Colbert’s out—next year. Days after he accused corporate parent Paramount of settling a Donald Trump lawsuit to win government approval for a merger, Stephen Colbert told his audience that CBS is canceling his show as of next May.
■ Here’s how he broke the news last night.
■ Or read a transcript.
■ A statement from Paramount’s corporate overlords doth protest too much: “This is purely a financial decision. … It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters” …
■ … but long-time late-night observer Bill Carter says “the timing tells a different story.”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: “The incoming owner wants a big change made, but doesn't want the blame, so the outgoing owner does the dirty work.”
■ Chicago-born journalist and friend of Colbert Jonathan Alter: “If you think The Late Show got torched just for ‘financial reasons,’ I’ve got swampland to sell you.”
■ Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”
■ David Graham at The Atlantic: “The network that once made Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt.”
■ Trump’s gleeful: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.”
■ Let us not forget Colbert’s career was forged in Chicago—at Northwestern University and Second City.
■ Amid speculation his Daily Show could be next in Paramount’s sights, Jon Stewart says: “Let me tell you something—I’ve been kicked out of shittier establishments than that. We’ll land on our feet.”
■ ABC host Jimmy Kimmel: “Fuck you and all your Sheldons CBS.”
Elsewhere on the dial … The House has sent Trump that bill to strip a billion bucks from public radio and TV stations.
■ As bad as that is for Illinois public media—including Sun-Times and WBEZ owner Chicago Public Media—it stands to devastate the rural U.S.
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg: “Enjoy the national museums while they’re still here.”
Game on. It’s Trump vs. longtime enabler Rupert Murdoch as Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal reveals that Trump—who’s struggled mightily to deny a relationship with now-dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—in 2003 sent Epstein a bawdy 50th birthday greeting that concluded, “May every day be another wonderful secret” (gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters).
■ Trump’s promising (another) legal action against Murdoch: “I’m going to sue his ass off.”
■ Stelter observed early today: “And yet … Murdoch’s Fox News has not mentioned the story once.”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance: “The Epstein scandal is starting to look like an albatross around this administration’s neck that can’t be removed.”
■ Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: The Epstein Files.
■ After Coldplay leader Chris Martin called out a couple canoodling at a concert Wednesday, internet sleuths ID’d them as a tech CEO and his head of human relations.
‘This is absolutely insane.’ Sen. Cory Booker and other Democrats—including Illinois’ Dick Durbin—walked out of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday …
■ … after Iowa’s Chuck Grassley cut off their comments on the nomination of one of Trump’s former criminal defense lawyers to a lifetime appointment on a federal appeals court.
■ The federal prosecutor who helped convict Epstein—Maurene Comey, abruptly fired this week—writes to her colleagues: “If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant.”
Chicago’s ‘good trouble.’ The turnout paled in contrast to last month’s “No Kings” rally, but hundreds showed up downtown last night for another round of Trump protests.
■ Columnist Robert Hubbell: “It is no cause for disappointment that every new protest is not the largest in history; indeed, it would be unrealistic to expect otherwise.”
■ The Tribune reports that Cicero residents are demanding the town president take action after yet another stop by unidentified federal agents.
■ The Lever: “ICE is outsourcing mass deportations.”
■ Public Notice columnist David Lurie: “The U.S. for the first time will have a massive federal police force with its own rapidly growing concentration camp system.”
■ PolitiFact: Trump’s assertion that the “worst of the worst” have been detained at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” internment center is off the mark.
■ WBEZ’s Chip Mitchell reports: An ex-Guantánamo Bay detainee will get to testify about alleged torture by an ex-Chicago detective.
Death by AI. Pulitzer-winner Dave Barry writes: “I found out about my death the way everybody finds out everything: From Google.”
■ In what their firm concedes was a “serious lapse,” lawyers hired by the Chicago Housing Authority confess to having used ChatGPT to write a post-trial motion that cited a non-existent Illinois Supreme Court case.
■ Having secured an upgrade in Chicago’s ethics ordinance, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg says she’s hanging it up after this term.
■ Your Chicago Public Square columnist nevertheless blew two answers …
■ … but nailed a perfect score in City Cast’s latest Chicago news quiz.
With corporate media bending the knee daily … Independent news sources—like many you’ll find linked here in Square—need your support more than ever.
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■ Ron Schwartz made this edition better.