The act is over: CBS recently informed comedian Stephen Colbert that his stint as host of The Late Show will conclude in the spring of next year.

The announcement arrived in lieu of CBS reportedly losing some $40 million dollars a year on the show, while critics of the network’s decision claim the cut was “political.”

Colbert, once regarded as an evenhanded comedian, has in recent years aimed most of his jokes and commentary against one political party, and one political figure, in particular. His evident liberal bias has alienated a huge chunk of the country, or at least, those who don’t live on Manhattan’s 5^th Avenue. But the CBS announcement also signals a bigger trend in the media ecosystem. Longstanding news organizations and other legacy platforms and outlets are downsizing, defunding, or merging with new parent companies.

The Washington Post, for instance, has lost over 250,000 subscribers and hemorrhaged millions of dollars in the process. Bezos, according to reporting by Racket News editor Matt Taibbi, has offered contract buyouts to a crop of the Post’s top columnists. ABC, CNN, and MSNBC are suffering similar demises. Taibbi writes,

The press is a trust business, and these monetary losses are symbolic of a plunge in confidence caused by a critical mass of revelations about their horrid performances from “Crossfire Hurricane” to COVID.

Colbert’s problem, at least in the end, isn’t that he has leftist viewpoints, but that he let his biases so overshadow his program that he parted ways with the original goal of late-night comedy, which is to poke fun at both sides of the political aisle. Many of the figures who lamented his cancellation said that he always “told truth to power.” The eulogies sounded more like what we might hear in the wake of the loss of a great civil rights leader or political activist, not the dissolution of a late-night comedy show.

There were occasions when Colbert even misunderstood his own in-person audience during his show. For instance, when Colbert announced that Donald Trump had fired FBI director James Comey, the crowd, to Colbert’s befuddlement, erupted in cheers. Comey, at that time, was held in liberal disdain for his dealings with Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. However, apparently Colbert assumed that because Trump fired Comey, it was automatically condemnable.

On another occasion, Colbert interviewed CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins and prefaced his question by saying, “Now I know you guys are objective over there, that you just report the news as it is,” to which the crowd noticeably chuckled. They thought it was a joke. Colbert, however, seems to have intended it to be taken seriously.

“Late night is one of my favorite punching bags,” says journalist Emily Jashinsky. “I just think it’s a great illustration of what’s happened with media in general.”

Jashinsky further explains the strange irony percolating in the current media industry, particularly within historic newspapers like The New York Times. The Times, like Colbert’s show, lost parts of its audience due to liberal bias but still likes to think of itself as an objective, fair-minded publication. The newspaper may still churn out different opinion and viewpoints (one thinks of the conservative columnist Ross Douthat, or centrist David Brooks), but it remains much friendlier to the progressive zeitgeist. Douthat would probably be the first to admit this. Thus, Jashinsky thinks it would be far better for legacy media outlets to admit their biases, much like Fox News, The Daily Caller, and Breitbart do on the conservative end, rather than hold onto the notion that they are trying to appeal to the entire country. My question is: Can journalistic objectivity ever be regained in today’s fractured, highly online culture? Also, can comedians just stick to being funny and make jokes about everybody, not just one side?

We are certainly living through a time of massive change in media, journalism, and entertainment. The internet, shortening attention spans, and the dominance of apps like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram probably have something to do with longform media’s struggles as well. Independent media sites, like Substack, and solo podcasters and influencers, on the other hand, have learned the ropes of this new age of communication and are garnering big audiences. The ability of the American citizenry to balance news and commentary sites and think for itself, then, seems all the more important. There is a lot to choose from these days, and it’s easy to get “information overload.” One thing is clear, though. The old media gatekeepers keep struggling for air.