President Says Broadcasters Should Lose Licenses for Criticizing Him

The New York Times Archive – Goebbels Ends Careers of Five ‘Aryan’ Actors Who Made Witticisms About the Nazi Regime: “BERLIN, Feb. 4, 1939: “Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels today ended the professional careers of five “Aryan” actors and cabaret announcers by expelling them from the Reich’s Chamber of Culture on the grounds that “in their public appearances they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance in public and especially to party comrades.” The five include perhaps the best known German stage comedians who survived previous Chamber of Culture purges and still dared to indulge in political witticisms—namely, Werner Finck, Peter Sachse and “The Three Rulands,” represented by Helmuth Buth, Wilhelm Meissner and Manfred Dlugi. Their expulsion means that they are henceforth forbidden to appear before the public in Germany. Besides motivating this action in an official communiqué, Dr. Goebbels also publishes a long article in the Voelkischer Beobachter in which he denounces them as “brazen, impertinent, arrogant and tactless” and generally imitators and successors to Jews. Simultaneously he denounces the “society rabble that followed them with thundering applause—parasitic scum, inhabiting our luxury streets, that seems to have only the task of proving with how little brains people can get along and even acquire money and prominence.” As regards the details of the “crimes” of which the five are accused, Dr. Goebbels mentions that they made political witticisms about the colonial problem, the Four-Year Plan and Chancellor Hitler’s monumental building program and one of them even raised the question of whether there was any humor left in Germany today. What amused the public most, however, and presumably roiled the National Socialist authorities most—although Dr. Goebbels does not mention it—is that they deftly, but unmistakably, caricatured some gestures, poses and physical characteristics of National Socialist leaders—sometimes with bon mots that made the rounds of the country. Dr. Goebbels says that the National Socialists proved during their struggle for power that they had a keen sense of humor that could kill opponents with ridicule. But as National Socialism proposes to remain in power 2,000 years it has neither the time nor the patience to apply that method to the “miserable literati.” If the anti-German press of Paris, London and New York, Dr. Goebbels says, or the democratic governments in Western Europe, should now again complain about the lack of freedom of opinion in Germany it does not matter, “for after all during the last year the Fuehrer reconquered 10,000,000 Germans for the Reich.”

• See also The New York Times: “Networks threatened: President Trump said he believed federal regulators should revoke broadcast licenses over late-night hosts who speak overly negatively about him, a day after ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” after pressure from the Federal Communications Commission chairman. Congressional Democrats said they planned to introduce long-shot legislation to bolster legal protections for people targeted by the president for speaking freely…”
• See also Axios: The New York Times is confident it can defeat President Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit, the paper’s executive editor Joseph Kahn said Thursday at an Axios Media Trends Live event. The paper is aggressively defending itself at a time critics accuse some other media organizations of not standing up to the administration. “Well he’s wrong on the facts. He’s wrong on the law and we’ll fight it, and we’ll win,” he told Axios’ Sara Fischer. “I don’t think the president of the United States should be suing media organizations for libel, full stop. I think that’s wrong,” Kahn said. “But I especially think it’s wrong when he’s wrong on the facts, when he’s wrong about the story, when he misunderstands the protections that the law offers to media organizations under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of libel law, and I think it’s incumbent on us to fight that to the end.”
• See also Politico: “Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension from the late-night airwaves has thrust lawmakers, government officials and the president to the forefront of the debate over free speech while also deepening the partisan divide amid the fallout over conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing. Since Disney announced Wednesday night that it would pull Kimmel’s show indefinitely over the comedian’s comments about Kirk’s slaying, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr — who last night pressured ABC and local broadcasters to “to take action” against Kimmel — on Thursday morning defended his decision and accused the late-night show host of misleading Americans; House Democratic leadership in turn called on him to resign; and President Donald Trump told reporters in the U.K. that Kimmel was fired over bad ratings.”