Rob Weisbord, COO and President of Local Media at Sinclair, insisted that the local TV station giant’s recent clash with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was “never about the First Amendment.”

In meetings with ABC after pulling the show from its affiliates, the company emphasized its “heritage of serving our communities with trusted content,” Weisbord recalled. An FCC license requires Sinclair to “not bring any biases with us” and being “fact-checked and telling you the truth.”

Kimmel, who was yanked (and later returned to the air) after an offhand joke about Donald Trump supporters’ political maneuvering after the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Initially, Sinclair said it would put a Kirk tribute special in Kimmel’s timeslot, but it later backtracked on that pla

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