‘Hacks,’ Colbert, and the Case for an Independent Media


In the latest season of Hacks, Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance fights back to the top, becoming the first woman to host late night. Her talk show even makes it to number one by thanks in large part to head writer and surrogate daughter, Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder). Caught up in the collateral damage from the network’s coverup of an alleged sexually abusive actor, Vance has to choose between the show and Daniels. Spoiler alert: she walks off the set having chosen Daniels and integrity at which point she is fired and blacklisted. As a consequence, we find later, the whole late night talk show ends up shuttered.

It’s comedy. But, after CBS’ shock announcement on Friday that it was shuttering its late night talk show and firing its star it feels more real than reality. No, there isn’t any star with sexual misbehavior, but CBS execs have laid off a satirical critic of the president while its parent company is calling for political permission for the lucrative Paramount Skydance merger.

Coming in the same week that the Republicans of the House and Senate voted to take away funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — including breaking the government’s word about money already promised — it’s been a body blow to Americans’ who value an independent media. Stephen Colbert and those who think that politicians should not censor the entertainment industry have had their noses bloodied as have those who believe in providing “universal access to content and services that educate, inform, foster curiosity, and promote civil discourse essential to American society.”

We’re seeing a chilling convergence: the corporatization and politicization of American media. Of course private individuals can continue to invest in PBS, NPR, and the rich ecosystem of not-for-profit media. But with this legislation, Republican politicians have withdrawn the support of the American people for shows by the people for the people. There’s only one model now, shows that sell “at” the people. And if money can pull the levers of information — as Paramount shows it can — unscrupulous politicians can make a mockery of a free press.

And, though we wait to see what Colbert himself will do, no one’s walking off set in protest.

Hacks is a comedy, but at its core, the show is a love letter to comedy’s role as a tool of self-scrutiny. It gets that real satire doesn’t come from cheap shots or punching down, it comes from finding and telling the truth. Deborah’s rebirth on the late-night stage only happens once she refuses to let donors, execs, or algorithms tell her what jokes she can tell.

And that’s why the assault on public media — and on independent voices like Colbert — is so dangerous. Unlike network news or late-night comedy under corporate umbrellas, NPR and PBS are, at least in theory, insulated from partisan control. Their charters compel them to serve the public, not advertisers. Which is probably why they’ve long been a thorn in the side of those such as oil execs or unscrupulous politicians who prefer “alternative facts” to actual ones.

Of course, PBS and NPR aren’t perfect. But their mere existence offers a counterweight to the profit-driven echo chambers elsewhere across the internet. Ken Burns doesn’t need to please shareholders. Fresh Air can run a 45-minute interview without a single AI-generated talking point. Frontline can spend a year investigating how billionaires dodge taxes. And they can do that without mining viewers preferences and undermining their privacy. Try finding that on TikTok.

The firing of Colbert, meanwhile, is less about late-night ratings and more about reminding everyone who’s boss. Colbert does not just make observational comedy, he jokes about current affairs, like referring to Paramount’s $16 million payment to Donald Trump as a “big fat bribe.” Because, whatever has actually been negotiated about the Paramount-Skydance deal, the public evidence stinks. Colbert, like Deborah Vance, has not been afraid to bite the hand that signs the checks. In Hacks, that kind of courage earns the respect of audiences and critics alike. But on the show, as with real life, it also gets you replaced.

The takeaway is clear. We need independent media that will describe the world as it is, not as some politicians want it to be. That means a corporate media not beholden to politicians, and it means a fully funded public media — not because it’s perfect, but because it’s not for sale. With Congress defunding PBS and NPR, and political factions leaning on corporate execs to fire the Colberts of the world, we are losing more than good shows. We are losing a media ecosystem where, regardless of profit, truth can survive.

As well as editing Book and Film Globe — an independent for-profit website — Dan Friedman consults for a wide variety of independent nonprofit media groups.