Jon Stewart made the Lamestream Media all mad by blaming them at his D.C. sanity rally for all this American unrest, or whatever. Rachel Maddow, part of this cabal of information warriors, sat down with him last night for a wide-ranging discussion that filled the entire hour or her show. It was quite good! But Rachel’s show usually is, and Jon makes great television. But is anyone else getting just an itsy-bitsy bit tired of Stewart constantly giving himself a pass because he runs a comedic/fake news show, while the cable news types pride themselves on actual reporting? Stewart claims he’s on the sideline with satire, while folks like Maddow is an actual influencer. Uh, not really anymore. Because really, the line between the two isn’t just blurred; it’s completely pixelated. I’m going to turn it into a Blingee in just a moment. (All that said, this was a great discussion.)
peanut gallery
Does Jon Stewart’s Satirical Newscast Still Get a Pass That Rachel Maddow & Co. Do Not?
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UMB
All I heard was three way…
daveny
I’m over Jon Stewart.
orpheus_lost
Stewart calls himself a comedian and his show is hosted by Comedy Central. Anyone who takes him as a journalist really needs to get back to school and learn the difference.
I know he’s influential but so were Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce and few called them journalists. The problem lies not with Stewart but with the 24/7 news organizations blurring the line between information and entertainment with shows that put personalities above the actual news.
ewe
The both of them are so conceited.
kaderade
@ewe: i certainly don’t understand why you would think they are conceited.
ForeverGay
Jon Stewart came off as haughty and foolish. I don’t know whether he was trying to make himself appear as smart as Rachel or trying to look down on her. It looked really bad for him though.
Eric
“What happens in discourse is not precise.”
I think I just messed myself.
Yet Another
@ForeverGay:
It may have to you, but probably not to everyone else.
Lefty
I absolutely agree with their politics, but they are both (and especially Stewart) unbearably smug.
I find them unwatchable.
Which is a shame – for me – because, as I say, I agree with what they say just not a fan of how they say it. That’s my loss, I guess.
Also, why on earth did Stewart invite an abhorrent nutcase like Cat Stevens to his rally!??
Was Fred Phelps not available?
John (CA)
I like Rachel Maddow.
But she got sucked into Jon Stewart’s meaningless word games for a whole hour and came out with very little to show for it.
Meanwhile, Bill Maher finally did what many people have wanted to do for a long time and slammed Stewart for being vacuous and egotistical. It is about time. Holding a rally on the national mall about absolutely nothing – just because you can get 250,000 people to show up – isn’t any sort of response to Glenn Beck. It is merely an exercise in smugness.
“See, I can get a crowd as big as Martin Luther King too”
Red Meat
@Lefty: I find your use of commas unbearable.
ron
@Red Meat: Why do you object? I believe the use of them in his response is grammatically correct.
Sam
When Jon Stewart starts investigating How Many People Want To Rape Your Child RIGHT NOW, breathlessly repeating hysterical (anti-Four Loko, e.g.) Gov’t propaganda, or shilling for the military-industrial complex, we can start having a real conversation about this.
As long as the people who keep doing the aforementioned keep insisting on their integrity and earnesty, J.Stew can do whatever he likes. He’ll never be worse, at least.
Brutus
@ron: They are.
Soupy
I’m a fan of the Daily Show but I do find Jon a bit disingenuous in this interview.
ewe
@kaderade: He should also tie his shoes at his age.
Patrick
Those of you attacking John Stewart really need to think about what you are saying. Just watch the clip for more than 2 minutes and you’ll see what he is talking about. Stewart doesn’t tell people who to vote for, he has no political agenda, he’s just there to present what we are bombarded with everyday in a satirical light. Stewart is a very intelligent individual and I’m glad to get his take on what happens but that is all he offers. Opinions. He never tells his viewers to do anything like the so-called influencers do. This is why I consider it a mistake to say that the line is blurring between influencer and satirist as the article suggests. He is purely a satirist. I was at the rally and while people were there trying to get people to vote a certain way Stewart never even told the crowd to get out and vote. Attacking him for imaginary offenses or inflated impressions of what he is, is practically doing what he was warning the news networks against at the rally. Blowing things out of proportion.
Here’s something everyone of you should work on. Watch the news and don’t just accept what you are told. Think about it and decide for yourself. Was Obama really planing on killing grandma and grandpa with his healthcare reform. Of course not. But I assure you there were fox news viewers out there who thought exactly that. If Stewart commented on this, which I’m sure he did, all he was doing was presenting the fallacy of it in a humorous way.
If anyone has been paying attention recently you’ll see that the Republicans are doing a lot more of this then they once did. Obama has been almost mute in voicing his accomplishments (and yes there were accomplishments, though not the ones gays thought there would be) and in his being so, the republicans have raced in and filled the void by sowing malcontent. You can’t blame them, its smart and its been done for years. But the fact that Stewart merely comments on this (which he has, both on Obama’s silence and the republicans vocalizations) doesn’t make him an influencer. He is a bipartisan commentator and hinting that he is anything but is completely insubstantial.
Pat Duffy
@John (CA): What we learned from the interview is that the ‘Jon Stewart’ of ‘TDS’ is nothing more than a character that Jon Stewart the actor PLAYS. What really got me is his weird belief that his audience isn’t non-Conservatives.
He reminds me of the kid that jokes about the Popular Kids at school but sucks up to them when he’s around them….hoping that they’ll let him join them…
Pip
Wow, Jon Stuart should really just connect his butt to his face if he likes his own shit that much.
Stephanie
I like Jon Stewart a lot and through his routine, honestly conducts one of the more intelligent shows out there. Most news networks fulfill the entertainment component more than anything else in their quest for high ratings. Lets face facts, the general public does not demand for journalistic integrity and sophistication. With that being said, Jon Stewart has conveniently built a wall around his show under the tenant of satire which enables him to be without a certain level of scrutiny.
Mar
Hmmm. I’m just not getting the vibe that he’s conceited or high-and-mighty. All I heard was an incredibly articulate response to a difficult question. Sure, the conversation got partially derailed by mutual fluffing. To be fair, hackles were raised earlier on, and so it could be written off as a diffusion tactic.
Anyhow… it seemed as though what he was trying to say, in a roundabout way, was that mainstream media should NOT be flowing into his realm of satire. That’s not what it’s there for, and that’s not doing the public justice. The news media should be for giving us the news, not to comment on it, nor inject their own opinions into it.
The line is blurred between the two because the media is leaning more toward The Daily Show, rather than The Daily Show setting itself equal to the media.
The simple fact is that satire DOES have the right to exercise power that the news media shouldn’t. The tradeoff is that the news media has the power of being taken seriously, whereas satire doesn’t. That’s the *whole point*.