AbortedWalrusFetus
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I have a somewhat irrational desire for Jon Stewart to take over the NBC Nightly News and revamp the nightly news format.
The point was that Comedy Central could have had a successor plan in place. Maybe this all was totally out of the blue regarding Stewart retiring, but I doubt it. The writing should have been on the wall when he took the sabbatical to direct Rosewater. That's the point at which Comedy Central should have locked down either Colbert or Oliver to succeed Stewart at TDS. They probably would have had to pay handsomely to do so, but it obviously would have been worth it, given that they are now without any obvious replacement.
FreeRepublic (among other conservative sites) was rather happy about this news. They knew as well as we do that Jon and Stephen and their shows have moved the needle, they've done some pretty good damage. You can almost sense the relief.Imagine the high fives happening at Fox News today. First Colbert now this. Ugh.
Cronkite wasn't his generations Cronkite.Ugh, every time I think about this it makes me upset. We are not ready for our generation's Cronkite to step down.
John Hodgeman?
He's probably taking over for Larry Sanders.
Oliver is filling the void in his HBO show. It's fantastic.
I have a somewhat irrational desire for Jon Stewart to take over the NBC Nightly News and revamp the nightly news format.
I don't think Jon would do well there.
I do wish he had taken NBC up on their offer last year to take over Meet the Press. I think an actual interview show would be right up his alley and Jon could bring that show back to the glory days of Tim Russert.
I grew up with The Daily Show. It hit its stride during the 2004 electionmy last full year in high schooland was critical viewing when Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination and then the presidency, my last full year in college. I attended Stewarts Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in 2010 and have watched the show on a semi-regular basis for almost a decade. And as a liberal, college-educated millennialthe almost prototypical viewer for The Daily ShowIm thrilled Stewart is leaving.
Im not saying this because Stewart has given his time or deserves to try something new. Im saying this because Jon Stewart, with his brand of left-leaning cynicism (sprinkled with occasional earnestness), is a bad example for the liberals who watch and love him.
The emblematic Stewart posture isnt a joke or a witticism, its a sneeror if were feeling kind, a gentle barbcoupled with a protest: Im just a comedian. Sometimes, this is refreshing. Of everything Stewart can be proud of in his professional career, special attention goes to his appearance on an Oct. 15, 2004, episode of CNNs Crossfire, then-hosted by Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. In his now famous rant, Stewart goes after the two hostsand cable news writ largeas bad for the country. Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America. Right now, youre helping the politicians and the corporations. And were left out there to mow our lawns, he said.
More often however, Stewarts stance is frustrating. His protests to the contrary, Stewart is a pundit, and like many pundits, hes wed to a kind of anti-politics, where genuine difference doesnt exist (or isnt as relevant as we think) and political problem-solving is mostly a matter of will, knowledge, and technocratic know-how.
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Cable, however, isnt the only forum for debate, and most political conversations arent as shallow as the ones you see on TV. On op-ed pages and around dinner tables, Americans have substantive conversations about politics. And while the facts arent always right, the discussion is often valuable. Stewart gives short shrift to that kind of talk. Instead, in the world of The Daily Show, the only politics is cable politics, where venality rules, serious disputes are obscured, and cynicism is the only response that works.
Not only does this discourage people who want to make a differencelike the earnest young viewers of Stewarts audiencebut it blurs the picture and makes it hard to see when those arguments really matter. Its how we get the spectacle of Stewarts rally, when tens of thousands of liberals gathered on the National Mall in Washington to hear an ode to civilitywith an extended metaphor about the Lincoln Tunnelas if Washington gridlock were a case of bad manners and not deep-seated ideological differences about government and its place in the world.
Again, there are times when this basic perspective is vital, when we need someone to bathe our government in light and mockery and challenge the dishonesty, incompetence, and self-seriousness of our leaders and elites. But this approach, which worked wonders during the Bush administration, isnt always the best one. For liberals in particular, the idea that government is only hypocrisy and dysfunction is self-defeating and nihilistic.
The natural response to all of this is a version of Stewarts protestHes just a comedianand a refrain from The Dark Knight: Why so serious? The answer is easy: Hes influential. And for a generation of young liberals, his chief influence has been to make outrage, cynicism, and condescension the language of the left. As a comedian and talk show host, Jon Stewart has been pretty funny. But as a pundit and player in our politics, hes been a problem. And while I wish him luck in his next move, Im glad hes stepping from the stage.
Wha-... what? This is exactly what Jon Stewart was arguing against in Crossfire. He and his show are, ultimately, comedic in nature and should be no replacement for genuine news. It is only because journalism and reporting in North America are so broken that he can be seen as any sort of legitimate news source; it's like mistaking the Colbert persona as something real.
Stop hurting America, whoever it was that authored this article. Go after the actual news programs that are utterly failing in their task. Leave the comedians and their humble shows alone. Jon Stewart is not a political pundit - he's a comedian with a bent for political targets... that make it all too easy.
I guess it's time for another Crossfire-esque blaze of glory to refresh people's minds.
Hes on point about the cynicism though.
Anyway let's share some of our favorite Daily Show moments that encapsulated why Jon Stewart became such a staple in our homes.
I already mentioned two before:
1. Jon Stewart's first show back from 9/11 - The humour was stripped bare and he just said the simple truth everyone felt. It's not that it was complicated or profound. It's that what he said was authentic and you knew it. On par with David Letterman's reaction.
2. Jon Stewart is rendered speechless over the non-indictment in Eric Garner case - Sometimes there are things that are so self-evidently fucked up that it's hard to know how this happens side by side in a supposed rational and civilized country. This reaction represents what many of us felt... anger and confusion and why.
3. When Jon Stewart went after Bill De Blasio's approach to eating Pizza - All New Yorkers know the problem here. Jon Stewart's hilariously straightforward attack on De Blasio's pizza eating ways though just was gut splittingly funny in action.
4. Jon Stewart's Indecision 2000 - was the first time comedic coverage of a Presidential Election seemed more relevant than the 24 hour news networks themselves. The sheer absurdity of it all was never more perfectly highlighted than Jon Stewart's genuine shock at how this is even possible in a modern country.
5. Jon Stewart vs. Betsy McCaughey - Remember the conspiracy about death penalties, living wills and abject nonsense that almost single handedly derailed the health care debate as Obama sat idly like a fucking moron letting this nonsense criticism accumulate until it literally almost destroyed his entire signature health care proposal? Yeah, Betsy McCaughey was the person who started that. And Jon Stewart eviscerated her.
6. Jon Stewart illustrates the nuttery of Glenn Beck-isms with Glenn Beck-isms - I rarely laughed as hard at the show as I did when Jon Stewart broke out the black board and began to deconstruct Glenn Beck's intentionally misleading brand of conspiracy nuttery. Glenn Beck knows what he does and why he does it, he admits it's an act. But only Jon Stewart was so effective at illustrating the type of damage this act does, through humour.
7. Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer - this feud was hilarious from the get-go, with both taking shots at each other through the show. But when Jon Stewart took Jim Cramer to task on the show, the sheer level of incompetence on Cramer's part almost made one feel bad for the dude. It was like seeing an ugly snowman melt before your eyes.
8. Jon Stewart vs. Bill O'Reilly, The Rumble 2012 - I'm a little unsure whether this should count, since it was related to a Daily Show debate challenge but obviously due to the format gave both sides way longer time to articulate their answers than usual. When Jon Stewart called O'Reilly the king of shit mountain though, you knew you were watching Gold. The debate wasn't particularly in depth stuff, but it was comedy gold. Their back-and-forth friendly feud is long term, but this was the peak.
9. Jon Stewart vs. War on Christmas - Also related to O'Reilly, Jon Stewart underlined perfectly in one simple attack on the absurdity of politically reactionary nonsense why the level of discourse in this country has gone so wildly off track. He deflated the attack for the irrational garbage it was, eviscerated those who were pushing it as intellectually bankrupt frauds and made the entire thing anathema to even discuss. Then he got O'Reilly on the show to embarrass him further. At least O'Reilly is a good sport ;P
10. Jon Stewart attacks BP and Obama's address to the Nation - This to me illustrates the crossover appeal he could have. Jon Stewart throughout this crisis was particularly critical of Obama's half-measures and stating of the obvious with less regard on practical matters at times, but his entire attack on BP and Obama was a hilarious thing to behold start to finish. Party lines don't matter when you're wrong.
What about Bassem Yousef? Dude's a natural, had a similar show in Egypt and killed it there. Sharp as a tack and funny as balls.
As much as I would hate to loose him of UK tv this seems like an ideal job for Charlie Brooker. Or David Mitchell for that matter.
The Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear)
I was there in Washington DC along with some 250,000 of the coolest people you could ever hope to meet. This was in October of 2010, a few months after Glenn Beck spent the anniversary of MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech for his own little rally. However, this wasn't the liberal response to Beck that so many in the media made it out to be. Instead it was, as the title implied, a cry for sanity in media and in political discourse in general. The event lampooned how the current news media relies on making practically everything into a war between diametrically opposed viewpoints, and how they so often depend on making even the most mundane and trivial matters as sensationalized as possible. The message was that we aren't as different from each other as the profit-driven news media makes us out to be, even at different sides of the political spectrum. The speech at the end by Stewart encapsulated everything brilliantly; you can skip to 2:42:00 to hear it. The whole experience was something I'll remember forever.
There hasn't been a new episode of the daily show in a few days =/
They quit already?
Don't work Friday and assume off for President Week/Winter Recess
Always seems good about giving staff time off when kids are out of school
How about Amy Poehler?
I kinda get a optimist vibe from her. Or maybe I'm thinking about Leslie Knope.
I don't think the article is blaming Stewart, or at least not intentionally. It's more of a pragmatic complaint: Jon Stewart is so good at what he does that it discourages its audience from meaningful action. I tried to start a thread on it a while back; maybe I can dig it up.Wha-... what? This is exactly what Jon Stewart was arguing against in Crossfire. He and his show are, ultimately, comedic in nature and should be no replacement for genuine news. It is only because journalism and reporting in North America are so broken that he can be seen as any sort of legitimate news source; it's like mistaking the Colbert persona as something real.
Stop hurting America, whoever it was that authored this article. Go after the actual news programs that are utterly failing in their task. Leave the comedians and their humble shows alone. Jon Stewart is not a political pundit - he's a comedian with a bent for political targets... that make it all too easy.
I guess it's time for another Crossfire-esque blaze of glory to refresh people's minds.
I can agree with this. Especially if he can bring the wickedly funny Frank Conniff on-board with him.I agree with this article. If you want a replacement who will pretty much perfectly keep the current tone of The Daily Show in place, John Fugelsang is your best bet.
*stuffs vote ballot into box*
The Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear)
I was there in Washington DC along with some 250,000 of the coolest people you could ever hope to meet. This was in October of 2010, a few months after Glenn Beck spent the anniversary of MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech for his own little rally. However, this wasn't the liberal response to Beck that so many in the media made it out to be. Instead it was, as the title implied, a cry for sanity in media and in political discourse in general. The event lampooned how the current news media relies on making practically everything into a war between diametrically opposed viewpoints, and how they so often depend on making even the most mundane and trivial matters as sensationalized as possible. The message was that we aren't as different from each other as the profit-driven news media makes us out to be, even at different sides of the political spectrum. The speech at the end by Stewart encapsulated everything brilliantly; you can skip to 2:42:00 to hear it. The whole experience was something I'll remember forever.
I haven't been following the news on this but is there any good reason not to give it to Jason Jones and Samantha Bee? They could change up the format of the show a bit with two anchors while still keeping the core intact... at least I like the idea of that, LOL.
I haven't been following the news on this but is there any good reason not to give it to Jason Jones and Samantha Bee? They could change up the format of the show a bit with two anchors while still keeping the core intact... at least I like the idea of that, LOL.
What are the odds of Craig Kilborn coming back?
What are the odds of Craig Kilborn coming back?
Less than zero.
Zero.
I have a somewhat irrational desire for Jon Stewart to take over the NBC Nightly News and revamp the nightly news format.