McDermott: Self-censorship — and the other kind — in the post

A friend and fellow journalist texted me the other day, with unsettling matter-of-factness: “Have you started self-censoring yet?”

Self-censorship, of course, is different from the classic definition of censorship, in which government steps in and forcibly stifles free expression. These days, the former is being employed to prevent the latter. Which doesn’t necessarily make it less onerous.

Let’s dispense with the fiction that ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show on Wednesday as an independent business decision. That might be plausible if not for the fact that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr publicly called for that suspension — literally just hours before ABC announced it — in retaliation for comments Kimmel made on his show regarding the Sept. 10 as