Censoring Stephen Colbert’s interviews is bad regardless of your political party

On Tuesday morning, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert posted an interview on its YouTube page with Texas state representative James Talarico, who is running for Senate in 2026. The segment did not air on Monday night’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert because, as Colbert put it in the opening of the show, “we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers that we could not have him on the broadcast.”

According to Colbert, CBS lawyers feared retaliation from the Trump administration and FCC chairman Brendan Carr over what would be seen as partisanship content without equal broadcast time slotted for Republican candidates. Rather than risk ire, CBS censored the interview. Colbert’s explanation of the decision, and the interview with Talarico, went immediately viral. The Streisand Effect gonna Streisand Effect.

Colbert interviewing a politician — or anyone for that matter — is not regularly in Polygon’s purview, unless it’s Magneto actor Ian McKellan delivering an absolute banger of a Shakespearean soliloquy on live TV. But five months after ABC and Disney yanked Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air over political pressure (only to reinstate the comedian a week later), I’m struck that massive networks would continue to play this game, and that censorship as a form of punishment in the United States continues to be a viable option to appease the TV-obsessed administration. It’s weird. It’s unacceptable! I feel compelled to state this for the record because it’s not part of Polygon’s values and I don’t believe our readers agree with the practice.

Let’s go a step further: I don’t think Polygon’s haters approve of this either. Since our inception in 2012, Polygon has been on trial in the court of opinion countless times, with critics decrying our supposed partisan politics and wondering why we didn’t get around to reviewing X, Y, Z, and that it must be for diabolical reasons. There’s no defending against paranoia and the grumblings occurring in dark corners of the internet, but I will say, in my eight years at Polygon, we have never censored an opinion over outside pressure or our own unease over how it might be received. We discuss and debate what we need to cover, how we cover it with journalistic diligence and the resources we have at our disposal, and occasionally consult with lawyers to ensure we’re navigating murky waters to the best of our abilities. I don’t totally blame CBS’ legal team for the spineless demand that Colbert censor himself — their job is to avoid lawsuits. But like Colbert, we don’t have to sit here and take it. In fact, we can yell about it.

I know Polygon readers and people-who-have-sworn-to-never-read-Polygon-again alike love to yell because I too exist on the internet. So I am hoping there is common ground on this issue. Whether you are a devout reader of Polygon’s award-worthy guides (bless you) or a perpetually pissed-off “anti-woke” gamer who would rather vibe code a AI-generated Kotaku knockoff than read real journalism, I imagine the idea of a political party weaponizing a national agency to censor any voice rattles you to the core. Whether it’s an atomic act of blasting a TV show off the air or sniping segments of a late-night show from national broadcast or social media platforms bending the knee by limiting “political” content or agents sacking journalists on the street in order to contain reporting of their actions, it’s all censorship.

That’s bad, right? Can we all agree on that? Let’s get on the same page.