Parker Molloy writing for The New Republic: Stephen Colbert’s Cancellation Is Exactly What It Looks Like

This is the same CBS News that has already seen a wave of resignations over editorial independence. 60 Minutes showrunner Bill Owens quit earlier this year, saying he no longer had the ability “to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.” CBS News president Wendy McMahon followed soon after for similar reasons.

The Colbert cancellation is just the latest domino to fall. Since Trump’s election, CBS has been systematically abandoning any pretense of journalistic independence.

Yesterday I wrote briefly about Colbert losing his show at CBS after 10 years, and I viewed it in a bit of a vacuum. While I do generally keep up with the news and can call myself an expert in things like Apple and payments, I'm not always up on everything going on in media or politics. I wrote that article before really seeing any other commentary, but since then I've read a good deal more and of boy, it would seem context changes the implications of this story quite a bit.

Maybe it is all CBS said it is, and it's weird they would give him 10 more months on the air if they were just trying to get him out for any recent comments, but it absolutely doesn't look good for CBS here. It sure looks like it's because he's a massively well-known personality who openly mocks Trump every night on national TV and his parent company wants to appease the President, who they need to bless the merger they want to get done this year. Maybe that's not it, but if it was, this is exactly what it would look like.