When I was growing up, the Nightly News was my family's go-to news source, with Tom Brokaw as our trusted guide through the most urgent stories around the world.
But it was late-night television that crafted my news sense. SNL’s Weekend Update, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno. They each had a hand in helping me understand and, perhaps more importantly, think about the headlines and our problematic lawmakers.
Which is all to say, though it's been a minute since I've been a regular late-night viewer, I have a deep respect for the genre.
But I don't need to have a personal history with late-night to understand the dire warnings that come with CBS's shocking decision to end The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, as Paramount, CBS's parent company, desperately tries to sell the company to Skydance Media, a deal that requires federal approval.
The context: President Donald Trump has baselessly accused 60 Minutes of unfairly editing its 2024 interview with Kamala Harris. He launched a lawsuit. Paramount recently agreed to settle it to the tune of $16 million, sparking widespread criticism for bending the knee to Trump. Colbert was one of those critics. In his Monday monologue, he called the settlement a "big fat bribe." On Thursday, Colbert announced that CBS was ending the franchise.
I can't overstate this enough: This marks a dangerous new chapter for the culture at large. You can read all about why, and my scorched earth hopes for Colbert, on Mother Jones dot com.
—Inae Oh
P.S. On this week’s More To The Story, David Sirota, a former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders and co-writer of the Oscar-nominated Don’t Look Up, sits down for a wide-ranging chat about the Texas floods being a wake-up call, how Trump’s "big, beautiful bill" is "class war in legislative form," and why some Democrats still don’t know how to respond to Zohran Mamdani. Be sure to listen.
