Dowd Accuses Media of Double Standard Praising Kimmel While Ignoring His Firing

Matthew Dowd’s Meltdown: When Media Elites Think They’re the Victim

• Media elites crave the spotlight and resent when attention shifts away from them.
• Matthew Dowd’s complaints reveal entitlement and selective outrage inside cable news.
• Conservative readers should note the double standard in how networks treat similar controversies.

Matthew Dowd, once a familiar face on MSNBC, lost his job after blaming rhetoric for the assassination attempt on Charlie Kirk, and he’s furious that his firing didn’t become the center of a media frenzy. Now that Jimmy Kimmel has been suspended for related comments, Dowd publicly complains that networks are crying for Kimmel but not for him. That sense of injured self-importance is worth unpacking.

Dowd’s argument boils down to this: my firing matters more than his suspension because I said something controversial first. From a Republican perspective, that’s not humility, it’s hubris dressed up as righteous indignation. Conservatives see a long pattern where left-leaning figures get protection or performative concern, while dissenting voices are punished or tossed aside.

The core issue here isn’t sympathy or lack of it; it’s consistency. Networks and hosts who parrot cancel culture for some but shield others expose a bias that goes beyond honest disagreement. If you care about free speech and fair treatment, you should call out that double standard when you see it.

Dowd appeared on Katie Couric’s YouTube channel to gripe that MSNBC spent wall-to-wall time lamenting Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension but said nothing about his firing. He argued that everyone rallied around Kimmel while ignoring him, even though both were embroiled in controversy stemming from comments about Charlie Kirk. That’s the quote that’s getting headlines — and eye rolls.

Matthew Dowd Gripes About Network Melting Down Over Jimmy Kimmel But Not Him

Fired MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd on journalist Katie Couric’s YouTube channel Friday complained about how his former network was covering Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension, but not his firing.

Dowd was fired on Sept. 10 after appearing to suggest on “Katy Tur Reports” the same day that Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric naturally led to him being shot. Dowd said on Couric’s YouTube channel that MSNBC pundits were providing wall-to-wall alarmist coverage about Kimmel, whose suspension also followed comments about Kirk, while ignoring him.

“All the shows are talking about how this is awful for America that Jimmy Kimmel was indefinitely suspended,” Dowd said. “And isn’t this awful for America and it’s a chilling thing for the First Amendment? They’re saying that on every platform. Not one person has said anything about me.”

“They’ve all gone out of their way to say, ‘Isn’t this horrible what happened to Jimmy Kimmel?’ — even including Morning Joe [Scarborough] and Mika [Brzezinski], who went after me after the show, basically saying they were glad I was terminated,” he continued.

Here’s the video:

At the end of the day, Dowd’s public tantrum does more to highlight media hypocrisy than to elicit sympathy. Conservative readers should recognize the pattern: when the left’s own falter, the response is scripted outrage; when critics stumble, it’s condemnation and exile. Call it out, and don’t pretend wounded pride is the same as principled silence.