The previous Tonight Present host thinks a dose of bothsidesism will punch up the late-night scene.
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Jay Leno on the 2021 Britweek Luxurious Automotive Rally in Los Angeles
(Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Photographs)
Why is it that each time a fantastic late night time host loses a job, Jay Leno seems? Again within the Nineties, when David Letterman misplaced out on internet hosting The Tonight Present, Leno was there to assert victory. When Conan O’Brien briefly changed Leno after which acquired fired from The Tonight Present, Leno was there to take his outdated job again. This month, CBS fired arch–Trump critic Stephen Colbert and canceled The Late Present—good timing to sign to the Trump administration that CBS’s new proprietor, David Ellison’s Skydance, would supply extra “viewpoint variety” (i.e., Trump-friendly materials) on its airwaves. And out of a transparent blue sky, Leno is again!
Viewers who suffered by way of these earlier late-night wars can relaxation simple on this respect: CBS isn’t hiring Leno as Colbert’s alternative. As a substitute, Leno has resurfaced in an interview with David Trulio of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Basis and Institute to complain about how politically one-sided late night time comedy has turn out to be. “I really like political humor, don’t get me flawed,” Leno instructed Trulio. “Nevertheless it’s simply what occurs when individuals wind up cozying an excessive amount of to at least one facet or the opposite…. Why shoot for simply half an viewers on a regular basis? You realize, why not attempt to get the entire. I imply, I prefer to deliver individuals into the massive image.”
Positive, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Colbert go after Trump relentlessly—he’s the sitting president, in spite of everything, and one whose extremist bigotry, penchant for attacking comedians, and legal report places him in a particular class of sitting president. It’s exhausting to see what else they might do.
With out acknowledging any of that, Leno and Trulio talk about the necessity for a “either side” method to late night time as if it had been an extension of community information—as if comedians want to offer an goal accounting of the day’s occasions. These individuals host late-night comedy reveals, not presidential debates. We at present have a Republican White Home, Congress, Senate, and Supreme Courtroom. It’s not as if having two events means either side maintain equal energy. If Leno needs to see extra jokes about Democrats, he ought to assist elect extra Democrats.
It’s additionally a bit a lot to listen to the CEO of a basis named after Ronald Reagan laud Jay Leno for his evenhandedness in political humor. It was the Reagan administration that did away with the Federal Communication Committee’s Equity Doctrine in 1987. That long-standing coverage obligated broadcast tv and radio homeowners regulated by the FCC—together with ABC, CBS, and NBC—to dedicate time to opposing and ranging views as a method to maintain media firms from monopolizing political discourse. Republicans argued that eliminating the doctrine expanded free speech—in a dramatically unregulated media trade, they maintained, the free market would dictate what views and politics truly get offered.
And it did. As soon as the doctrine disappeared, a media revolution ensued. With broadcasters not fettered by equity requirements or fact-checked rebuttals, the profession of Rush Limbaugh turned potential. Allowed to bloviate uninterrupted for 3 hours a day on speak radio, Limbaugh discovered an enormous nationwide following for his grievance-based agenda, and paved the way in which for any variety of extremely profitable imitators to comply with go well with. Discuss radio stays a conservative stronghold the place few liberals succeed.
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And but, regardless of not having a Equity Doctrine to carry them again, that sort of right-wing grievance tradition has by no means taken maintain on the three legacy networks, particularly at 11:30 pm and 12:30 am, the place the comedy tilts left and anti-Trump—a lot to the consternation of Jay Leno and the FCC.
The Trump administration, in its approval of the Skydance-led deal for Paramount and CBS, has now insisted that CBS rent an ombudsman to make sure that the community gives MAGA-friendly political and social views in its information broadcasts. If Trump sought something resembling precise “viewpoint variety,” he might merely deliver again the Equity Doctrine to stability content material throughout the airwaves—though that may destroy conservative speak radio. Imposing an ombudsman on CBS ensures that conservative views will air the place they don’t succeed—i.e., broadcast information accomplished outdoors the MAGA media bubble.
Evidently, just about none of this has occurred to Jay Leno. “Because the host of The Tonight Present,” Leno mentioned a number of years in the past, “I appreciated to humiliate and degrade either side equally.” Actually? Jay Leno—“truthful and balanced” comic? A 2009 George Mason College examine discovered that of the 33,000 jokes Leno instructed about politicians throughout his first run as The Tonight Present’s host, he instructed 4,468 Invoice Clinton jokes and a pair of,999 about George W. Bush. (Spare a second of studio-audience silence for no matter poor undergrad analysis assistant was compelled to sit down by way of these 7,467 jokes.) In fact, there’s no cause Leno shouldn’t have gone after Clinton greater than Bush if he wished to—simply as there’s no cause why Kimmel, Colbert, or Fallon shouldn’t go after Trump greater than anybody else. Neither is a spreadsheet evaluation of 33,000 jokes actually obligatory to determine that Leno has all the time been a center-right comic. As he himself has mentioned, “Individuals can sort of work out your politics in the event that they’re paying consideration.”
Leno’s right-leaning present usually topped Letterman’s within the rankings. The liberal slant of present late-night has rather a lot to do with the deeply unpopular insurance policies of President Trump and the viewing demographic that’s stayed with late-night programing on community tv. It’s not as if comedy itself is getting extra liberal or leftist. The podcaster-comedians who helped Trump get elected tilt rightward, and the present success of Greg Gutfeld and continued success of Invoice Maher don’t remotely recommend that conservative views can’t catch a break within the comedy world.
Even when a Colbert or Kimmel went after Democrats extra, would it not come throughout as truthful and balanced? After watching Colbert since his nice Colbert Report days and Kimmel dropped at tears on the information of Trump’s reelection, would you consider that they’re additionally fuming mad at Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries for his or her liberal excesses? Perhaps they do have some cause to snipe at them—like Schumer’s principally ineffectual opposition to Trump or Jeffries’s refusal to only embrace Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral marketing campaign—however that sort of materials is hardly the GOP-friendly “viewpoint variety” that Leno (or Trump) needs to see.
When Colbert moved from Comedy Central to CBS in 2015, he did attempt to tone down his left-leaning Colbert Report sensibility—a transfer that netted him so-so rankings. When he went again to political humor, usually aimed toward Trump, Colbert’s rankings went up, and it took him to the number-one time slot. Within the excellent submit–Equity Doctrine market of concepts that the Reagan Revolution gave us, that’s precisely what was imagined to occur. And true to type, modern-day Republicans wish to gerrymander late night time.
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It’s additionally value noting that defining Leno’s reign as a right-leaning joke machine on late-night isn’t merely a matter of touting up the ultimate depend of anti-Bush and anti-Clinton jokes. Take, as an illustration, Leno’s relentless slut-shaming on the expense of Monica Lewinsky. In his personal gauzy remembrance, Leno was a voice for truthful play and civility. Again when Leno first started touting comedic civility within the Trump period, John Oliver threw a montage of his personal Lewinsky jokes again at him, as a result of Leno wasn’t any extra civil then than he was bipartisan. Leno actually wasn’t alone in going after Lewinsky—Maher, Letterman, and Maureen Dowd, amongst many others, beat up on her. The distinction is that Leno has a specific expertise for dressing up his merciless streak in a folksy model of “Didja hear this?” water-cooler banter.
Nor was Lewinsky the one girl on the receiving finish of a barrage of Leno’s conservative punching-down jokes: There was Stella Liebeck. That identify is basically forgotten now, however Liebeck was the 79-year-old girl on the heart of the McDonald’s hot-coffee lawsuit. In 1992, Liebeck acquired third-degree burns when a cup of scorching McDonald’s espresso fell in her lap whereas she sat within the passenger seat of a automotive. She later acknowledged that she fumbled the espresso, however the excessive warmth brought on her to be hospitalized for eight days with burns that required in depth pores and skin grafts. McDonald’s knew of greater than 700 prospects who suffered such burns from spilling its espresso. When the corporate refused to cowl her hundreds of {dollars} in medical prices, she went to court docket. A choose initially discovered McDonald’s answerable for a symbolic judgment of $2.9 million (the quantity of two days of espresso gross sales for the chain), which was rapidly decreased. The true story, together with her hospitalization and that she wasn’t driving when it occurred, by no means fairly pierced the popular culture—thanks in no small half to Leno.
Leno’s intuition wasn’t to go after McDonald’s for promoting 190-degree espresso in low cost cups that routinely scald individuals. As a substitute, his take was {that a} mind-numbingly silly Liebeck wished McDonald’s to pay her hundreds of thousands for her personal lack of frequent sense. Leno helped flip her right into a poster little one for frivolous lawsuits and grifters. As he sniped one night time, “Now she claims she broke her nostril on the sneeze-guard at Sizzler trying on the chick peas!” Liebeck’s lawyer even tried explaining the precise case to Leno within the hope that the late-night host may alter his jokes to cease portraying Liebeck as knowledgeable sufferer submitting a frivolous lawsuit. Leno wasn’t —he’d discovered comedy gold and so confined Liebeck to the standing of nationwide punch line to mine it.
If Leno’s first comedic reflex is to facet with a multibillion-dollar fast-food chain over a scalded grandma, it’s no shock that he sides with our babbling dictator president when he feels late-night comics are too imply to him.
Ben Schwartz
Ben Schwartz is an Emmy-nominated author whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vainness Truthful, The New Republic, The New York Instances, and lots of different publications. His Bluesky tackle is @benschwartz.bluesky.social.
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