Kimmel’s comeback. Yanked from the airwaves amid criticism of his comments about the assassination of reactionary activist Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel’s show will return to ABC’s airwaves tonight.
■ In a vague statement that failed to explain the terms—if any—of Kimmel’s return, corporate parent Disney credits the decision only to “thoughtful conversations.”
■ Columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls that “bulltwat”: “The blowback against Disney has been hurricane level.”
■ After what Poynter’s Tom Jones calls “a week unlike any other in recent history when it comes to …free speech,” lots of questions remain.
■ A source says Kimmel plans to address the controversy head-on in his monologue tonight …
■ … and lawyer/columnist Robert Hubbell cheers: “Let’s give Jimmy Kimmel Super-Bowl-level ratings for his return. Let’s make it impossible for Disney to confuse cause and effect.”
■ Late-night critic Bill Carter: “The country will not be fully restored to sanity, fairness and the values it has lived by for 250 years. But it will have, finally, someone who doesn’t capitulate at the first sign of a bully’s ugly pressure—even when the bully is the president of the United States.”
■ Jon Stewart at The Daily Show: “The campaign that you all launched—pretending that you were going to cancel Hulu while secretly racing through four seasons of Only Murders in the Building—really worked.”
■ Stephen Colbert, whose show is still set for cancellation next spring: “Once more, I am the only martyr in late night!”
■ Contrarian Jennifer Rubin: The whole affair puts the lie to the cliché “liberal Hollywood.”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: The Kimmel battle’s far from over.
■ At least one of the two broadcast chains that pressed for Kimmel’s dismissal—Sinclair, co-owner of the Cubs’ Marquee Sports Network—says it won’t air Kimmel’s show.
■ Cub Matt Shaw missed Sunday’s game to attend Kirk’s funeral.
■ Columnist Christopher Armitage: “We brought Kimmel back in six days. Now let’s destroy Sinclair’s censorship machine.”
■ Correction: Contrary to an item in yesterday’s Chicago Public Square, Sinclair didn’t air a Kirk memorial during Kimmel’s slot—instead releasing it just on YouTube.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn rejects a Tribune editorial decrying teachers’ “extremist” social media posts about Kirk: “It … suggests that to get into teaching, one must forfeit one’s right to free expression 24/7.”
■ “Science Guy” Bill Nye says NBC/Comcast-owned Peacock killed an episode about authoritarianism for his series on world-ending disasters, The End is Nye: “I was going to be shot by firing squad.”
The real Tylenol killer. In remarks that one bioethicist calls dangerous, President Trump yesterday told pregnant women a dozen times, “Don’t take Tylenol” …
■ … in the process struggling repeatedly to pronounce the word acetaminophen …
■ … and flying in the face of decades of scientific evidence.
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion proprietor Jeff Tiedrich: “Dumbest doofus ever is gonna cure all the autisms.”
■ Columnist and pediatrician Dr. Zachary Rubin explains what Trump got wrong.
■ Wikipedia recaps the unresolved mystery of the 1982 Chicago-area Tylenol murders.
■ A committee of Illinois health leaders has voted unanimously to recommend the latest COVID-19 shots for all adults and many kids.
Trump’s ‘Watergate tapes’? Public Notice columnist Lisa Needham says one of the president’s social media posts over the weekend “made clear that he sees no problem whatsoever with openly calling for the most mind-bendingly corrupt behavior imaginable.”
■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein: Trump yesterday “designated Antifa as a ‘domestic terrorist organization’—the first such designation ever, as far as I can tell.”
■ In her first live TV interview since the election, the woman Trump beat—former Vice President Kamala Harris—says she wishes she’d done more sooner to get Joe Biden off the ticket.
■ Variety critic Daniel D’Addario found the sitdown disappointing.
‘I swung my camera forward and saw a man who was carrying an American flag walk into the huge cloud of gas.’ Tribune photographer Stacey Wescott describes how she captured a viral image of Friday’s protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding center in Broadview.
■ Video obtained by the Sun-Times shows an immigration officer who the feds reported “seriously injured” before he shot and killed a Mexican immigrant said at the time that his injuries were “nothing major.”
‘So you don’t think the facts matter?’ A Ronald Reagan-appointed federal appeals court judge yesterday challenged the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division on the Trump administration’s unusual decision to enter the legal fight over Illinois’ assault weapons ban …
■ … signed into law after the 2022 massacre at Highland Park’s Fourth of July parade.
Chicago’s lead menace lingers. WBEZ, Grist and Inside Climate News report that millions of dollars in loan money to replace lead pipes pumping water into Chicago homes remain unspent.
■ Find out if your home’s affected by searching this city website.
■ Author Cory Doctorow spotlights “the enshittification of solar (and how to stop it).”
AI is transforming reporting. As ChatGPT and its siblings become a staple of higher education, the Reuters Institute surveys the challenges posed to journalism education by plagiarism and fake quotes—and the promise of new opportunities.
■ Popular Information: TikTok’s U.S. operations are set to be acquired by a billionaire surveillance enthusiast.
■ With even kindergartners now using tablets in the classroom, Mother Prompter columnist* Nicole Meyerson rounds up tips and resources for parents hoping to ensure digital safety for kids at every stage of childhood.
■ Sign up now for a special—free—event for Chicago Public Square readers Nov. 3: An online introduction to AI tools and fact-checking help for regular people.
‘One of the best daily emails. … Highly recommend subscribing.’ Those kind words about Square yesterday on Bluesky from former local TV news exec, reporter and producer Jennifer Schulze brought in a few new readers.
■ You can help add a few more by recommending Square to a friend or five.
■ And sign up for her email newsletter, Indistinct Chatter, while you’re at it.
* And your Square columnist’s daughter-in-law.
