A Letter to Stephen Colbert
By Ben Meiselas
Dear Stephen,
This is Ben Meiselas, founder of the MeidasTouch Network.
What CBS did to you last night by censoring your interview with Texas State Representative James Talarico was disgraceful.
When a major American broadcast network caves to Donald Trump’s pressure and pulls a lawful, substantive interview off the air, that’s not editorial discretion. That’s intimidation. That’s what you expect from state-controlled media, not from a network that claims to value journalism.
Let’s call this what it is. Trump and his allies are fascists. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr postures and applies pressure. And CBS folds. Instead of defending its talent, instead of defending free expression, it chooses access and self-preservation.
You showed them they don’t control you.
You put the interview on YouTube, and it was electric. Sharp. Substantive. Fearless. Talarico was compelling. You were at your best. And the audience showed up in huge numbers without corporate gatekeepers standing in the way. No regime filters. No executive panic. Just truth, humor, and people hungry for authenticity.
CBS would rather protect its relationship with Trump than protect the public. That’s the reality. Much of corporate media has decided it’s safer to appease authoritarian politics than confront them.
That’s exactly why MeidasTouch exists: to fight back.
On digital, we are beating legacy outlets. We are outpacing cable. We are competing head-to-head with the biggest platforms in the world by doing one simple thing: refusing to bend the knee. We speak plainly. We call out corruption. We don’t flinch when Trump and MAGA get angry or attack us.
At the MeidasTouch Network, you would have full editorial control. No executive veto. No political interference. Just you, your voice, and a massive community that wants bold conversations every night.
Imagine interviews like the one with Talarico every day. Imagine building a late-night platform that doesn’t panic when Trump lashes out. Imagine creating something designed to fight back, not cave.
Your CBS contract will expire soon. Their loss can be your gain. And it can be ours too at the MeidasTouch Network.
We are expanding. We are growing fast. And we are just getting started.
Stephen, the future is not corporate regime media. The future is independent media powered by community. It’s fearless creators backed by communities like the Meidas Mighty.
When you’re ready, we’re ready.
Let’s build it.
And to our subscribers and paid subscribers who make this growth possible, thank you. You are the reason we can even have this conversation.
Keep fighting, Stephen. The next chapter will be bigger than anything CBS ever allowed.
Ben Meiselas
Founder, MeidasTouch Network
P.S. If you’re reading this and you’re not yet a paid subscriber, now is the time. Independent media only works if this community stands together.
CBS pulling that interview is the clearest possible illustration of how authoritarian capture works without a single law being broken.
No government order. No official censorship. Just a corporation calculating that appeasing power is safer than defending journalism, and making the rational decision within a captured incentive structure. That’s how free press dies: not with a government shutdown order but with executives deciding access matters more than truth.
Colbert putting it on YouTube and getting massive numbers without corporate gatekeepers proves the audience is there.
The question is whether enough independent platforms can scale fast enough to replace legacy media that’s already decided compliance is the business model.
—Johan
We need smart, intelligent, energetic people like you Stephen to fight back. Please consider joining the Medias Touch Network and continuing the battle for democracy.