Patriot Brief

• Jennifer Welch called for a coordinated boycott of CBS over a conservative town hall.

• She framed standard journalism as propaganda while urging advertiser pressure.

• The episode reflects growing intolerance for ideological deviation on the left.

Jennifer Welch’s call to boycott CBS wasn’t really about journalism standards or public interest priorities. It was about control. By demanding economic pressure on a major network for airing a town hall she dislikes, Welch made the argument plainly: media outlets are acceptable only when they reinforce the “correct” political narrative. Anything else gets labeled propaganda.

What’s striking is how casually Welch invoked advertiser intimidation while accusing others of authoritarianism. Encouraging financial punishment to silence coverage isn’t grassroots accountability — it’s coercion dressed up as activism. The irony is hard to miss, especially coming from someone who presents herself as a defender of democracy and free expression.

Her framing also relied on a familiar sleight of hand. Instead of engaging with what was actually said in the town hall, Welch dismissed the entire event as illegitimate by association. That approach avoids debate and replaces it with moral disqualification. Once a speaker is branded unacceptable, discussion ends.

The broader pattern matters more than this one outburst. Calls to “boycott,” “dismantle,” or economically punish media outlets are becoming routine responses to ideological discomfort. That’s not media criticism — it’s an effort to enforce uniformity. And when political movements start treating dissenting coverage as an offense worthy of erasure, the problem isn’t the network. It’s the mindset demanding obedience.

From Western Journal:

Popular left-wing podcaster Jennifer Welch, seen by many as the Democrats’ answer to Joe Rogan, demanded a boycott of CBS on Monday, saying progressives should seek to make an example of the network after it aired a town hall with Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk.

She did a town hall with CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss that aired Saturday, during which she criticized those who justified the assassination of her husband and TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk. Welch claimed Weiss was turning CBS News into a “propaganda channel.”

“Okay. So during this Bari Weiss CBS takeover and her first town hall is to roll out Erica Kirk. Mind you, we have so many problems in our country right now. You have a massive financial, uh, economic burdens for so many working-class Americans,” Welch said. “You have inflation out the wazoo, health care, all of these things. and she is bringing out Erika Kirk and it’s all they’ve covered for a week straight at CBS News.”

“And listen up, listener, we have agency and we have autonomy,” Welch continued. “Everybody needs to boycott CBS News. They do not get to just come in and say journalism doesn’t matter anymore, we are going to do a propaganda channel. Well, they can do it, but they can’t do it without our money. They cannot do it without our money. They cannot do it if we apply pressure to those advertisers. All of these fascists and all of these oligarchs think they control us and it’s our turn to remind them that we control them. Without our money, you’re nothing. Absolutely nothing. Look at what happened with Jimmy Kimmel.”

CBS News and Weiss did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

ABC suspended Kimmel on Sept. 17 after broadcast station ownership groups Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting, which own dozens of ABC affiliates, announced they would not air “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in the wake of comments the late-night host made about the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Erika Kirk told Jesse Watters in an interview that aired Nov. 5 on Fox News that she told Sinclair Broadcasting she didn’t want a coerced apology from Kimmel.

“[ABC] asked, I haven’t really told anybody this, so they asked, ‘Do you want Jimmy to give you an apology? Do you want to be on a show? How can we make it right?’” Erika Kirk told Watters, noting that Sinclair had also been in touch with her. “Through our team, I responded, I said, ‘Tell them thank you, we received their note. This is not our issue, not our mess. If you want to say I’m sorry to someone who’s grieving, go right ahead. But if that’s not in your heart, don’t do it. I don’t want it. I don’t need it.’”

Jennifer Welch: “Boycott CBS News. We need to completely dismantle them. They have overnight turned into a huge propaganda channel that is here to shill for this fascist regime and for a war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s just complete and utter bullshit.” pic.twitter.com/tMaCK7FRKk

— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) December 17, 2025

Both Nexstar and Sinclair resumed airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” although Sinclair had indicated it would insist on an apology from the host to Erika Kirk in a statement issued when it initially removed Kimmel from the air.

Welch previously praised one “No Kings” protester who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and has also referred to White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller as a “Nazi Jew.”

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Photo Credit: (Bryan Bedder / Getty Images for GLAAD)