the spread of communism. Ditto the Korean War. Hitler scared Europe into WWII. The South started  the Civil War because they feared the end of slavery.  The French feared…starvation. 

Today immigrants are afraid of being deported. Their employers are afraid of going broke without workers. Government workers are afraid of being fired for being non-partisan. Liberals are afraid of conservatives; conservatives are afraid of liberals. 

Elected officials are afraid of being shot. A Democratic state lawmaker in Minnesota and his wife were shot. The Pennsylvania governors residence was fire-bombed. And a popular conservative influencer was just shot for being… a conservative influencer.

A lot of people are feeling pretty scared and helpless right now. And, as a result, angry. What our President and leaders – of both parties -need to do is learn the lesson of Burr and Hamilton. 

Don’t throw away our shot. Stop the nasty rhetoric. Start debating ideas again. Politely.