Letter to the editor: Comparing Biden, Trump on free speech

Recently we learned that CBS (owned by Paramount) would be ending its long-running “Late Night” TV show, currently hosted by the nauseatingly predictable Stephen Colbert. The network’s decision was also predictable, as the show lost 40 million bucks last year. Overall, late-night talk shows have been losing viewers for the past decade or so. Fewer viewers equals less advertising dollars for the network. Colbert isn’t being replaced; the show is being canceled.

As we’ve come to expect, many on the left are screaming that Colbert’s termination equals the end of free speech in America. Funny, I didn’t see anything indicating that Colbert was not permitted to take his sanctimonious, sardonic routine to another platform. Is there a political element to CBS’s decision? Probably. Paramount needed FCC approval to merge with Skydance Media. So what? CBS had every right not to subsidize political propaganda, whether it be from the extreme left or the extreme right.

If you think the demise of “Late Night” is an attack on free speech, I ask: Did you worry about free speech when Joe Biden’s Justice Department was pressuring tech companies to remove posts the administration didn’t like? What about when the Hunter Biden laptop story was squelched as “Russian disinformation?” Were you alarmed by the Biden administration’s proposal of an Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board in 2022, which would have allowed the federal government to influence news stories?

If you weren’t concerned about free speech during the Biden years, spare me your whining now.

Richard Byers

Mt. Pleasant