JAMES PONIEWOZIK2025年9月19日周三，ABC停播《吉米·坎摩尔直播秀》，此前多家联播机构及联邦通信委员会主席就主持人在节目中的言论表达了不满。 Randy Holmes/DisneyOn a podcast Wednesday, Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, complained about remarks that Jimmy Kimmel had made about Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, and about President Trump’s MAGA political movement. Mr. Carr described a couple of paths toward the consequences he wanted to see happen.周三，联邦通信委员会主席布兰登·卡尔在播客上对吉米·坎摩尔关于泰勒·罗宾逊以及特朗普总统的“让美国再次伟大(MAGA)”政治运动的言论表达了不满，泰勒·罗宾逊涉嫌枪杀右翼活动人士查理·柯克。卡尔说，要想得到他想要的结果，有两个办法。“We can do this the easy way,” he said, “or the hard way.”“我们可以用简单的方法，”他说，“也可以用困难的方法。”Later that day, ABC did it for him the easy way.那天晚些时候，ABC电视台用简单的方法帮他解决了这个问题。ABC did not explain its decision to pull Mr. Kimmel’s late-night show “indefinitely.” But the sequence of events was easy to follow, and the dynamics are chillingly familiar.ABC没有解释为何“无限期”停播坎摩尔的深夜秀。但事件脉络清晰可循，其中的运作机制也熟悉得令人胆寒。Mr. Carr, who holds power over local stations’ broadcast licenses, called on ABC affiliates to “push back.” Quickly, an owner of affiliate groups — which is planning an acquisition deal that will be scrutinized by the F.C.C. — did just that, announcing that it would pre-empt Mr. Kimmel’s show.掌握地方电视台执照审批权的卡尔呼吁ABC联播网成员台“抵制”。很快，某联播网集团所有者——其正筹划一项将接受联邦通信委员会审查的收购案——迅速响应，宣布将停播坎摩尔的节目。By Wednesday night, Mr. Kimmel was on hiatus.到周三晚上，坎摩尔的节目已经停播。What did Mr. Kimmel say to end his show (at least for now)? In his Monday night monologue, he said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”坎摩尔说了什么，导致他的节目被停（至少目前如此）？在周一晚上的开场独白中，他说：“周末我们创下了新低，MAGA党人拼命地试图将这个杀害查理·柯克的孩子定性为和他们无关的人，并竭尽全力从中捞取政治资本。”You could call Mr. Kimmel’s framing tendentious, uncharitable, unfair, slanted, off base. (Prosecutors said Mr. Robinson had written in private messages about Mr. Kirk’s “hatred,” without specifying what he found hateful; his mother told prosecutors that her son had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.”)你可以说坎摩尔的表述有失偏颇、刻薄、不公平、有倾向性、是错误的。（检察官表示，罗宾逊曾在私人信息中提到了柯克的“仇恨”，但没有具体说明他认为柯克仇恨的是什么；罗宾逊的母亲告诉检察官，她的儿子变得“更倾向于支持同性恋和跨性别者权利”。）But if you held comics to a standard of evenhanded probity, the biggest show in late-night would be a test pattern. As for his statement about scoring “political points” — since Mr. Kirk’s shooting, President Trump and his officials have sought to go after liberal groups and tie them to political violence. After Mr. Kirk’s death, Mr. Kimmel also posted on social media, “Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?”但是，如果你要求喜剧节目秉持公正无私的标准，那么深夜档的热门节目就只能剩下测试信号画面了。至于他所谓“捞取政治资本”的说法——自从柯克被枪杀以来，特朗普总统和他的官员一直在寻求打击自由派团体，将其与政治暴力联系起来。柯克死后，坎摩尔还在社交媒体上发帖说，“与其愤怒地相互指责，我们能不能至少在这一天达成共识，射杀一个人是可怕的暴行？”But one does not have to defend or even like Mr. Kimmel’s comments to see a pattern. Mr. Trump and his administration have been yanking an array of levers to bring news and entertainment outlets to heel. They have brought lawsuits, dangled investigations and threatened financial interests. (Mr. Trump recently sued The New York Times for coverage that questioned his level of business success.)但是，无需为坎摩尔的言论辩护，甚至不必认同他的观点，就能看出其中的规律。特朗普及其政府一直在用一系列手段迫使新闻和娱乐机构就范。他们提起诉讼、使用调查手段、威胁经济利益。（特朗普近期就《纽约时报》质疑其商业成就的报道提起诉讼。）And it has often worked. ABC settled a suit brought by the Trump administration over news coverage, and then Paramount settled one over “60 Minutes,” even as it sought approval of a multibillion-dollar merger. Paramount and CBS said that the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show was purely for business reasons. But Mr. Trump celebrated the sidelining of his frequent critic anyway, as he did with Mr. Kimmel, and he encouraged NBC to visit the same upon Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.而且这种方法经常奏效。ABC就特朗普政府为新闻报道提起的诉讼达成了和解，派拉蒙影业在寻求数十亿美元并购案批准期间，就《60分钟》节目与政府达成和解。派拉蒙和哥伦比亚广播公司表示，取消斯蒂芬·科尔伯特的深夜秀纯粹是出于商业原因。但特朗普还是对这个经常批评他的人遭到边缘化表示欢欣鼓舞，他对待坎摩尔的事也是如此，他还鼓励NBC对吉米·法伦和塞斯·迈耶斯采取同样的做法。All the while, the demands for apologies, payments, removals and concessions have continued and escalated. The message has been sent that getting on the bad side of the president and his allies can cost dearly.与此同时，要求道歉、赔钱、辞退和让步的要求不断升级。这传递出明确信号，站在总统及其盟友的对立面可能会付出高昂的代价。And apparently, few in the media and Hollywood want to foot that bill. So many others are paying tribute and giving in — why should you stick your neck out? Maybe it’s just better to be cautious. Maybe don’t say anything that gives your haters an opening. Maybe don’t say anything rash.显然，很少有媒体和好莱坞愿意为此埋单。那么多人都在献媚和让步——你又何必自寻死路？或许该谨言慎行，避免给仇敌可乘之机。或许应该避免冲动的言论。Maybe don’t say anything.也许就应该三缄其口。“South Park” nailed this dynamic in its season premiere, in which the Trump administration’s pressure even reached Jesus Christ, who warned, “You really want to end up like Colbert?” Reruns of its second episode — which made fun of Mr. Kirk’s politics, weeks before his killing — were pulled from Comedy Central after the assassination, though they remain on the Paramount+ streaming platform. (Mr. Kirk, incidentally, called the spoof “kind of funny” before his death.)《南方公园》(South Park)在本季的第一集时就捕捉到了这种态势，剧中特朗普政府的压力甚至波及到了耶稣基督，基督警告说，“你们真的想和科尔伯特一样吗？”该剧第二集取笑柯克的政治立场，这是在他被杀前几周的事。柯克遇刺后，被喜剧中心频道撤下重播，但在派拉蒙+流媒体平台上保留了节目。（顺便说一句，柯克在去世前称这个恶搞“有点好笑”。）Maybe what Mr. Trump and his allies are doing is not precisely what Viktor Orban did to control media in Hungary, or Vladimir Putin in Russia, or Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. Some governments do it the hard way; some do it the easy way. Every freeze on public discourse produces its own unique snowflake.也许，特朗普及其盟友正在做的并不完全是在复制欧尔班在匈牙利、普京在俄罗斯、埃尔多安在土耳其控制媒体的手段。一些政府采取困难的方式；一些政府用简单的办法。每一次对公共言论的冻结都会催生出不一样的“玻璃心”。You can feel the chill. Accepting an Emmy on Sunday night for the HBO show “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” the writer Daniel O’Brien said, “We are honored to share it with all writers of late-night political comedy while that’s still a type of show that’s allowed to exist.” After Mr. Kimmel’s suspension, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut called it part of “the systematic destruction of free speech.”你能感到这其中的寒意。周日晚上，编剧丹尼尔·奥布莱恩因HBO节目《上周今夜秀》(Last Week Tonight With John Oliver)获得艾美奖，他在领奖时说，“我们很荣幸能与所有深夜政治喜剧的编剧们分享这个奖项，毕竟这类节目仍然被允许存在。”坎摩尔被停播后，康涅狄格州参议员克里斯·墨菲称这是“对言论自由的系统性破坏”的一部分。It might seem melodramatic to cry censorship over late-night shows, which are ultimately not news institutions but entertainment productions that exist to make money. And yes, comedy is different from the news: A lot of people who don’t pay attention to the news pay attention to comedy.嚷嚷着深夜节目遭到审查似乎有些夸张，毕竟这些节目归根结底不是新闻机构，而是为了赚钱而存在的娱乐产品。是的，喜剧秀与新闻不同：很多不关注新闻的人会关注喜剧秀。Leaders certainly do: the satirical puppet show “Kukly” disappeared from Russian TV under pressure from Mr. Putin’s government, and Chinese censors banned online memes likening President Xi Jinping to Winnie-the-Pooh. Mr. Trump’s social media feeds over his political career have read like a Statler and Waldorf running commentary against his satirizers.领导人当然也会关注：讽刺木偶剧《库克利》(Kukly)在普京政府施压下从俄罗斯电视消失，中国审查机构则封禁了将习近平比作小熊维尼的网络梗图。特朗普整个政治生涯的社交媒体动态活脱脱就像斯塔特勒与沃尔多夫（Statler and Waldorf，喜剧小品剧集《布偶秀》中的一对布偶角色，以热衷于质问他人而闻名。——译注）在对讽刺喜剧表演者进行实时吐槽。One way you can measure a democracy’s health is by people’s freedom to mock their leaders — not just Poli Sci 101, letter-of-the-law freedom, but financial and cultural and logistical freedom. And practically speaking, free speech will only thrive on TV to the extent that companies are willing to locate their guts and stand up to political and financial pressure.衡量一个民主国家是否健康的一个标准是看人民是否有嘲笑其领导人的自由——不仅是政治学入门课里那种法律条文意义上的自由，还包括金融、文化和实务方面的自由。现实生活中，电视媒体的言论自由，取决于企业是否敢于挺直腰板，抵御政治与经济压力。Sure, nobody is throwing Mr. Kimmel in a gulag. He, like Stephen Colbert, will likely personally be fine. But a media system in which comedians are forbidden from mocking the president’s faction by corporate fiat is not functionally freer than one in which they are forbidden by law. One does not need to tear up the First Amendment if enough people who own enough microphones can be induced to behave as if you have.当然，没有人会把坎摩尔关进古拉格集中营。和史蒂芬·科尔伯特一样，他个人可能不会有什么事。但是，如果当喜剧演员因企业指令而被禁止嘲讽总统那一派人时，这样的媒体系统在实质上并不比遭到法律禁言的媒体系统更自由。如果你能诱导足够多麦克风的掌控者无视言论自由，即便无需撕毁第一修正案，言论自由也已名存实亡。America may not be an actual autocracy. But it increasingly seems to be playing one on TV.美国也许不是一个真正的专制国家。但它似乎越来越多地在电视上扮演这样的角色。James Poniewozik是《纽约时报》首席电视评论员。他的评论和文章侧重于探讨电视如何反映不断变化的文化与政治。翻译：晋其角点击查看本文英文版。