A co-star from "The Cosby Show" says there should be nuance when talking about Bill Cosby's career.

Cosby's iconic family sitcom aired from September 1984 to April 1992 and is frequently mentioned among the greatest shows of all time, including in TV Guide's top 50 shows list of 2002.

With Cosby since being accused of a plethora of sex crimes, networks pulled his show from the air and seemingly kept it off following an overturned conviction and release from prison in 2021.

Now, one of his former castmates is saying it's time to separate Cosby's personal life from his creative works.

'Black people pushed through the door, and now we're getting all colors.'

Appearing on an episode of actor Jamie Kennedy's "Hate to Break It to Ya" podcast, a former child actor and Disney star came to the defense of the 88-year-old's show, on which she starred.

"Separate the creator from the creation," Raven-Symoné said. The actress played Olivia Kendall on "The Cosby Show."

"That's just where I live because the creation changed America, changed television," she said of Cosby's family-oriented program.

Quoth the Raven

The 39-year-old, whose full name is Raven-Symoné Christina Pearman-Maday, has had a long and successful career appearing in countless sitcoms, while shining as a young adult in the Disney kid classic "That's So Raven," which had 100 episodes in the mid-2000s.

At the same time, Symoné did not excuse Cosby's alleged crimes on the podcast.

RELATED: Disney star gives bizarre take on Florida's parental rights bill: 'Should be a Don't Say Straight bill'

Photo By: Art Murphy/NBC) via Getty Images

After host Kennedy noted how many black people Cosby had provided jobs to, Symoné jumped in:

"He also has been accused of some horrific things," she added, before reiterating, "And that does not excuse, but that's his personal [life]. So personally, keep that there, and then business-wise, know what he did there as well. Like you said, both can live, and I think our culture is right to — don't do wrong. Don't do wrong personally. You just can't do wrong."

Color commentary

Kennedy and Symoné went back and forth on how great diversity is, with Symoné saying "thank goodness" to the idea of diversity being "protected" in the entertainment industry.

"Black people pushed through the door, and now we're getting all colors, all types, all backgrounds, and it's protected — thank goodness — now. So, it's mandatory in a way," she explained.

Kennedy agreed that diversity is a strength, pulling from his own experience living near "the hood" in Philadelphia.

Photo by Anna Webber/Getty Images for Teen Vogue

You don't say

The former "View" pundit has never been shy about broadcasting her opinions.

Before the 2016 election, Symoné said she would leave the country if Donald Trump became president.

"I'm going to move to Canada with my entire family. I already have my ticket," she said to then-cohost Whoopi Goldberg.

In 2022, she colloquially called for a "Don't Say Straight" bill to be drafted in Florida in response to a law that Democrats dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill. The term was born out of a misunderstanding of Florida law that barred teachers in the state from teaching about gender and sexuality with certain age groups.

Symoné is a lesbian and hosts a podcast with her wife, Miranda Maday. This is where Symoné reflected on commentary she made in 2014 when she said she was sick of being labeled.

"I don't want to be labeled gay," she said at the time, per ABC News. "I want to be labeled a human who loves humans."

She added, "I'm tired of being labeled — I'm an American. I'm not an African-American. I'm an American."

Symoné clarified in 2024 that she obviously knows where her ancestry lies and said that people had accused her of not considering herself black.

"When I am in another country, they don't say, 'Hey, look at that African-American over there.' They say, 'That's an American,' plain and simple."

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Red, white, and boo: Almost two-thirds of Americans now believe in ghosts

"I ain't afraid of no ghost."

Easy enough to say 40 years ago, when audiences delighted to the spectral pest control antics of Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Dan Aykroyd. You can't fear what isn't real, after all.

The show pioneered a tactic known as 'provocation.' This is when an investigator attempts to goad a spirit into manifesting by insulting it.

Things have changed. Since then, the proportion of Americans who believe in ghosts has surged 400%. Surveys indicate that nearly two-thirds of the population now hold supernatural beliefs, and 20% have reported seeing a ghost.

Entrepreneurial spirits

With roughly 50 million Americans purportedly having encountered a haunting, the business of ghost hunting has evolved into a profitable enterprise. It would appear that the invisible hand of the market really does exist.

As proof that even the ethereal cannot escape the iron law of supply and demand, paranormal tourism is booming. Millions of Americans now spend over $300 million on haunted attractions each year. You can satiate your gruesome desires by visiting Iowa’s Villisca Axe Murder House, where eight people, including six children, were murdered in 1912. For $430, anyone brave enough to take a whack at it can try to spend the night.

Ghost-hunting shows are scaring up unprecedented interest as well. YouTube, for example, has hundreds of paranormal-themed channels. One of the biggest is "Sam and Colby." With an average of 10 million views per video, the kids are among the most popular ghost hunters online. The two film themselves while visiting haunted locales across the United States. Freed from the limitations of conventional television, the videos are lengthy and typically unedited, offering a more immersive experience for their audience of 15 million subscribers.

There are compilation channels for those who don’t want to endure the deferred gratification of 90 minutes of shaky handheld videos and constant cries of, "What was that?"

Then there are channels like "Mind Junkie" and "Nuke’s Top 5," which brazenly monetize our endless appetite for not-so-carefully-vetted supernatural slop. One wonders if these shrewd content creators are also behind the "debunking videos" they attract. Nice business model, if so.

Tales from the clip

"Paranormal Caught on Camera," now in its ninth season on Discovery+ and the Travel Channel, can best be described as a reality show. From poltergeist activity to mysterious shadows roaming the woods, a panel of experts weighs in on supposed paranormal footage from around the world. Imagine "Ghostbusters" meets "America’s Funniest Home Videos" — with the approximate scientific rigor of both.

Psychologists say a prior belief in ghosts makes a person more inclined to perceive unexplained sounds and events as paranormal. The show’s presenters are clearly familiar with the research. They frequently use the term "energy" (which appears to function as a noun, verb, and adjective) and attribute every sound or camera jiggle to the spirit realm.

Ghost roast

"Ghost Adventures" is one of the longest-running and best-known of these types of shows. While the experts on "Paranormal Caught on Camera" are content to remain armchair investigators, aging goth heartthrob Zak Bagans and his crew actually go out into the field. Since 2008, they have traveled around the United States looking for paranormal phenomena. The format is simple: They arrive at an alleged haunted location, turn off the lights, hit record, and explore the building. What we get is a well-curated, finely edited spectacle.

The show pioneered a tactic known as "provocation." This is when an investigator attempts to goad a spirit into manifesting by insulting it. While this demonstrates a fortitude worthy of Ray Parker Jr. himself, it has never once worked over 300 episodes. The only scary thing that appears to be happening is a group of middle-aged men screaming in the dark about nothing in particular.

The truckload of pseudoscientific equipment these guys bring to the task separates them from your average amateur. A truckload of pseudoscientific instruments is used to add an element of objectivity. Particularly prized is the EMF meter, used to detect the electromagnetic fields ghosts apparently emit. This essential prop emits clicks and pings reminiscent of the motion trackers used to detect xenomorphs in the movie "Aliens." Unsurprisingly, there is no James Cameron-level tension here. Ninety-nine times out of 100, they’ve probably just found the fuse box.

Matt Himes

Phantom itch

Slick, polished, and carefully choreographed. It’s all very Hollywood. It comes as no surprise that the massive increase in belief in ghosts over the last 50 years coincides with the golden era of horror. Art imitates life. Many of these shows use the same strategies as your typical Hollywood special effects department.

So why are we watching these shows? "Ghost Adventures," now in its 28th season, has perfected the art of selling us fear. These shows give us what we want. We love to be afraid. A horror movie grants us the chance to live vicariously through the characters on the screen. A way to experience and navigate terror from the comfort of our couch.

Then there's another, more poignant, explanation. We believe in ghosts for the same reason that we believe in God. In the end, both ghost hunters and Christians are motivated by the same persistent yearning that has dogged us since the dawn of humanity: There's got to be something more than this.

Silicon Valley’s new gold rush is built on stolen work

Lawmakers and the public have long grown tired of Silicon Valley’s "move fast and break things" ethos. But Big Tech hasn’t learned its lesson.

In the mad rush to roll out artificial intelligence, companies have cast aside basic corporate responsibility. Meta’s chatbots allowed children to engage in sexual conversations. OpenAI’s ChatGPT helped a child plan and commit suicide. And mounting evidence shows AI chatbots harming mental health, particularly for children.

OpenAI has created a copyright infringement factory.

The latest example of Silicon Valley’s negligence? Mass copyright infringement.

The wild digital west

When AI products like ChatGPT were new, copyright infringement — while potentially common in AI training — was more opaque. The early versions of today’s large language models weren't really capable of producing realistic copies of original copyrighted works that could compete with the originals. Moreover, training data was hidden from public view.

But new releases, particularly OpenAI’s Sora 2, have smashed that paradigm. This past week, X and other social media platforms have been flooded with Sora 2 users’ reproductions of TV shows like “Family Guy,” “South Park,” “SpongeBob,” and more. While these clips are not yet perfect replicas, they are extremely close, and it is likely a matter of years — if not months — before users can produce copyright-infringing content that is essentially indistinguishable from the originals.

Flipping the script

OpenAI initially put the onus on copyright holders to “opt out” of their creations from being used in Sora 2. But this simply is not how copyright law works. In fact, it violates the express purpose of copyright law: to ensure that your work stays yours. Others have to ask you for permission to opt in to using your work; reversing that would render copyright law toothless.

After the understandable outcry from copyright holders and actors’ guilds, OpenAI changed its copyright policies, switching from the opt-out model to opt-in. Rights holders now choose whether to have their creations included in Sora 2.

CEO Sam Altman seemed to imply that he was surprised at the backlash. “I think the theory of what it was going to feel like to people, and then actually seeing the thing, people had different responses,” he told the Verge. “It felt more different to images than people expected.”

This dubious claim is not an excuse to violate copyright laws wantonly. In waiting days to change course, Altman has also opened a Pandora’s box: the idea that AI can create entire seasons of your favorite shows. Altman knows that users will want it and may hope that the pressure will force copyright holders to take a deal that doesn’t fully represent the value of their intellectual property.

Altman has said as much. “We are going to try sharing some of this revenue with rights holders who want their characters generated by users,” he wrote recently. His questionable usage of “try” notwithstanding, the game he is playing is clear: Audiences are going to want this. You either give us permission — after which we will “try” to compensate you — or people will likely use AI to violate your copyright anyway.

Mininyx Doodle via iStock/Getty Images

Congress must act

None of this will eliminate AI’s chilling ability to generate lifelike images of people. While the Trump administration cracked down on some of the worst offenders with the Take It Down Act — which bans involuntarily created AI porn — you can still easily create false images of people doing all sorts of things.

For now, the predominant use case may be “funny” videos of SpongeBob fleeing from police. But it would be a simple task, for example, to replace SpongeBob with realistic videos of innocent people committing crimes.

OpenAI and other AI companies have, in essence, created a copyright infringement factory that puts the onus on copyright holders to vindicate their rights, while signaling that they may leverage a rabid user base if copyright holders don’t get in line. This isn’t right, and it shouldn’t be how the law works. Given how flippantly OpenAI and other Big Tech companies have treated the law, Congress needs to consider legal clarifications that force these firms to change their behavior.

NBC News drops gay and race-specific DEI teams in attempt to 'streamline editorial efforts'

NBC News has released several identity-based news teams that cover sexuality- and race-focused stories.

Not only were dozens of employees laid off, but the cuts seemingly came as a surprise.

'Not their first gay rodeo.'

NBC News reportedly made the announcement early on Wednesday, and according to insiders, the bomb was dropped by Executive Vice President of Editorial Catherine Kim. At around 10 a.m., about 150 NBC News staffers were told they were no longer employed during a brief meeting that was described by one source as a "difficult day for a lot of us."

LGB-free

The Wrap reported that the cuts completely eliminated teams who superficially covered news for black, Asian, Latino, and various gay identities. This includes NBC BLK, NBC Asian America, NBC Latino, and NBC OUT.

NBC OUT, for example, describes itself as content driven toward "the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community."

Recent coverage included, "Queer art faces widespread museum censorship," and "Not their first gay rodeo: Celebrating 50 years of queer cowfolks."

NBC BLK recently published a piece on how a "new exhibit highlights LGBTQ legacy of Harlem Renaissance."

The bizarre content will still live on, but in a less dedicated format.

Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Wrap noted that the specific pages will still have stories published regarding the identity groups, but the content will come from a group of just five news team members who will contribute to the pages across the board. Another alleged inside source said the cuts were not meant to target the diversity teams, but rather were driven by budget concerns and a desire to "streamline its editorial efforts."

Ruffled feathers

The shift in personnel comes after Comcast announced a realignment of its networks in August. As reported by Reuters, USA Network, CNBC, and MSNBC will branch off into a new company called Versant. MSNBC will also change its name to "MS NOW" and lose its peacock logo.

The new name is an acronym for "My Source News Opinion World."

MSNBC was launched in 1996 and represented a partnership between Microsoft and the National Broadcasting Company. Microsoft left the venture in 2012, however.

CNBC will keep the same name, which stands for Consumer News and Business Channel.

Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Divesting diversity

NBC News' total reductions make up about 7% of its 2,000 staffers. The move comes as several companies shift away from their divisive verticals, which haven't always been amicable departures.

In April, Paramount agreed to terminate its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, which included racial quotas for staff and writers, after it was sued by a white writer who said he was discriminated against.

Then-president and CEO of CBS George Cheeks had said publicly that he set a goal for CBS writing rooms to have 40% non-white staff members, with 17 of 21 networks allegedly meeting or exceeding that target.

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'Rest in peace, wheezy': Jimmy Kimmel's legacy of late-night demonization and hatred

The ABC television network nuked the poorly performing "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" show on Wednesday after its eponymous host suggested that the homosexual leftist arrested for allegedly assassinating Charlie Kirk was a Trump supporter and a member of the MAGA movement — an assertion that has no factual basis.

President Donald Trump congratulated ABC "for finally having the courage to do what had to be done" and called the show's cancellation "great news for America."

Liberal activist organizations, Democrats, and Hollywood script-readers who didn't make a peep when conservatives and populists were canceled in recent years rushed to condemn Kimmel's visitation by consequence, complaining of imagined government censorship and fascism.

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

The liberal X knockoff Bluesky — where some leftists have celebrated Kirk's assassination — teemed on Wednesday with hysterical hot takes and the mantra, "I stand with Jimmy Kimmel."

Critics cognizant of the great pleasure that Kimmel took in demonizing conservatives and vaccine skeptics and in celebrating their cancellation appear less than sympathetic over his ouster. They certainly aren't buying the line that the liberal host is "some kind of free speech martyr."

'We've still got a lot of pan-dimwits out there.'

Some might recall, for starters, when Kimmel — among the corporate late-night hosts who wept bitterly over Trump's 2024 election victory and long pushed the Russia collusion hoax:

insinuated that the president bore some blame for the alleged attempt on his life in September 2024 as well as for the 2018 Sante Fe High School mass shooting;
suggested that Trump was a Nazi and that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was a "Klan mom" in need of a slap;
gleefully championed the imprisonment of the president;
misrepresented HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s statements about the health consequences of the COVID lockdowns;
called UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's suspected murderer "the hottest cold-blooded killer in America" and shared messages supposedly penned by producers on his show expressing admiration for Luigi Mangione;
celebrated when Alex Jones faced potential ruin, having been ordered to pay $965 million in damages over his suggestion that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax;
smeared Tucker Carlson as a propagandist for the Kremlin, attacked Carlson for advocating against masking children outside, then joked at length about Carlson's exit from Fox News;
made light of the heavy sentences given to Jan. 6 protesters, then later criticized Trump's pardons for the protesters, whom he referred to as "simpletons"; and
condemned NBC for daring to host a Trump town hall event ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Other critics might recall when Kimmel joined Stephen Colbert and other willing Big Pharma propagandists in spending years not only fearmongering but mocking those Americans who expressed concerns about taking the experimental COVID-19 vaccines — vaccines that were neither as safe nor as effective as promised — or resisted the draconian pandemic health protocols.

Photo by 2022 Media Access Awards/Getty Images

In September 2020, he attacked a Utah woman who protested against wearing masks, calling her "the world's dumbest person" even though it was clear early in the pandemic that masking was more theater than science.

Kimmel said in a May 2021 monologue addressed to those Americans who refused to get the vaccine, "If we don't get more people vaccinated, we could see new mutations of this virus and go through this all over again." He then once again strongly suggested they take the shot "as a public service."

The host also ran condescending clips belittling vaccine skeptics, in one case stating, "Grow the f**k up and get the vaccine." The video concluded with the caption, "Brought to you by people who are smarter than we are."

In September 2021, Kimmel suggested that hospitals should not treat the unvaccinated, particularly those interested in taking ivermectin.

"Dr. Fauci said that if hospitals get any more overcrowded, they're going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU bed. That choice doesn't seem so tough to me," said Kimmel. "Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in, we'll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy."

Kimmel added, "We've still got a lot of pan-dimwits out there."

In January 2022, Kimmel ran a fake "anti-vaxx Barbie" advertisement that mocked Florida and Kentucky, insinuated a link between vaccine skepticism and anti-Semitism, and portrayed hesitancy about getting vaccines as moronic.

The ouster of a man who suggested health professionals should let the unvaccinated die, celebrated the financial and professional fall of those with differing viewpoints, and expressed delight over the potential imprisonment of his preferred candidate's rival appears to have earned him the disdain of some of those now happy to see his time slot freed up for a Charlie Kirk memorial.

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Jimmy Kimmel Blatantly Broke FCC Rules And Brendan Carr Was Right To Notice

Kimmel lied to his audience when he blamed the murder on the 'MAGA gang,' violating FCC regulations that prohibit news distortion or a hoax.

'Cosby Show' actress on disgraced former boss: 'Separate the creator from the creation'

Quoth the Raven

Color commentary

You don't say

Red, white, and boo: Almost two-thirds of Americans now believe in ghosts

Entrepreneurial spirits

Tales from the clip

Ghost roast

Phantom itch

Silicon Valley’s new gold rush is built on stolen work

The wild digital west

Flipping the script

Congress must act

NBC News drops gay and race-specific DEI teams in attempt to 'streamline editorial efforts'

LGB-free

Ruffled feathers

Divesting diversity

Margaret Thatcher Docudrama Shows What Media Corruption Stole From Us

'Rest in peace, wheezy': Jimmy Kimmel's legacy of late-night demonization and hatred

Jimmy Kimmel Blatantly Broke FCC Rules And Brendan Carr Was Right To Notice

Senate Republicans Push Labor Reform As They Navigate Pro-Union Faction Of The MAGA Movement

Kelsea Ballerini’s ‘I Sit In Parks’ Exposes The Heartbreak Of Buying Girl Boss Lies

Massacre at Universal Ostrich Farms: Canada kills hundreds of birds despite no evidence of avian flu

Quoth the Raven

Color commentary

You don't say

Entrepreneurial spirits

Tales from the clip

Ghost roast

Phantom itch

The wild digital west

Flipping the script

Congress must act

LGB-free

Ruffled feathers

Divesting diversity

We’ll keep you informed with top stories for conservatives who want to become informed decision makers.