The one problem I have with Jon Stewart.

is that he's always shafted for Kyle Rayner

Actually, my problem with Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is how Jon hides behind 'just being a comedian' which strikes me as disingenuous. Jon may want to be a simple comedian, but it's clear that he's become a genuine political force, particularly when you're running a rally and having Rachel Maddow fangirling over you. I think Jon Stewart might not want to own up to how influential he actually is.

That or maybe he doesn't have the ego to think he's a majorly influential political figure.

Maybe he wishes that most people were complex enough to not let a comedian on a comedy show influence their serious opinions. Unfortunately, all forms of media have an impact.

Stewart's in a kind of nasty place as far as this is concerned. Even if he doesn't want to be an actual political figure, the fact remains that he often makes way better points than the actual news. Which is more a signal of how shitty news is than how influential Stewart is.

edited 10th Feb '11 8:39:56 PM by Pykrete

He does seem to be stuck in a weird place somewhere between a comedian with some good points and a political commentator who's funny.

edited 10th Feb '11 8:52:41 PM by thatguythere47

He probably thinks "Can't I just go back to being a comedian? When did I suddenly become the voice for common sense? Oh well..."

I remember seeing an interview where he was discussing that, I think it was the one with Maddow. He kept on talking about what a respectable and awesome craft TV News is, and downplaying himself as more of an actor.

You know, maybe he is humble? Also, taking sides in a political debate is a pretty dumb move to make in my opinion. Because he is in a way detached from the actually sides enables him to have so much influence in the first place. He calls shit on both sides. right?

I dunno, is it his fault that people are stupid enough to take political opinions from a comedian?

Yeah, Jon already responded to all of this. Mostly though, the principle difference between Stewart and, say, Maddow, is that Stewart is part of a single (well, pair of I guess) "news" shows on what is predominantly a comedy channel at a late night slot, whereas everyone else is part of a vast news media empire. It's about the distinction between passive and active-Jon isn't part of some machine that people just tune into, people have to go out of their way to find him.

It isn't unusual though for other news organizations to report on what he says or to respond to his criticisms though. Plus wasn't he called America's newscaster after Cronkite died by some? That kind of shows his clout as a journalist, and no one was saying "well he's just a comedian" after he reamed Jim Cramer. Apparently when CNN international airs the global edition (a sort of recap of the week show) it has a disclaimer of "The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its reporters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through.", which is a pretty stark contrast to how pretty much everyone I know treats the show. That and the fact that it appears on CNN kind of goes against the you have to search it out defense.

I agree that he's not just the guy who appears after puppets making prank phone calls anymore, but at the same time his current role is more important than just becoming another pundit who makes jokes, because he actually shows the absurdity of a lot of things instead of solely being snarky.

Actually, I was under the impression that the Daily Show was fact checked, but only to the extent that, if it wasn't true, it wouldn't be funny.

Basically, TDS doesn't claim to have journalistic integrity, and doesn't claim to be a news show, so it's not held to those burdens. If TDS was on MSNBC, that'd be different.

If the people find The Daily Show to be more sincere, more honest, more meaningful, better researched, and just generally more trustworthy than more convention news sources, that says more about those news sources than The Daily Show.

edited 11th Feb '11 7:13:47 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Yes, you can't really blame him when his viewers are Completely Missing The Point. Treating the Daily Show as a credible news source is downright sad, since it would turn Jon Stewart into a big hypocrite if it were true.

edited 11th Feb '11 9:19:55 AM by eX

I'm somewhat under the impression that originally the Daily Show had no intention whatsoever of being treated seriously, it was just trying to make fun of the daily happenings. But they found that the George Bush presidency (and the race leading up to it) Had a lot of material that they could use. And the had the ability to fine tune an entire days worth of material in to 20 minutes, Unlike all-day news, where the implications are given almost immediately, sometimes lacking a fully thought out explanation of the implications. They found that their focus on the political news attracted some major ratings, and kept with it.

The concentration of the news, not to mention the ability to not treat it as SRS BUSNS! allows them to look at situations with a different eye. Though the recent activism on the Daily Shows part does have a definite lean toward the left.

As for him being disingenuous, I kind of agree. I'm a big fan of the show, and Would watch it every day if I had the channel, or internet, at my house, but his importance in the media space is to important to ignore. He's been the subject of one of Bloomberg's Game-changers , And he is able to, some what reliably, get interviews with high political officers. He is much more then he originally wanted to be, I think, and It seems at times that he just wants to go back to being a silly comedy show. His actions seem to be working against that in recent years though (But those thoughts might be colored by a fierce political race that has only just passed us), and as such I'm not certain how much he doesn't want to be involved. He certainly has some supporters, but his style doesn't look like it would scale to a much larger level (So the odds of having a 24/7 Daily show should be terrible.)

I would like to see a Jon Stewart make a more prominent entrance in to shaping things, Something more then the Rally to Restore Sanity, though that was a nice start. However, if he were to do something like that he would not be able to hide behind the cloak of Comedy much longer.

edited 11th Feb '11 9:43:46 AM by Voot

TDS is not a "credible news source" per say, but compared to the alternatives, it's a credible source for news a lot of the time.

Also, to paraphrase Stewart, comedians have never been totally apolitical. There's always been comedians who use their comedy as a vessel for political change.

edited 11th Feb '11 9:54:17 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Yes, TDS is not a credible news source.

But compared to ACTUAL "credible" news sources? Holy hell it is.

I would like to say that TDS, and by extension, The Colbert Report, is not so much of a news source for me as it is a good place to bring up and recognize the inconsistancies and ridiculousness of politics, the news and the news and politics together. Especially in cases like when Steven Colbert had a congressman on who was advocating putting the Ten Commandments in schools and courthouses, and when asked, he couldn't name all of the commandments. Things like that.

I think this is just a representation of how terrible and awful the news situation is in United States and I cannot see how any blame at all can be put on Jon Stewart. Canada and many other British Commonwealth countries usually have political comedy shows with the capability of simply walking up to politicians on national television and pull pranks. That doesn't make them news. They make jokes of about the stupidity of certain government actions. That doesn't make them news. Nobody in these countries treat them as serious news.

But in America, when your choices are things like MSNBC or Fox News, suddenly the Daily Show which is supposed to be comedy suddenly becomes real news because it's on par with them. Then you try to lay blame on Jon Stewart. He's not doing anything outside of being a normal political comedian. You're affording him a level of respect because the state of news in America is that bad.

I'm not denying that news in America isn't terrible. I agree that it says some pretty said things that Stewart is rising above actual respectability.

But that's the thing. Stewart, whether he wants or not, has become a high mark in political news and a beacon of hope for the jaded youth of America as well as genuine political change. Whether or not it was intentional Jon has to step up and reap what he has sown.

Except not. Jon is more respectable, despite being in the position that he has taken. He has no burden of journalistic integrity-he just happens to have it anyway.

The failings of the media does not somehow impose a heightened duty upon Jon Stewart, and arguments that suggest otherwise seem to miss the point completely. It's not that, because Jon Stewart is taken seriously, he has some kind of obligation-and even if he did, I certainly feel that Jon fulfills that obligation. But Jon's obligation is to the Rule of Funny first, and to objective reporting a distant twenty seventh. It just so happens that he can make 1 through 26 do pretty well without totally blowing up twenty seven.

I'm not saying he should stop being funny or enjoyable or not a comedian first.

But I just want him to acknowledge the sway he has over the American media and public. It's like having a huge sword you're swinging around and when someone says 'Man you slayed a lot of dragons with that sword' you go 'sword? what sword?'

edited 11th Feb '11 9:23:53 PM by Malkavian

It's not too surprising that a comedian would be so prominent in political discourse. It takes cleverness to be funny, and when your humour comes from snarking at the way politics is done... it takes a LOT of cleverness.

As much of a damned circus as politics are around here, it really doesn't take much cleverness to snark at them. He's just clever enough to snark right.

That's kind of what I meant. As in, to actually have GOOD snark.

I don't think Jon denies his relevance to the political stage. I think he denies that that bestows upon him some sort of responsibility more than your average comedian.

The Rally to Restore Sanity, on the other hand, was intentionally designed to be a "Hey, let's do something explicitly political in the context of being political" and as thus, he was responsible for that.