The brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10 sent a shockwave through our country and exposed the rot at the heart of modern media. Hundreds of Americans watched a conservative voice gunned down while speaking to young people, and the immediate scramble to shape the narrative revealed who in the press truly values truth and who values a cheap political hit.
As law enforcement moved quickly, investigators arrested a suspect and prosecutors laid out a charging document that paints a clear picture of a politically motivated attack driven by hatred toward Kirk’s views. The filing and witness accounts suggest the killer had become radicalized and targeted Kirk because of his public conservatism, making this far more than a random act of violence — it was an attempted political purge.
Instead of sober coverage, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel used the tragedy to sling broad insinuations about conservatives, even invoking the phrase “MAGA gang” on air, a stunt that earned him a temporary suspension from ABC and deserved condemnation from both sides for exploiting the moment. That kind of reckless framing matters; it pushed a false narrative into the national conversation hours after a man had been killed and before facts were properly known.
Andrew Kolvet, who confirmed the news for Turning Point USA and served as executive producer for The Charlie Kirk Show, demanded a straight-up apology — not theater — from Kimmel, calling him out for spreading what Kolvet and others say was a lie that aided the left’s cynical effort to rewrite the story. Kolvet insisted the shooter was “of the left,” criticized Kimmel as an “unrepentant liar,” and warned that left-leaning media would cover and excuse violence against conservatives if allowed to do so.
Kolvet’s outrage points to a larger, undeniable problem: corporate networks enjoy massive privileges and taxpayer-supported advantages and therefore owe the public a baseline of honesty and restraint — not political theater that inflames and misleads. When hosts weaponize tragedy to score points and their employers limp through symbolic punishments, the public rightly smells a double standard and loses faith in institutions that claim to serve the common good.
Conservatives shouldn’t be silent about media malpractice. This is about safety, accountability, and protecting a civil society where disagreement is settled in debate, not with bullets. Calls for regulatory scrutiny and advertiser pressure are not censorship when they respond to demonstrable lies and reckless conduct that risk more violence; they are checks on a self-governing marketplace of ideas that has gone dangerously unmoored.
Patriots and everyday Americans still want the truth and justice for Charlie Kirk, not spin or sanctimony from celebrities and networks that profit from outrage. If we are to honor his memory, we must demand rigorous journalism, full accountability, and an unflinching national conversation about the hatred fueling political violence — otherwise, we risk letting the lie become the new version of history.
