A comedian who’s more serious than ”serious media”

How is it possible that the US Comedy Central’s fake news show have become more informative than real ones and succeeded with getting people to think critically about the public square?

The New York Times examines the emergence of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show as ”a genuine cultural and political force”.

It finds that ”at a time when Fox, MSNBC and CNN routinely mix news and entertainment, larding their 24-hour schedules with bloviation fests and marathon coverage of sexual predators and dead celebrities, it’s been The Daily Show that has tenaciously tracked big, ‘super depressing’ issues like the cherry-picking of prewar intelligence, the politicization of the Department of Justice and the efforts of the Bush White House to augment its executive power.”

So in result ”when Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN. And a study this year from the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded that ‘The Daily Show is clearly impacting American dialogue’ and ‘getting people to think critically about the public square.’”

Some quotes:

• Jon Stewart on why he prefers serious issues rather than celebrity stories: “In some respects, the heavier subjects are the ones that are most loaded with opportunity because they have the most — you know, the difference between potential and kinetic energy? — they have the most potential energy, so to delve into that gives you the largest combustion, the most interest. I don’t mean for the audience. I mean for us. Everyone here is working too hard to do stuff we don’t care about.”
  ”[The staff is always looking for] those types of stories that can, almost like the guy in ‘The Green Mile’ [the Stephen King story and film in which a character has the apparent ability to heal others by drawing out their ailments and pain] suck in all the toxins and allow you to do something with it that is palatable.”
• Stewart on how unreal get the reality: ”[Given a daily reality in which] over-the-top parodies come to fruition, satire like ‘Dr. Strangelove’ becomes very difficult to make… The absurdity of what you imagine to be the dark heart of conspiracy theorists’ wet dreams far too frequently turns out to be true.”

About The Daily Show

It is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning American satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central in the United States. The half-hour long show premiered in 1996 and was hosted by Craig Kilborn.

Jon Stewart took over as host in January 1999, bringing a number of changes to the show’s content. Under Stewart The Daily Show has become more strongly focused around politics and the national media, in contrast with the more character-driven focus during Kilborn’s tenure.

Describing itself as a “fake news” program, The Daily Show draws its comedy from recent news stories, satirizing political figures and media organizations.  (Via Wikipedia)

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