WASHINGTON — Former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta reportedly sounded the democracy alarm Wednesday after a late-night political interview moved from broadcast television to YouTube, a development he immediately compared to the rise of an authoritarian “Minister of Information.”

Normal people called it a programming dispute.

Acosta called it 1938 with Wi-Fi.

The Canton Cat reviewed the situation and found the usual Acosta emergency scale:

Parking ticket: chilling effect.

FCC complaint: constitutional crisis.

Host moves interview online: regime censorship.

Someone changes the channel: democracy dies in darkness.

Acosta’s reaction came after FCC criticism surrounding a television interview, prompting him to warn that free speech in America is under threat.

Which is a serious accusation.

So serious, in fact, that one might traditionally support it with evidence showing exactly what law was broken, what authority was abused, and what speech was actually prohibited.

But that takes longer than typing AUTHORITARIAN in all caps.

The interview, meanwhile, still happened.

On YouTube.

Where people could watch it.

From America.

Without climbing through a secret tunnel or tuning a forbidden shortwave radio.

“This is how censorship begins,” Acosta reportedly warned, while sharing a link to the censored interview available instantly to several billion internet users.

Constitutional scholars attempted to explain that the FCC has long possessed regulatory authority over broadcast television that does not apply identically to newspapers, cable, or internet platforms.

Acosta was unavailable for further analysis because a restaurant had just refused to seat someone without a reservation and democracy needed him.

The Canton Cat’s position is simple:

If the FCC crossed a legal line, challenge it.

If officials abused their authority, expose it.

But maybe save “authoritarian Minister of Information” for something slightly more dramatic than Jimmy Kimmel uploading a video.

At press time, Acosta had received a 30-day notice that his parking meter rates were increasing.

Sources say he immediately contacted Amnesty International.