Jon Stewart on CNN's Crossfire

BoldAC writes "Instead of plugging his new book, Jon Stewart tonight on CNN's Crossfire used his time to slam the media's coverage of the election. Although Stewart leans left, he attacked political shows and begged them: 'Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.' Is it time to really stop all the political games that both sides play? Torrent of the event is available." And another set of .torrent links.

Comments

Attention Slashdot Laser:

[Anonymous Coward]

Please Slashdot the torrent link so I can download it faster. Saying that hurts my brain. :(

Re:Attention Slashdot Laser:

[hkmwbz]

Actually, you could potentially end up slashdotting the tracker. It has to handle all the requests, after all. It's just like any web server, I think.

Re:Attention Slashdot Laser:

[TheSHAD0W]

It'd take tens of thousands of downloaders to slashdot a tracker on even a marginal server.

Re:Attention Slashdot Laser:

[Thing 1]

That's not entirely accurate, because not everyone is downloading. As I said in another response to the parent, I'm currently getting download speeds over 200 KB/s, and am connected to 4609 seeds and 902 peers.

So the number of people downloading is only 902, whereas there are 4609+902=5511 people uploading. So if upload speeds are 1/5 download speeds, everyone will be getting it at their maximum download rate.

That's the cool thing about BitTorrent; if people leave their torrents open when they're done, everyone else gets it much faster.

Is it?

[SpooForBrains]

Is it time to really stop all the political games that both sides play?

Yes.

Re:Is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then contact CNN and let them know you fully agree.

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?21

Maybe that will wake up a few people.

Re:Is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sent off an email to let CNN know I appreciated having Jon on.

I'm a Canadian and I'm sick of American propaganda coming from your "news" outlets.

The US reminds me of certain countries in the world that try to block outside influence. If you watch any other first world country's news, it's vastly different than the American interperatation. (Canada, Europe). Now, if 95% of the world says one thing, and the US government is telling you something else, logically, which outcome is more likely?

CNN is pandering for ratings by putting up sensationalist, misleading, and possibly unfactual stories.

Re:Is it?

[ilovelinux]

I'm Canadian as well, and CNN scares the crap out of me.

1. They appear, and wish to appear, to the American public as the #1 official news source.

2. On many occasions, they sensationalise any possible "news" story. See Monica Lewinsky, OJ, Michael Jackson... You name it. Apparently that stuff is important in the US. It's not to the rest of the world, get over it. CNN - you're missing the real issues here.

3. CNN is completely biased. I remember during the opening hours of Iraq conflict (the current one) Aaron Brown trying not to cheer as he smirked watching the video feed of the tanks rolling into Iraq. "ooohhhh! look at the firepower! RA RA America." Way to be a journalist Aaron.

The last thing I saw was a "special report" of how Canada breeds terrorism. Are you fucking insane? Have you been to Canada? Anyone?

Well excuse me, I have to start loading my guns in an attempt to repel the American invaders from MY country.

damn sorry state the world is in. Just think the US used to stand for freedom. How the mighty have fallen.

Re:Is it?

[MillionthMonkey]

I'm Canadian as well, and CNN scares the crap out of me.

Americans would typically respond with something like "well your news is biased too", because they have been well indoctrinated for years to have nothing but contempt for the notion that objective truth even exists. In the past few years this weird epistemological relativism has overtaken American public discourse. All that matters is the appearance that "bias" is equally balanced on both sides. An interview show will "balance" a Holocaust survivor guest by also inviting a Holocaust denier. If letters to the editor are skewed 100:1 following a given story, they'll still pick two or three letters from each side so as to give the impression that both viewpoints are equally valid. They are committed to providing no useful information at all. And contempt for objectivity has pervaded people's thinking across the board. Just look at politics.slashdot.org. Yesterday Michael posted two stories: "RNC and voter suppression" quickly followed with "DNC and voter suppression", as if both stories had substance to them. Again, notice the commitment to providing no information.

This is an extremely corrosive approach to journalism (not that Michael is a journalist) because it gives an extreme advantage to liars. If one candidate starts telling lies, it becomes incumbent on journalists to start digging through anything the other candidate said, anything at all, that might not be totally accurate, to support a headline like "Kerry, Bush Both Tell Fibs". Mark Halperin, a political director at ABC, recently wrote an internal memo to his staff that correctly noted that while neither Bush nor Kerry make factually correct statements 100% of the time, only one of the two has recently adopted a strategy of telling flat-out lies in the final weeks of the campaign, and that journalists working for ABC should not feel obligated to "balance" every major lie with some inconsequential lie from the other candidate unless the lie is obviously central to the candidate's effort to win. The memo was promptly posted on Drudge and has now become a "scandal". This is how far American journalism has deteriorated. Deviating from information-free "balanced" content gets you in trouble and ruins your career. "Balance" has won the war against truth in American journalism.

Another consequence of this thinking is the common retort: "the news isn't biased, because we have Fox, and you have CNN". CNN, however, has become practically indistinguishable from Fox. The only thing it doesn't have are the distinctive personalities (O'Reilly, etc).

1. They appear, and wish to appear, to the American public as the #1 official news source.

They all have that schtick going. The Daily Show makes fun of it- "The Most Important Show... Ever."

2. On many occasions, they sensationalise any possible "news" story. See Monica Lewinsky, OJ, Michael Jackson... You name it. Apparently that stuff is important in the US. It's not to the rest of the world, get over it. CNN - you're missing the real issues here.

They are no longer obligated to show news as a requirement of their broadcast licenses. So they are free to air entertainment that bills itself as news, which generates more advertising dollars. This includes not only the "Scott Peterson"-type stories, but also the slanted commentary by which talking points are distributed for public consumption. People are mesmerized by stupid stuff like this. Unfortunately, if you believe what you're watching is news, you'll believe anything they tell you.

3. CNN is completely biased. I remember during the opening hours of Iraq conflict (the current one) Aaron Brown trying not to cheer as he smirked watching the video feed of the tanks rolling into Iraq. "ooohhhh! look at the firepower! RA RA America." Way to be a journalist Aaron.

Fox News actually dropped party balloons from the ceiling at the moment Bush's "24 hour ultimatum" expired to begin the war.

Re:Is it?

[geminidomino]

On many occasions, they sensationalise any possible "news" story. See Monica Lewinsky, OJ, Michael Jackson... You name it. Apparently that stuff is important in the US. It's not to the rest of the world, get over it. CNN - you're missing the real issues here.

I got news for you, my Canadian friend... that crap isn't that important down here either, at least not for any of us that have a triple digit IQ. News has turned into just another Inside Edition/Entertainment tonight (essentially Celebrity Gossip shows) and it's the drooling, hollow-skulled, Survivor-watching masses that give them the ratings.

Re:Is it?

[realityfighter]

Sometime, a couple of months ago, a man got caught shuttling immigrants into Texas. One tv station in Dallas ran a story that included "people on the street" reactions, one of which was this crazy, angry-looking guy saying the smuggler ought to be sent to jail for "treason or somethin'". Hmm. I wonder why that comment made it on the show.....

Here's some facts for ya: The Dallas Morning News is the more yellow in their reporting than any other paper I've read. Last month they ran an article claiming that the protesters outside the GOP national convention were mentally deficient. Almost every story they run has a heavy conservative bias.

Second fact: The Dallas Morning News is one of the top papers in America, and not just in sales. They're widely respected in the journalistic community for the quality of their reporting. Scary, huh?

Re:Is it?

[Money for Nothin']

Really? In high school science class I was taught what the speed of light was, but I never went out and measured it myself.

That's right. And because you didn't measure it yourself you have no way of being 100% certain that it really is 186,000 mi/sec..

Now, because so many other scientists have measured it and come up with the same figure, it's become reasonable to consider it an established fact (although technically, it still just a theory). With so many agreeing conclusions, it is entirely *reasonable* -- but not fully *logical* -- to use it as a basis for calculations requiring that number.

But remember, the speed of light is, like all other things in science, still just a *theory*. We may find out at some later date that the speed was slightly-different from what we thought -- perhaps due to nothing more than simple rounding error beyond the decimal point, for example. But any change in the number at all would still be a change in the theory, as it would change the result of calculations which use it.

It was from a credible source who has no motivation for lying about the speed of light because he doesn't have a personal interest in what number it comes out to be, his job is just to report what it actually is.

Be more accurate. Your teacher's job was to report what the established theory *says* the number is. He/she very-likely couldn't get away with lying about it b/c it's such basic knowledge that almost anybody could call him/her on it if they were found to be telling you something that conflicted w/ the established theory we have all agreed upon.

But this is not the same as the system of news reporting. Take the events in the Abu Gharaib prisons. Were you there? I doubt it. Most likely, you, like me, only know what *somebody else* has reported to you. You and I are, at best, secondary sources. So are the reporters, however, for they were not at the site of the abuses either -- only the military personnel (armed w/ some cameras) were.

So how do we know exactly how bad the abuses were? We have photos, which, because so many people have seen them over the past 4 months and not raised objection as to their authenticity -- and in particular because those who are responsible for the contents of the photos admit that they are true -- we can reasonably conclude are not doctored, even though it is quite possible to do so. So we can look at those pictures and say "wow, look how bad it is that this guy is standing on a box w/ a black hood over his head and electrodes attached to his nuts!" And that is a very repulsive event, of course.

Were the events not as bad, overall, than the photos show? Possibly. Conversely, were the events *worse* than what the photos indicate? Possibly.

We won't know either way, because we weren't there. All we have are (rather gut-wrenching) examples of what occurred there. But whether the situation was worse or better than it appears, we cannot objectively say, because again, we were not there.

There's a difference between the following:
* referencing a secondary source
* referencing a primary source
* being a primary source (i.e., you were there)

You cannot be a primary source unless you were on-site. You cannot reference a primary source unless your source was there on-site. You cannot reference a secondary source unless that source was drawing interpretations from other primary or secondary sources.

Understand?

ifilm

[avageek]

video of it is also posted on ifilm

Re:ifilm

[dnoyeb]

WOW! I watch the daily show and I think he does favor Kerry. But you could say the same thing about Jay Leno. Comedians tend to roast the guy they have the most materian on. that tends to be the incumbent.

That crossfire episode was brutal. He had those guys sweating and giggling out of nervousness. Its a MUST see. I'd call that comedy any day.

Re:ifilm

[Ryan Amos]

Nah, Jon Stuart is more in the "Anyone but Bush" camp. You can tell he's not a huge Kerry fan either; they make fun of Kerry almost as much as Bush. But he does hate Bush and want him out of office. He's also one of the best fucking interviewers I've ever seen. Because he pretends to be an idiot, he sometimes catches people off guard. He really knows what he's talking about though, unlike most loudmouthed politically active comedians, and so he can sometimes embarass people, as he did with Bush's campaign manager. He's also the most watched news show amond viewers 18-25, which is pretty amazing considering the whole show is pretty much fake.

Re:ifilm

[uhlume]

...What makes you think "the whole show is pretty much fake"? The stories are unarguably real, although the journalism is often comedic -- and even that... Well.

I'd call most mainstream network news journalism "fake" before I'd accuse the Daily Show of the same.

Re:ifilm

[Izago909]

Well, John Steward goes to great pains to describe his own show as "fake news" - and I think he, of all people, should know. Of course he's being disingenuous - many a true word is spoken in jest - but the fact is he's been very careful to leave himself the "comedy show" escape clause, and I'm willing to let him have it.

The one thing I noticed in that clip was that the guys at crossfire we trying to use Jon's interview with Kerry to show that even he couldn't ask tough questions. I will say that I was very disappointed with that episode. I don't know if he choked or what, but it was like watching a Barbra Walters interview. But the comparison between The Daily Show and other outlets is like apples and oranges. I can't believe that news shows criticize Stewart for not asking hard questions when most of their material is based on sophomoric jokes about bodily functions. Why should his show be held to the level of good journalistic ethos, when the journalists themselves can't even reach that goal? Yes, he dropped the ball big time when it came to his interview with Kerry, but that doesn't make his argument about the news media any less valid.

One thing brought up occasionally on Jon's show is the political duopoly that permeates our culture. It doesn't take a genius to discover that America's electoral system is mathematically capable of supporting no more than a two party majority for an extended period of time.* Regardless of your opinion of the Florida debacle last election, it served to backlight many of the shortcomings of a system which hasn't been modified since its inception. Every aspect of our culture and government has evolved in the nearly 200 years since the ratification, except the electoral process. It was designed for a time when few people were formally educated and even fewer were literate, yet it continues to operate under that original premise. For all the differences between the two parties, the historical record shows one topic where they have made an unspoken pact: don't mess with the system. It's been a two party majority forever, and it will stay that way as long as they have a say. Why were the electoral problems on everyone's lips for months afterwards, but no one gives a damn this year? Why is the President's opinion on Row v. Wade a hot button topic, but the President is powerless to make a law around the ruling? Do these people realize that the President has no power to overturn Supreme Court decisions? Does the media remind them about checks and balances so they might consider asking questions about topics he has power over? No, they'd rather ask them about who was doing what 30 years ago in the middle of a war people agree was wrong to start in the first place.

America: The Book was one of the best purchases I've recently made. You will read 'reviews' about how it's a pile of liberal rag. Obviously these 'reviewers' haven't read a word of it because, while making a distinction between parties and poking fun at them both, overall it does something no news outlets are doing. It's criticizing the system as a whole while holding an amazingly centrist position when compared to 'legitimate' publications. And the media is given status is noted as the Fourth Estate, and then completely torn down... no holds barred. The preface (more of a rant) for Chapter 7 is the furthest left the entire book goes.

A free an independent press is essential to the health of a functioning democracy. It serves to inform the voting public on matters relevant to its well-being. Why they've stopped doing that is a mystery. I mean 300 camera crews outside a courthouse to see what Kobe Bryant is wearing when the judge sets his hearing date, while false information used to send our country to go to war goes unchecked? What the fuck happened? These spineless cowards in the press have finally gone too far. They have violated a trust. "Was the President successful in convincing the country?" Who gives a shit? Why not tell us if what he said was t

SAw this yesterday on Fark/iFilm

[Tokerat]

This is really hillarious, especially the fact that Stewart barely does anything funny at all, he's dead serious the whole time. Both the guys on Crossfire are trying to get him riled up and shut him down and they do an absolutely miserable job, and he ends up even calling the guy in the bowtie a dick!

Jon Stewart is my hero.

Re:SAw this yesterday on Fark/iFilm

[y2imm]

I didn't like to hear that kind of personal attack, even though it's 100% accurate. It hurt his credibility a little, but for the most part, I was impressed by how he refused to rise to the baiting from the bowtied dick. Oops.

Re:SAw this yesterday on Fark/iFilm

[paxil]

...It hurt his credibility a little...

We have arrived at a truly sad state when it hurts someones credibility if they tell the truth.

Re:SAw this yesterday on Fark/iFilm

[ultranova]

I'm sure there's an 'In Soviet Russia' joke in there somewhere, lol.

In the Soviet Russia, the joke is on you. In the Corporate America, your leaders are the joke. And the joke is still on you ;).

Re:SAw this yesterday on Fark/iFilm

[gid-goo]

still provide enough entertainment to get ratings when you are up against people with essentially no journalistic ethics, like Fox News (no offense intended, it's just not journalism, it's pure populist-conservative entertainment most of the time).

I think what we have is competing teams without journalistic ethics. What Jon would propose is having actual dialog with facts instead of blast faxed talking points from the parties. Right now if they have a person who says black you have to get someone to say white. There is no evaluation of competing opinions. Shit, if they had someone on saying shooting kids in schools is bad they'll find some jackass to say it's good. In todays "journalism" merely being an opposing opinion automatically makes it valid. Which is bullshit. Its the new Republican relativism.

Re:SAw this yesterday on Fark/iFilm

[starm_]

"I don't think it's fair to hide behind his identity as a comic"

I think it is totally fair. Either CNN should stop to prioritize entertainment value over journalistic integrity or it should admit that their shows are not more serious or reasonable than say ... a fake news show on a comedy channel.

It is no coincidence that a lot of people have started listening to The Daily Show instead of allegedly "real news". They don't listen to John Stewart because The Daily Show is a good source of news but rather because the sources that describe themselves as serious aren't. The Daily Show is as good as CNN but that's CNN's fault. Except that CNN is lying about it. That these news channels hide the fact that they only care for ratings and refuse to admit that journalistic integrity is not a concern for them (as long as they look good) is deception to the public. It is an outright lie. They have to either raise the integrity bar or admit that they are only there for entertainment not unlike a comedy oriented news show.

The legal system can't do anything about these kinds of lies and false advertisement because they are so hard to prove. I guess the only solution here would be publicly funded organisations.

Political torrents

[paulproteus]

After I saw the first debate, I chatted with friends for a while about getting a video of it. Granted, I should have just taped it myself, but I don't have a MythTV setup ready at our new house yet. I considered streamdumping the Washington Post's stream of the event, and that's what I did in the end. But it took ages - streamdumping typically operates at "1x", so this time it took an hour and a half. And anyone else who wanted it would have to do the same slow thing.

My question is, Where can one find political torrents? The debates and this Jon Stewart-on-Crossfire are good examples. Until I saw this on Slashdot, I had no idea where to get this, either. Is there a central repository for these kinds of things, or some other blog I should be reading for links?

Re:Political torrents

[ivan37]

Suprnova had torrents of all of the debates a day or two after (although those are the only political torrents I've seen).

Re:Political torrents

[stevenrace]

Apple's iTunes Music Store offers free downloads of the presidential debates usually the day after.

More sources

[ylikone]

The video can also be found here in a few different formats... if the server isn't already dead...

http://www.contemporaryinsanity.org/video/

Stewart Deserves a Trophy.

[Fortyseven]

This man is my hero. I heard a clip of it from the Randy Rhodes show on the way home last night, and this morning grabbed the torrent of the show (god, cut the commercials out of the video, man...).

He really did something respectable and the hosts, rather than actually discuss the opinion being given, felt they needed to make fun of him and dodge the issue since they couldn't provide a realistic response. It was like "ERR ERR DOES NOT COMPUTE RESPOND WITH JIBBERISH" and sparks came out of their neck. Just like XP.

This was...

[Sheetrock]

One of the coolest things I've seen on TV since O'Reilly vs. Franken on C-Span BookTV.

Journalism standards have gone down the toilet. Kudos to Stewart for giving these folks a metaphorical kick to the nuts on live television -- wasn't a fan before, starting to become one now.

He's just so right; when a satirical news program on a minor cable channel meets or exceeds the journalistic bar in this country, to the point of winning awards and in many cases being the only news people will watch, you get an idea of just why things are so screwed and why so many people continue to buy into the two-party system. The media isn't conservative, and it certainly isn't liberal... it's simply profitable.

Re:This was...

[Zak3056]

The media isn't conservative, and it certainly isn't liberal... it's simply profitable.

This is the most insightful comment I've seen on slashdot in a long time. Welcome to my friends list.

The fact that the left screams about the right-wing bias of the media, while the right talks about the liberal bias of the media should be enough to clue people into the fact that there's a larger story here... but no one really seems interested in that--it's easier just to pretend they're on the other guy's side and whine about it.

As you so eloquently put it, the media is simply profitable. The only side the media is on is the media's.

Re:This was...

[internic]

The media isn't conservative, and it certainly isn't liberal... it's simply profitable.

My first reaction was "Yeah, that's the truth." But then I started thinking: I am a regular listener to NPR, and though their coverage of news is better (in my opinion) it's still not all that different. It could be because they still have to get corporate contributions, or is it more than that? One could also look at network news vs. the newshour on PBS to see the difference. Does that difference account for everything that's wrong with the news? I'm not sure it does.

Personally, I have a few peeves I'm not sure that other people share. One is that the media is not factual enough. Sure they will sometimes quote a statistic out of context, but they often don't have enough in depth covereage of the hard facts to give you a real idea of what they are. It's mostly a few statistics, press releases from political parties or corporations, and pundits, none of which give you much idea of the facts alone. Another issue is that they seem to believe that being unbiased means giving equal time to each viewpoint, rather than considering it on the basis of the facts that they're supposed to be reporting. If a polititian is wrong, they should say so, even if one is wrong more often than another. Finally, they need to challenge officials more in interviews, not so much in the O'reilly style of just barking their opinion (which is useless) but by assulting them with the hard facts to make it clear to everyone when they're lying. Those are my 2 cents, anyway.

Re:This was...

[ratsnapple tea]

"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth."

Steve Jobs

Re:This was...

[sg3000]

> The only side the media is on is the media's.

Although theoretically, that is true, I would say that in this case, the major media heavily wants George W. Bush to win, so they tend to lean towards him. A great example is the fact that Kerry-Edwards won all four debates, but all the television pundits are now saying the debates don't really matter. If Bush had won (even just the last one), we would have heard about it non-stop.

Why would the major media prefer Bush? I read an interview in either Newsweek or Businessweek with the CEO of Viacom, who owns CBS among other outlets. In the interview, he was asked about the amount of money he personally has given to John Kerry, and he said something along the lines of I'm personally for Kerry, but as head of Viacom, when he votes, he votes in Viacom's interest. He said, "I don't want to denigrate Kerry, but from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on."

When he says "deregulation" for his industry, he's talking about how the Bush administration has been heavily for media consolidation.

I think the reason why the Bush administration is for media consolidation is because, much like how Wal-mart prefers to work with a relatively small number of large vendors (so they can put pressures on them), the Bush administration knows that if there is a relatively small number of large media companies, they can put more pressure on them. If one of these companies puts out a movie critical of the president (let's say, Disney allowing "Fahrenheit 9/11" to be released), the White House can declare that ABC News (owned by Disney) doesn't get any embedded reporters during the war and they lose their space in the media entourage. Thus, since the large media company has lots to lose, they will practice self-censorship.

John Kerry has recently spoken out against media consolidation, as well as other Democrats and even some Republicans (I believe Kay Bailey Hutchinson IIRC), because they know that media consolidation will result in self-censorship, rendering it ultimately ineffective. Another interesting example is that Howard Dean was the media darling, until he spoke out against media consolidation. Soon after that, Dean was "Gored" by the media.

Jon Stewart is right. The media pretends to provide balance, but the truth is, they're no longer serving the public. They're really just serving the politicians.

Re:This was...

[po8]

NPR has manipulated laws and its public "competition" to the point where it has a near-monopoly on non-profit radio in the United States. For example, they have consistently sided with commercial broadcasters against allowing low-power (and thus low-cost) FM radio stations. Some college radio stations were driven off the air when NPR successfully lobbied the FCC to kill their licenses soon after it was formed.

Keep in mind that NPR is a medium-sized corporation: it pays salaries to quite a few people, owns infrastructure and facilities, etc. It has about the same set of concerns as any (privately-held) broadcasting corporation, including increasing market share and revenue.

In addition, as you observe, NPR is funded directly by the same large corporations that fund the Democratic and Republican parties. While I'm skeptical that there's explicit tying of donations to content, I'm sure that NPR is careful to keep its overall format fundable.

Hurt to watch

[AntsInMyPants]

It was like watching a man stomp on the heads of puppies with steel toed boots.

Except the puppies were Carlson and Begala and the boots were Truth, so it was cool.

Re:Hurt to watch

[AntsInMyPants]

In Jon's own words (paraphrasing, here)

If you want compare yourself to a comed show, go ahead.

Crossfire claims to be a show dealing with Real Issues(TM) and Real Serious Debates(TM). What Jon demonstrated quite eloquently, was that, in fact, Crossfire (and shows like it) are nothing more than the same kind of entertainment he provides.

The crucial difference being that his show is advertised as comedy. Crossfire advertises itself as journalism. If Tucker wants to chide Jon for not being "journalistic" enough on his show, the door is wide open for Jon to do the same. Its the hypocracy that is so nauseating. That Tucker and Begala think they are doing some great thing by asking Tough Questions(TM) that allow them to get to the Truth(TM).

In reality, they are not asking tough questions they are only asking inflammatory ones. And this allows each side to retreat to their talking points to while copmletely ignoring the actual issue at hand.

Jon exposes this, and the best they can do is say "Be funny" or "You're boring"? Their utter failure to defend their show in any meaningful way was more dmaning of their show than Jon's smart ass comments.

Re:Hurt to watch

[Ohreally_factor]

What he did was rude.

It was rude because he didn't follow Begalla's and Carlson's expectations? It was rude because he criticized them? Have you ever seen Crossfire before?

Was it what he said to Carlson? Carlson practically fed him the lines.

I don't have my opinions feed to me by some silly TV show

Which TV shows do "feed to you your opinions"?

It's like protesters, protesting about Bush all day, but when they're asked why don't they run for president, they just say something dumb like "That's not my job, he's the one who's president!" or some dumb junk like that.

That's pretty good, making stuff up like that. Maybe you should run for office, seeing as how you have such a great creative talent.

The real reason I think John wasn't funny was because he didn't have a team of writers giving him a script to read, he had to do the show live and without a script. There are lots of comedians like that, not funny without their script.

The whole point is that John wasn't being funny, he was being serious, which was his intention. Carlson was the one who was screamingly unintentionally funny. Begalla didn't come off that bad because he didn't give Stewart any big openings.

I think you've also demonstrated that you haven't really watched the Daily Show, so you really don't know what you're talking about.

So, to summarize:

1) Your command of the English language is astounding.
2) Your opinion is "feed" to you buy serious TV shows, not silly ones.
3) You have a talent for making shit up when you want to make a point.
4) You wouldn't know funny if it hit you on the ass.
5) Your opinion matters (especially since it isn't "feed" to you by silly TV shows).

That guy sis damn funny.

[Moby Cock]

I love Jon Stewart's wit. He is one funny dude. I am not an American and I still watch his show because of the cleverness of it. Oddly, he (and the others on the show) seems to be having a real effect on how the US elections are progressing. His unending assaults on the media coverage and their lack of gumption has created a huge following for his show. In the all-important 'young voter' demographic no less. While it is true that he leans left he lampoons what needs lampooning. He is not afraid. And he's friggin' funny.

More Jon Stewart for us all.

I heard he was on the Factor, alas I could not see it because I do not have the odious Fox Network in my country. Is there a torrent for that interview?

Re:That guy sis damn funny.

[LuxFX]

I heard he was on the Factor

Actually, that interview led to a particularly amusing bit of research. Comedy Central, although open enough to the fact that O'Reilly was just joking in fun when he said that nothing but "stoned slackers watch your dopey show", didn't like the misconception it reflected. So, they had Nielson Media do some research....

It turned out that viewers of The Daily Show were more likely to have completed a four-year college than viewers of The Factor.

Best quotes

[Faust7]

STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...

STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

***

CARLSON: Jon, you're bumming us out. Tell us, what do you think about the Bill O'Reilly vibrator story?

STEWART: I'm sorry. I don't.

Re:Best quotes

[AntsInMyPants]

What makes this even better is the tone, which you obviously can't get from the transcript.

Jon's was one of quiet exasperation coupled with legitimate anger, and just a dash of contempt.

Carlsons' tone was one of self-righteousness, followed quickly by stammering, defensiveness, and forced-incredulity.

Begala (who I otherwise despise) was at least wise enough to keep quiet through most of it. He seemed to understand that they were screwed.

Re:Best quotes

[tksh]

Actually, I thought these were the better:

***

CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.

STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.

***

CARLSON: I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.

STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

***

I mean, he got invited to the show and they were expecting him to take the setups from both hosts and make jokes but he refused to and told them straight what he thought. That takes guts. Especailly in the second quote, you can tell Carlson got smack in the face and he had nothing to respond.

Re:Best quotes

[FungiFromYuggoth]

You really should watch the clip - you can't get the full impact from the transcript. Crossfire is "shouting head" journalism - nothing is resolved, people shout at each other. It's two parallel shows, there's no illumination of issues.

What I find funny is that his political views and the network he just attacked are one in the same.

What are you talking about? CNN may have once been left-leaning, but they've been trying to out-fox Fox in recent years. Anyway, the main biases the media has are laziness and greed. PS - I know someone who is shocked at how little is taken out of their paycheck in the US - but they're from a country that has universal health care.

Re:Best quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Jon is saying he can't be criticized because he is on Comedy Central. He was saying that because these two are on CNN that they should be held to a higher standard of journalism. Therefore, Carlson can't just brush away the criticism by saying "You do it so it's ok if I do it!"

And I think you have it backwards. It wasn't Carlson critiquing Jon, it was Jon critiquing Carlson and Carlson trying to "hide" by putting CNN on equal footing with a show on Comedy Central!

Re:Best quotes

[FungiFromYuggoth]

If we can't criticize him because he's on Comedy Central, then why should we listen to any serious arguments from him, seeing as he's on Comedy Central?

What qualifications would you like a US citizen to meet before he's allowed to make commentary? I'd bet you haven't watched the clip - Tucker Carlson was accusing him of asking Kerry softball questions. The "puppets" line is Stewart's response to questions about his journalistic responsibility. Nothing in what he said implied no one could criticize him - merely that his show was not a "real news show". The scary thing is that the Daily Show has treated the Swift Boat liars story more professionally than the mainstream media.

Re:Best quotes

[Surlyboi]

Lastly, I just want to say that there are a small number of people who take their "news" from Johns show. They take what he says as fact. Most are younger (18-25) year olds, that will have their eyes opened when they get their first "real" paycheck and see how much is taken out in federal and state taxes.... Yes they are ignorant of the fact that he follows another "satire" show, because they don't watch that other show. They tune in to his show and take it as news.


This is so much bullshit. For someone with a sig like yours (Ben Franklin's line about giving up liberty for security and deserving neither, just in case you decide to change it...) to say something along those lines while all kinds of civil liberties are being trounced on by the man that's "giving you tax cuts" (at the expense of a shitload of social programs, no less) is a sad statement on where we are today as a nation.

Stewart's political views are not hidden in his jokes. He's very open about his views. But he's also tired of the political hackery on both sides and he's said and shown as much on many occasions.

And before you accuse me of being one of those "young punks" who's never gotten a real paycheck, I've been a CTO for the last year and a half and if they want to take more of my money and the money of people like me out in taxes, more power to 'em. I'd much rather see that money go to the public good than have another one of my colleagues blow his bonus on another new Bentley

Re:Best quotes

[jjohnson]

Stewart wasn't saying that he's immune to criticism. He's saying that a comedy show exists for comedy, not to inform or to challenge; a comedy show has no duty to ask tough questions. A show bearing a pretense to be a watchdog of the political process does.

To put it another way: when the comedy show is held to higher standards than the news show, something's really wrong. When the comedy show actually does a better job adhering to those standards than the news show, well, it's all gone to shit.

Re:Best quotes

[Ubergrendle]

I call BS on your logic. He's invited on CNN to discuss his book. CNN has declared him 'newsworthy'. Thus he has an opportunity to express an opinion in a public forum. When Stewart invites guests onto his show, there's some discussion of current events, but only for the purposes of comedy. John Stewart would not launch into such a diatribe if the Crossfire folks were guests on his show -- its a different forum. This, for example, is why there was a backlash against Rosie O'Donnell when she ambushed Tom Selleck years back on his NRA membership.

Face it, CNN had home field advantage and they got ANNIHILATED by a non-professional. A show about arguments for specious reasons...a comedian guest comes on with a REAL issue, and they folded like lawn chairs.

Ultimately, I think Stewart is having a greater and greater sense of guilt...he's realising his influence on people and their voting habits and recognises that this SHOULDN'T be the case. I think he just wants to be a comedian, but when faced with unexpected power, he's trying to be responsible with it.

Re:Best quotes

[Overzeetop]

Actually, yes.

It's clear that Surlyboi's contemporaries (as with much of the m(b)illions of other typical humans) believe that 200k will do far more for the good of mankind if it's traded for a very comfortable automobile into which they can place their tender ass.

While I won't claim that I'm getting a great return on my investment which is taken from my paycheck, my money is, infact, going to investments in science and technology, biotech, education, law enforcement, national defense, community outreach, and other worthy programs. Out of my $200,000 in taxes, only $50k,000 may go to programs I deem useful, but that's $50,000 more than if I'd spent it on another Bentley.

Oh, and your free market can't do squat when it comes to efficiency. How do I know? Take a look at what Brittney Spears made last year and then tell me that - based on her talent - that sum was justified, because THAT is the free market in action.

The simple fact is...

[DragonMagic]

Yes, it's time to stop. The media plays for the largest audience, so alienating large numbers of people is bad. They need these numbers to attract advertisers and higher rates to have ads during these shows.

Two solutions still linger: Talk radio and satellite radio. Talk radio has low values for advertisers already, and satellite radio is already paid for by subscriptions. Imagine Jon Stewart without the bounds of Viacom or the need to placate to any audience the corporation wanted.

Jon, as good as he is, also wants to be big; he wants Dave Letterman's spot when he retires. GE controlling Conan at 11:35pm versus Viacom controlling Jon at 11:35pm, would it be tragic or a victory for political humor?

I just hope Jon can get his own talk show on radio, whether AM/FM or satellite, that can reach the masses without the fetters of a large corporation.

It was beautiful

[bitingduck]

The thing that really made it great was that he (the comedian/satirist) showed that he can switch modes and they (blowhard pundits) were incapable of being anything but blowhard pundits. They seemed to be expecting a combination of fluff and easy target, and he was a truly concerned citizen. The bald guy seemed to realized that it was better to keep his mouth shut and let bowtie hang himself.

Have to remember that I actually have a TV and cable long enough to actually watch the Daily show...

Jon Stewart to a foreigner / Explaining Crossfire

[P-Frank]

I've followed the Daily Show for about 3 years now. As a New Zealander, I spotted it on CNN International at 5:30am on a Monday. It was a cobbled together clip show of that week on the Daily Show, often it would get pre-empted by George Bush choking on something and since the US feed would take over, it would never come back.

I just downloaded this clip off a forum and was incredibly surprised to be honest. Only the week prior, Jon played reasonably nice with Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor, as well as with O'Reilly on the Daily Show. I understand a fundamental difference in O'Reilly and in Crossfire though. With Crossfire, these two theatrical characters are meant to be embody the two sides to the social and political spectrum in America. Furthermore, rather than asking any important questions, both of them just pander to their guests based upon their political bias. They accept bullshit when it is slung at them and lap it up.

Although the point on Crossfire regarding Jon throwing softballs to John Kerry during their interview, Jon's assumption was that the real news media should be held to a higher standard than a comedy show that used to do parody news segments from the Weekly World News (During Kilborn's Daily Show era).

The hard questions aren't asked and if they are, you either get complete bullshit or you get offense. Take for example Stewart's lampooning of Zel Miller (sp?), the democratic senator that delivered the keynote address at the RNC. When interviewed by Russert, Miller took such offense to moving away from the republican talking points, or even questioning his use of metaphor and asking what it referred to, that he challenged Russert to a duel and stormed off the set.

Crossfire, to Jon, epitomised the pandering to the two-party system and their bag of dirty tricks. They are part of the system as opposed to part of the supposedly subjective media. Crossfire tried to hold Jon to a higher standard than the news media. Perhaps now that Stewart is popular, he does indeed have a duty to inform (That he has played down in many interviews)? People go to him for news, that he markets as a side-effect to the comedy.

Crossfire epitomises the passive media that has plagued the United States. Not just passive, but passively arrogant. Nasty little men who ask ridiculous questions and either cheer or smirk at the bollocks that is delivered to them. Jon does a better job and it isn't even his job, his job primarily is to make us laugh. It is a scary statement on the media in general, but perhaps with the legitimacy that he is being bestowed with, maybe, just maybe things can improve.

Funny..

[sinner0423]

A credit to Jon Stewart.. he's a funny guy. But it really does say something about the current state of our media, when a satirical news show host is considered a political correspondant.

Although.. knowing the way my country works, I wouldn't be suprised if he becomes a governer, or the president, in less than 8 years. His running mate? Lewis Black.

They'd get my vote. We may as well have our kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.

Re:Funny..

[Bigbiff]

Oh man, Lewis Black in the Vice Presidential debate. Hilarious!

Re:Funny..

[Zebbers]

Have you ever watched the show? Presenting the factual news in a funny way does not detract from the actual facts. He doesn't make up shit, just present news then make fun of how gay it really all is. Compare this to a more psychotically biased news channel like our favorite fox news and you see why he may be the only TRUE political correspondent.

Masterful

[underwhelm]

Tucker Carlson's ego was the true guest of that episode of Crossfire, and it got shot down.

He's jealous that Stewart got to interview Kerry on his fake news show, and utterly devestated that Stewart would state that Carlson's not a true journalist. All in front of a live, studio audience.

"Doggy dog"?

[sczimme]

you'll notice it's a doggy dog world out there

I believe the phrase you wanted is "dog-eat-dog" not "doggy dog". The idea is that one dog will try to eat another dog when competition becomes fierce. Compare this with "doggy dog", which sounds like another name for a cute little puppy pup.

Hypocracy is dead (not really though)

[AntsInMyPants]

It shows you how bad journalism has gotten when someone can step in and just demolish them like that.

When Carlson tried to act all indignant about Jon sucking up to Kerry, it was all over. With humor and sarcasm, Jon just blew him out of the water. Crossfire claims to be a "real" news show, but Jon exposed it for what it really is.

Its not that this is something new; what's so great is how he does it on their own show. People always have to suck up to these jack asses because they are either afraid to look bad (politicians) or want to be asked back (journalists and politicians).

The result is something more fake than The Daily Show, because it refuses to recognize the absurdity. Its all about shouting and mock-rage from people who care very little for the issue at hand, and are only looking for their "side" to win. The thought process seems to be, if my side did it, then its ok. If the other guy did it, it must be bad somehow.

Just watching begala and carlson stammer and stutter was great. Watching them try to get back on to "funny" topics was painful to watch as they were so obviously lost and out-gunned. Carlson, who prides himself on being so intelligent was reduced to saying "Be Funny". Jon shut him down on that too.

In the middle of it all, Begala and Carlson start whinng for a commercial break. Most likely because they had wet themselves in the previous 5 minutes and needed a change.

Re:Remember when Kerry was on TDS

[Ariane 6]

Jon Stewart wants to be taken seriously

I disagree. I think he wants people to take democracy seriously (and off-air he uses what the influence he's got to that end), but I don't think his news show has any goal other than making people laugh.

The popularity of the show as a source of genuine news is merely an indicator of how far gone the "mainstream" media is.

kudos

[EZmagz]

Read the transcript on Fark yesterday, and my jaw hit the ground as soon as Stewart started talking. I admit right off the bat that I'm a huge Stewart fan, mainly because his "fake news" show is more informative (IMHO) than any other real news show on television these days. That aside, Stewart's also a VERY quick guy who's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to a battle of the wits.

Even if you're not a Stewart fan, you gotta give him credit for going on a popular show like Crossfire, and absolutely calling out the hosts and the rest of the media ON THEIR SHOW for being irresponsible journalists! Even more props for calling one of the hosts a "dick" on CNN. Gotta love when the Crossfire crew starts attacking the integrity of The Daily Show and Stewart immediately fires back that they're preceeded by a crank call program with puppets.

Regardless, I highly suggest anyone even remotely interested in politics and journalism read the transcript.

Re:Jon Stewart to a foreigner / Explaining Crossfi

[ceejayoz]

Perhaps now that Stewart is popular, he does indeed have a duty to inform (That he has played down in many interviews)? People go to him for news, that he markets as a side-effect to the comedy.

People who watch The Daily Show did better on a quiz about their political knowledge than people who watch any of the cable news shows - FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc.

Doesn't that mean he's doing his duty to inform people?

favorite quote from transcript

[spoonyfork]

You can get the transcript here.

STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.

CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.

STEWART: You need to go to one.

Jon Stewart, I love you.

If you watched the video

[metalhed77]

If you watched the video, he addresses this very point. Essentially, the daily show's first job is to entertain. Even as a liberal, I'd say that the daily show often times intentionally oversimplifies issues for comedic effect, sometimes at the cost of insight. However, it's a goddamn comedy show, and even WITH all these problems it still manages to be more insightful and honest than other shows.

And as far as Stewart lobbing Kerry softballs, Stewart often times cuts guests slack. O'Reilly was recently on and both O'Reilly and Stewart had a great time with absolutely no vitriolic discourse. He sometimes does that with his guests, and it's his prerogative. It's a goddamn comedy show.

Additionally, you can call Stewart a hypocrite all you want, but even if it were true, it doesn't mean that he's not right about this.

Re:America, a country at war with itself

[MikeCapone]

It's a sad state of affairs when in a supposedly strong democracy like american (that only has two political parties with only milionnaires running and a pathetic participation rate on election day) you get better news from a comedy show than from the mainstream media.

Re:Remember when Kerry was on TDS

[MikeCapone]

Stewart is not a journalist, he's a comedian.

His show is not about blasting comedians, it's about laughing at the really poor job that the media does.

He's been nice in interviews with republicans too, and he even was angry at his audience when they didn't pay proper respect to the republican guest.

show format

[ir0b0t]

Jon Stewart is constrained by the commercial format of his show in ways similar that Carlson et al. are constrained by the commercial formats of their shows. For e.g., Jon Stewart has to be funny.

The heart of the difference is that Carlson et al. are practitioners of the only profession which is explicitly protected in a constitutional amendment. Stewart is voicing a widely held criticism of commercial journalism: that commercial journalism is not adequately doing its job under the constitution.

It matters less whether a viewer shares this criticism than the question of whether journalists are obligated to make viewers aware of it.

For the same reason, I think it misses the point to denigrate a Comedy Channel program for its lack of balanced news coverage.

Funniest thing I've seen in a while on Crossfire

[stubear]

Normally I can't stand Crossfire mostly because of James Carvile. When someone answers his questions not to his liking ha immediately begins to shout him down and spout complete nonsense or straw man arguments. Jon Stewart nailed the problem with this show, and many other news programs like it, right on the head. Tucker Carlson didn't help the show when he tried to hold Jon Stewart to a higher standard, discounting the fact that Jon Stewart does comedy of the news and does not report the news directly. Surprisingly Paul Begala kept his trap shut for the most part and took the beating from Jon Stewart.

On a side note I thought John Kerry's recent appearances on Jon Stewart, David Letterman and Regis and Kelly were pathetic attempts to try to connect with average citizens and prove that he's not just a robot. Sorry John, you're still a robot and you just made an ass of yourself on these shows.

Also, thanks/. for posting links to this Crossfire episode. I spent last night at Bertucci's outside Fenway Park waiting to hear news of the fate of Game 3 of the ALCS. One TV had ESPN on it, the other CNN. Headline News briefly covered the show but as it was in a bar, there was only closed captioning so I missed most of what was said, and I was more concerned with the ESPN feed, I was upset I missed my chance to see Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson get tongue lashed on their own show.

Dead serious is right

[gad_zuki!]

Is Jon Stewart turning into our generation's Neil Postman? Sure seems that way. It looked like Jon had an attack of conscience. It looked like he wanted to either yell or cry. Maybe he was ready for the jokes, pimping the book, etc and remembered how this show was going to play out: one guy giving out the DNC talking points, the other guy giving the RNC talking points, and Stewart making silly jokes about both. Like he said, he didn't want to be their monkey so he went into Neil Postman mode and attacked them on their newstainment bullshit. Its well deserved, not only because he attacked the newstainment format but because that show is especially bad in regards to politics. Its not right v left or any of that, its Democrat v. Republican talking points.

I mean, Carlson is the guy who said this about Edwards: "he (Edwards) was a personal-injury lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases." He knew full well Edwards did a class action for a pool pump which was used in both public and private pools which hurt little kids, but as a GOP operative that's what he had to say, especially when their managers are trying to out-sleeze shows like O'Reily and the other pathetic offerings from Fox News and MSNBC. It was all too fake for Stewart so he just spent this invaluable time attacking the system. Any sane person would have done the same. Perhaps. I think most people would have been good little boys and girls and pimped their books and played nice. Stewart knows he doesn't need CNN to sell his book or to get ratings for his show, so he took a very risky chance to take a moral stand. Don't expect him to be on any other shows for a long time, unless this is the straw which breaks the corporate media's back, which I doubt it is. If anything, this is more like a Lenny Bruce monologue which was groundbreaking at the time, but wasn't an agent of change in itself for a long time after.

Its almost predictable. I think too many people see the Daily Show as a fake news comedy show. It actually is satire of the highest order. Jon and his writers are doing nothing but mocking every news show, every hackneyed local evening news anchor, every news magazine format, every soft news journalist, etc.

I thought the most interesting part of this exchange was the comment about Carlson's bow-tie. Stewart wasn't mocking him for his lack of fashion sense, he was justifying what he calls "theater." Why would a young man wear such an old fashioned article of clothing like that, if not for attention? If not for a "distinctive look." If not for "personality branding." etc. Carlson was denying his show is theater while in a costume. It was very poignant observation by Stewart and showed the absurdity of the entire spectacle.

Source

Re:Dead serious is right

[zaffir]

The Daily Show is the only news channel myself and many people i know watch on a regular basis. That says volumes about not only the quality of that show, but the state of news in this country.

Re:Dead serious is right

[demachina]

I leave CNN on in the background much of the day, though I usually turn off Crossfire and a few of their shows I can't stand(the monring show, Wolf, Paula, Cooper). OK I guess I actually shut off more than on lately. I dearly wish I could get CNN international because CNN U.S. seems to be intentionally very dumbed down for an American audience.

I shut off Crossfire because there is to much shouting and to much repetition of the same worn out talking points by the left and the right. I did watch the show yesterday thought and it was awe inspiring, especially because it was live and they kept coming back from the commercial breaks for another beating. I especially liked it when they were in Rapidfire and Stewart ignored the gong until they gave up on it.

Once again the right proved they have no sense of humour, Begala mostly kept his mouth shut and Carlson made a complete ass out of himself. Another example of the Republicans having no sense of humor the Michigan Republican party trying to charge Michael Moore with vote buying for offering clean underwear or Ramen noodles to slackers who vote. The first DA they took it to said no, she had real crime to deal with.

But there is a flaw in Stewart's arguement. The news shows are like they are because people watch them. If their ratings suck they will go off the air, but if people watch them they will keep doing what they do. Unfortunately most people want scandal, lurid crimes, partisan bickering, controversy and watching people fight. The problem here is mostly the American people and not so much the cable networks. Americans are so dumbed down most of them don't want to watch insightful debate or intelligent journalism.

Where cable news is today and is going to keep going is dictated almost entirely by FOX News. They now control a market share equal to all of the rest of the cable news networks combined, 9 of the top 10 shows through the summer. The one exception was Larry King and that is mostly because half his shows have been turned over to Court TV which obsess on the lurid trials of the day, and a quarter seem to be about Britain's royal family. Larry King has completely dumbed his show down to the level American's are comfortable with it.

The fact is a LOT of Americans are extremely partisan, and not well informed, and in particular a LOT of them are rabidly right wing partisans which is why talk radio is like it is and why FOX dominates an entire half of the cable news market.

What Stewart said was right in an ideal world but this isn't an ideal world. There are some fairly well done news shows Lehrer, Charlie Rose, Russert, Aaron Brown and they have an audience but they are never going to compete against vicious, partisan shouting matches like O'Reilly (though we can pray O'Reilly's career will crater now that the scandal mongering is aimed at him and not by him).

The hypocrisy in what Stewart said is I wager he would be a sensational flop if he were to try to do what he was telling the news networks to do. If he tried to run a news show with insightful debate and reasoned commentary (and no comedy) chances are high it would flop or end up with a subsistence market share. If anyone could do it he could and if he wants to put his money where his mouth is he should. Its pretty easy to scold the news networks to do something that would probably be ratings suicide, and then go back to doing fake news and comedy and a sure market share.

From Yahoo News

Fox News beats all rivals
Pamela McClintock, STAFF
Tue Sep 28, 6:23 PM ET

NEW YORK -- For the first time in its history, Fox News Channel beat the combined competition in primetime during the third quarter of 2004, with major headlines of the summer including the national political conventions and a brutal string of hurricanes.

According to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News averaged 1.8 million viewers, while CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and Headline News averaged a combined total of 1.7 million. The quarter ended Su

Re:Dead serious is right

[grmoc]

Disagreement.

The Daily Show is newsworthy enough to have won a Peabody (Election Coverage in 2000).

I'd forward the opinion that it is easier to determine what is fake and/or unimportant news watching the Daily Show than most other 'real' news programs.

The fact that it is News-tainment doesn't bother me as the show has a social conscience, and attacks whenever and wherever it has found someone/something wrong.

Re:Dead serious is right

[demachina]

Don't see your point.

What Stewart was doing there was classic "do as I say not as I do".

When I watched him on Crossfire I cheered him on. Smart, well informed people desperately want more of exactly what he was advocating. But then you think about it in a practical sense. The problem is most people aren't smart, well informed people so neither is most of the TV and TV news they watch. Its one of those cases where its impossible to tell which is the chicken and the egg, though I'm pretty sure if all TV news suddenly turned smart, nonpartisan and informed I doubt the American people would necessarily follow, they would probably just switch to a Sports channel. If you want most people to watch news it in fact needs to have a heavy dose of comedy, sporting event and or theater.

I love Jon Stewart, but for him to say "At least I can sleep at night" is kind of hypocritical. Either he should put on a show that what he was demanding so dtirdently, informed debate and smart journalism, or stick to satirizing journalism and leave it alone.

I didn't suggest he put together a "political wrestling federation show", I suggested he put on a show that does what he was telling the news networks to do, and probably watch it flop. Otherwise he should stick to comedy and satire. The comedy and satire angle is already doing a much better job of shredding the news networks, and especially shredding them in the ratings race, than preaching to them that they should aspire to an ideal that probably wouldn't work in our less than ideal world. Lehrer, Russert, Brown and Rose do a fair job of doing what Stewart proposed and they just don't compete well with partisan flame throwing.

Most people want to either:

A. Watch news heavily biased to their partisan view, and especially a media star that holds their partisan view shred the people they disagree with, which is why O'Reilly and Rush are #1.

B. Watch one side that matches their partisan view fight with the other side, the classic Crossfire. In fact neither side really ever wins but you always believe your side wins everytime.

America is pretty much polarized to 40-45% Republican/Right and 40-45% Democrat/Left and maybe 10-20% independent who are either kind of indifferent, dislike them both or actually try to make smart decisions based on issues in defiance of insurmountable odds. The right is going to watch Fox, the left is going to watch CNN, not sure who watches MSNBC. You can get both sides to watch Crossfire because both sides are equally and badly represented.

Re:Dead serious is right

[zCyl]

I'd forward the opinion that it is easier to determine what is fake and/or unimportant news watching the Daily Show than most other 'real' news programs.

The fact that it is News-tainment doesn't bother me as the show has a social conscience, and attacks whenever and wherever it has found someone/something wrong.

Comedy on the Daily Show works by a pretty simple principle. They say things that have an element of truth, but everyone else is avoiding saying, and they say them with extreme gusto. As such, the Daily Show often ends up saying things closer to the truth than the actual news, because their method of humor is a funny version of "Bzzzt, wrong!"

Re:Dead serious is right

[C10H14N2]

But there is a flaw in Stewart's arguement. The news shows are like they are because people watch them. If their ratings suck they will go off the air, but if people watch them they will keep doing what they do.

It's not a flawed argument. Americans aren't naturally ignorant sheeple. They have just been conditioned over the last twenty years by this sort of crap to lose their ability to distinguish between news and editorial. Sure, Americans love scandal and sleaze, but the drug dealer and the pimp share responsibility in the plights of the crack-addicted whores they prey upon. Jon stood up basically said, "I'm one of your viewers. I'm not your crack whore. I want this relationship to stop and could you please stop pimping out the public and selling them crack? You're hurting them. Stop. You've got them hooked and they can't help themselves, so please just stop."

Bravo.

Re:Dead serious is right

[theLOUDroom]

But there is a flaw in Stewart's arguement. The news shows are like they are because people watch them. If their ratings suck they will go off the air, but if people watch them they will keep doing what they do.

Actually, the flaw is in your reasoning.

Channels like CNN are owned by large corporations with significant politcal interests. To pretend it's all about what the viewers want is to display extreme ignorance of the system.

The corporate media in this country have their own interests.

A really quick and easy example would be these channels' coverage of new movie releases:
Ever notice how new movies tend to get reported on/advertised by the channels who just happen to be associated with the company that made the movie?

Try thinking about this one for a second:
Maybe Nader wasn't allowed in the poresidential debates because the MEDIA's interests did not want him there. Say what you will, Nader basically decided the last election. If there was no Nader, we would have a different president right now.
In addition, I think most americans recognize that having a third party in the debates would have made them much more interesting.

Perhaps the REAL reason Nader was not allow in the presidential debates was because neither the corporate new media, nor their advertisers had bought him off. Seems logical doesn't it?

Re:Dead serious is right

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

I agree that Stewart should put his money where is mouth is and coordinate honest, factual public debate. If you saw him talk to Rudy Giuliani after the first presidental debate, he did that, he tore him a new factual asshole about Giuliani's (and the GOP's) blatant misreading of everything Kerry said that night - in as polite a way as possible, of course, in the standard Stewart mannerism.

But, I disagree with two things in your post:

First, the fact that shows like Crossfire get good ratings doesn't enter into his argument. He is saying that as pundits on CNN, they have an ethical RESPONSIBILITY to be honest, not to twist facts according to the parties' wishes, and to actually discuss civilliy the issues of the day. It has nothing to do with ratings - they make a lot of money with all sorts of different kinds of shows. In order to make that money, they have to acquire the media POWER to get viewers, and to be a respected news organization. But the COST is not just the dollars to do so, it's also an ethical responsibility to provide real coverage, discussion, information, and so on to the public so everyone can make a decision on november 2 informed by the facts, and not "spin". That they instead provide argument shows where shills from both parties yell the party lies at each other is a disgrace and an outrage. Even MORE so because people get suckered into watching it. The demographic is people just a little too high-brow for Springer. But at least Springer isn't spreading biased misinformation about important political issues, he just perpetuates stereotypes and paints a caricature of America for the world to hate. Not nearly as bad.

The second thing is Stewart's hypocrisy. I agree he is a hypocrite - if he would stop shirking HIS responsibility with the excuse that he's a comedian, he could do a lot of good in this area that he was just speaking out against. He is in a good position to do this. But, I just wanted to point out that just because someone is a hypocrite doesn't mean they are wrong. There is no correlation.

-If

Re:Dead serious is right

[aecolley]

"I dearly wish I could get CNN international because CNN U.S. seems to be intentionally very dumbed down for an American audience."

Weird. I wish I could get CNN U.S., because CNN international seems to be intent on projecting an image of calm to the world rather than exposing the incredible mess that is U.S. election politics. From way over here in .ie, it seems like any fool should be able to see that re-electing Bush would be an insane choice. But clearly many non-foolish Americans disagree, and I for one would like to know what they're being told that we're not.

--Adrian.

Re:Dead serious is right

[cgreuter]

The news shows are like they are because people watch them. [...] Americans are so dumbed down most of them don't want to watch insightful debate or intelligent journalism.

It's more than that. The problem with TV news is that they have to fill a time-slot every day. This gives it the advantage of providing immediate, real-time coverage during a crisis. However, when there's no crisis, they have to find something to fill the time slot, which means that most news coverage is irrelevant most of the time. That makes it boring and needlessly depressing.

The Daily Show works around this by being funny. If there's nothing relevant to talk about it, at least you can get a few laughs off it.

I'm not sure what Fox News does, since I've seen maybe ten minutes' worth of it total, but from what I've heard of it, it looks to me like they're trying to fake relevance by pitching themselves as the last defender of All That Is Good And Decent from the Evil Liberal Conspiracy.

And frankly, if it's a choice of that or some talking head discussing the ramifications of the President's nasal polyps, I'd watch Fox News too.

Even Slashdot is a better news source. At least here, if nothing's happened today, I can read about the robot drum machine or look at pictures of some cool casemod.

Re:Dead serious is right

[po8]

Seems to me that Jon Stewart decided that he agreed with your analysis: there's no way to get an audience for a political show of the type he wants. So he went and got on a comedy show which talks about political topics.

Stewart never said not to "do as I do". He was just very clear about this: If you're doing entertainment, such as theatre or comedy, you should be labeling it theatre or comedy rather than journalism. Otherwise, you're doing a grave disservice to the surprising number of Americans who can't tell the difference.

Re:Dead serious is right

[rabel]

I don't get these arguments, and Jon Stewart is trying desperately to explain to everyone that his show is NOT a news show. What is with this "What Stewart was doing there was classic "do as I say not as I do" issue? What's wrong with that? His show is comedy and he has never represented it as anything other than that. He knows how to ask hardball questions (see Rudy Guilliani interview after the 2nd debate) but that's not his job, it's not his purpose, and it's never what he has made his show out to be.

What he's saying is, all these shows that are purported to be "news" shows, especially the ones on CNN, are not serving the country because they are NOT doing journalism.

Furthermore, I believe the oft-mentioned "American Public" want some real news. They don't want to be sheeple, but they don't have any other choices. The highest rated show on TV? 60 Minutes. Yes, they can have a definate spin to their questions. Yucca mountain reporting comes to mind, and I'm what you'd call an environmentalist, but even I could see they were asking loaded questions and trying to paint the NRC in a bad way. But the point is, for the most part, 60 Minutes tries to do in-depth reporting and tries to be fair, much more fair than other news shows, and they have great ratings. People want it. The country needs it.

The proof is in The Daily Show's high ratings and awards. It's a very sad commentary, and Jon Stewart knows it, that a *lot* of people get their news from his show because

• there aren't any better alternatives

. That's sad and Jon is trying to make everyone aware of that. Did you hear the reaction of the crowd during the Crossfire appearance? They were clapping for what Jon was saying. They agree! We want better journalism, and we want it to be on our TV!

Re:Dead serious is right

[gotih]

i think stewart was saying "we call the daily show 'fake news' but you are the real fake news. please, either get funny and move to comedy central OR start doing your job which is to report news NOT the republican/democrat talking points"

talking points is what these news networks are all about these days. i don't know how it happens but all of a sudden every one is calling kerry "a flip floppper" and backing it up with stats and numbers. meanwhile bush could just as easily be called a "flip flopper" though over things arguably more substantiative like his 2000 campaign comment that "we should not be involved in nation building excercizes." sooooo, what's the plan for iraq?

the "reports" and "journalists" today are just part of the political machine, they don't think for themselvs or ask questions which would mean anything. it's sad.

Re:Dead serious is right

[bitwiseNomad]

Unfortunately most people want scandal, lurid crimes, partisan bickering, controversy and watching people fight. The problem here is mostly the American people and not so much the cable networks. Americans are so dumbed down most of them don't want to watch insightful debate or intelligent journalism.

What makes you think that just because people do something over and over again that they would prefer it to something else? What if those people never learned that they could have something better? What if they have been doing one thing for so long that they have forgotten what it was like to do something else?

If what you're saying is true, then Jon Stewart's show wouldn't have a viewing audience at all. Do you think maybe the fact that his show is the *only* news show for many Americans is evidence enough to the contrary? His show is labeled as fake news, but just as he says in the transcript of his interview, most of his material comes from the absurdity in the political system and its accompanying news-pundit right-hand-men. Now I simply can't watch *real* news. It's like the Allegory of the Cave applied to my own life.

I didn't watch news before the Daily Show. Now, whenever I see anything on FOX, CNN, et al I feel sick. That might mean that I am not *most* Americans. But I imagine that's it's harder to make the change to interesting journalism from CNN, FOX et al if you grew up watching them. This has no bearing on what people would actually want - just what they are used to and do habitually.

Remember, folks. One of the requirements of a (real) free market is good information.

Re:Dead serious is right

[extra88]

I thought the most interesting part of this exchange was the comment about Carlson's bow-tie. Stewart wasn't mocking him for his lack of fashion sense, he was justifying what he calls "theater." Why would a young man wear such an old fashioned article of clothing like that, if not for attention? If not for a "distinctive look." If not for "personality branding." etc. Carlson was denying his show is theater while in a costume. It was very poignant observation by Stewart and showed the absurdity of the entire spectacle.

Here's the thing, I went to the same Connecticut college as Tucker, I think he was a year ahead of me. I don't have any specific recollections about him but wearing a bow tie was not that rare. If there was an occasion that called for blazers, there would always be a number of guys wearing a bow tie. It's a New England elite thing, it's just part of their gear. Again, I don't specifically remember Tucker from school, I think it's most likely that while it is also a part of his TV persona, it is something that he comes by honestly.

Good post, BTW.

Re:Dead serious is right

[Johnathon_Dough]

The second thing is Stewart's hypocrisy. I agree he is a hypocrite - if he would stop shirking HIS responsibility with the excuse that he's a comedian, he could do a lot of good in this area that he was just speaking out against.

Unfortunately, I think soon as Jon Stewart starts presenting himself as too serious, then he will not be able to get the guests he does, nor be able to act the way he does on show from too much outside pressure. He is walking a fine line between popularity with the rest of us for pointing out abusrdities in what he sees, and still getting the access he does to people like John Kerry, Rudy Gulliani, etc.

He can only be so hard hitting, before all of a sudden he is a Gary Treudeau, and respected by people who read him, as well as critically, but, will have no access to the people he is discussing.

Hate to remove your blinders

[DragonMagic]

But Jon doesn't force his show to lean either way; he just has more cannon fodder from Republicans.

I remember after the first debate, Jon's show was live. When Kerry answered the first question, Jon began the "audience falling asleep" type of assault. Last I saw, Kerry was a Democrat, not a Republican.

But just look at the cannon fodder for him to play with on one side! We have Bush saying that the war in Iraq is successful and we're winning, and then we see BBC feeds showing that we're not safe at all. We have Republicans in front of cameras LYING, not exaggerating or misleading, flat out LYING, and then on-camera proof to retort.

Try as you may, it's not Republican bashing, it's finally getting truth to the people who want it. Even if it's biting commentary or satirical in nature, Stewart still isn't about destroying one side.

If you want to end "Republican Bashing", start by telling Republicans who get bashed that we can record things, and we can play them back. Lying will get people nowhere today.

Re:Hate to remove your blinders

[Surlyboi]

He was argumentative with Giuliani because Giuliani was (follow me here) lying . Giuliani has become as much of a partisan hack as Begala, Carlson, Carville or Novak. If you bullshit on TDS, Stewart calls you on it. No more, no less.

Did you see the show where he had Marc Racicot on? He was rather civil to him, as he was to a lot of people on the right.

Perhaps you should consider your own bias before you call someone else on thiers.

Re:Remember when Kerry was on TDS

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

Jon Stewart doesn't want to be taken seriously on TDS. He has explicitly stated this. He has all kinds of people on his show and asks them "soft-ball" questions. If he was such a shill for the Dems, why does he parody the Dems so hard and why isn't he tough on his conservative guests. He's had Kissinger on his show, Ralph Reed has been there at least twice. He's had all kinds of people on there. He's actually quite a moderate.

Tucker's only attack was this, it was insane. CNN trying to hold a fake news show to some sort of journalistic integrity? WTF?! Both of them avoided the questions Jon was asking and were evading the entire discussion. They got defensive and Tucker even tried to attack Jon with that integrity crap. Jon accused them of hosting political kabuki every day and not actually discussing the things that matter to him as a citizen.

My question is how can anyone get indignant about the Dixie Chicks while also taking Jon Stewart's funny show seriously? That was Jon's real point. Both taking partisan positions on meaningless crap while ignoring the real news and holding the system accountable for it. He called them hacks because they perpetuate the absurdity rather than saying it's absurd. It's Jon's job to perpetuate absurdity, not CNN's.

Stewart is a Darn Good Green Lantern

[Trikenstein]

But he's no where near being in G'nort's league.

John Stewart is great

[Jonas the Bold]

That was wonderful. Shows like crossfire aren't actual political debate, the guy on the left is a democrat shill and the guy on the right is a republican shill.

The guy on the right can never say something like, "hey, warmongering isn't a conservative value" or "You're not really being fiscally conservative, bush". They just repeat republican rhetoric.

Same with the guy on the left, who isn't actually on the left, but just a democrat hack.

Basically, both of them are just repeating their party's arguments, which leaves huge blind spots for us, the people. Until this changes we'll never end up with not voting for the lesser of two evils, and democrats will never be held responsible for their actions BY democrats, and republicans will never be held responsible by conservatives. Also, we'll never hear any real arguments but just stupid stuff like kerry and bush's vietnam service. Like John Stewart said, "I asked him.. but I didn't care". Or like the Bill O'Reilly vibrator story, which has nothing to do with anything.

The politicians don't care, becuase the only people they ever get in trouble with are the opposition, who's support they don't have anyway.

Re:John Stewart is great

[ravenspear]

The guy on the right can never say something like, "hey, warmongering isn't a conservative value" or "You're not really being fiscally conservative, bush". They just repeat republican rhetoric.

I lean to the right, and I've been repeating both of those to countless people over the last few months. Lots of people have forgotten why they even started voting Republican in the first place and have become dumb enough to think that anything Republicans do must necessarily be conservative just because they are the "conservative party."

Fairness Doctrine

[gad_zuki!]

Funny you should mention talk radio. When Reagan took away the Fairness Doctrine, AM radio became a right-wing hatefest and continues to stay that way. Limbaugh, Savage, et al. AM used to be the cheap way to get ears, but now its partisan as all get out. Previous to Reagan's decision, AM (all broadcast media for that matter) had to present both sides of the issue in a serious manner. We are reaping the loss of the FD today with today's uber-consolidated corporate media. Just look at Sinclair which is going to air a ridiculous "documentary" on John Kerry on the 21st in a shameless attempt to alter the election. That ain't information, that's disinformation. Meanwhile Michal Moore lost his PPV F911 spot.

Double standard? You're soaking in it.

The fairness doctrine actually gave us Fair and Balanced coverage. Today, Fair and Balanced is a smartass tagline of the most biased network on television.

Re:Fairness Doctrine

[Detritus]

Don't blame the fairness doctrine for your alleged "right-wing hatefest". Elimination of the doctrine allowed people to engage in political speech on the radio without fear that someone would demand "equal time" for a dissenting viewpoint. This made it commercially viable. Why is Rush Limbaugh on a zillion stations? It isn't because he is a right-wing zealot, it's because he's entertaining to a large group of listeners and delivers an audience to advertisers. The average owner of a radio station would put Hillary Clinton on for four hours a day if she could deliver an audience. It's all about the ratings and dollars.

Re:Remember when Kerry was on TDS

[kevin lyda]

no he does not want to be taken seriously. did you even watch the crossfire episode?

did you see the part where they asked him who he he would get the best material from as a professional comment? his response was yes, because my professional comic career is more important than being a citizen.

john stewart is, among other things, a citizen of the united states. he was invited as john stewart the comedian, but he came as john stewart the citizen. and the citizens of our country are being betrayed by the poor state of journalism in this country. and john stewart, citizen, addressed the media when he got the chance.

as far as his career on the daily show - sure, he amused himself (and many others) with his interview with kerry. and if you actually saw that, you'll see he was taking digs at the media as he does on every show.

regardless of who wins this election, john stewart the citizen (and all the rest of us) will still be given poor service by the media. and almost more important than this election, the media needs to change. journalism needs to serve the public interest.

it currently is not.

Non-torrent links

[gad_zuki!]

Here

and here

Re:Carlson has a point though...

[gad_zuki!]

He was also softball with:

Henry Kissinger (most of the world considers him a war criminal)

Karen Hughes (Bush's campaign manager)

Ed Gillespie (RNC chairman/cheerleader)

Its just not a hard-news talk show. And its a comedy show which makes no promises about being fair, honest, or anything.

That said, you should watch the show more often as softball is all that goes on there, with a few exceptions.

Carlson doesnt have a point. Carlson needed to save face after he was exposed to be below the level of the daily show in terms of credibility. That's as low as you can get.

Bias would be an improvement

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The Economist is biased. They also report facts and put journalists on the ground who ask questions.

Mainstream US TV today, on the other hand, is a land of sound bites and photo opportunities. The "reporters" let themselves get spun like prayer wheels. Entertainment rules over substance. How much coverage have you seen of Kerry's health plan? Did you know that he has one?

Investigation has gone to the bottom of the media's priority list. Can you imagine any of today's blow-dried talking heads doing a show like Edward R. Murrow's spotlight on Joseph McCarthy? Why do we have to depend on bloggers to do investigative legwork?

The endless coverage of Monicagate was not conservative bias, it was flash over substance. Conservative bias might have dug up more serious abuses of power, like some suspicious IRS audits of conservative nonprofits. Liberal bias would have followed up the story that suddenly disappeared about the Iranians disinforming us about Iraqi WMD through Chalabi. Instead we see Irrelevant Hollywood Types For Kerry.

When I read biased reporting I feel like I've eaten something with flavor. I either like or dislike the flavor but I know I've gotten nutrition. Whenever I'm in the same room as TV news I feel like I'm being starved.

Oh, yeah, another pet peeve: why is election coverage about who's ahead, rather than who's going to do what in office?

Re:Bias would be an improvement

[Scrameustache]

How much coverage have you seen of Kerry's health plan? Did you know that he has one?

Well, he's pretty old, and he's got tons of money, so I should hope he's covered! ;-)

Oh, yeah, another pet peeve: why is election coverage about who's ahead, rather than who's going to do what in office?

That's a really good question...

My news pet peeve: Why is the guy that tells me about war, genocide, castastrphes and murders spending as much time, if not more, making small talk with the weather guy and discussing how many balls one group of men threw yesterday and if that was more than one other bunch of ball-obsessed men? I barely watch the news anymore, I scoure the internet looking for the info I crave rather than be subject to inane banter by "credible" newsmen. And why is "entertainment" news part of normal news? Stop plugging your parent company's crap and tell me the state of the world! Tell me about science, pollution, demographics, economies, say something worthwhile!

Re:Bias would be an improvement

[bfields]

When I read biased reporting I feel like I've eaten something with flavor. I either like or dislike the flavor but I know I've gotten nutrition.

Agreed. In fact, I'm a bit tired of the word "biased". The way people use the word, it tends to equate someone who has take a position based on careful thinking about the evidence with someone who has taken a self-serving position.

If the only way to be "unbiased" is to refuse to take a position on anything that is contested, even when there's a mountain of evidence for the position, well, I'd rather be biased!

There's a difference between having an opinion and being on the take....

--Bruce Fields

Re:When the hell did Jon Stewart attain credibilit

[nordicfrost]

How is this man -- who has never worked outside of comedy -- going to critique actual journalists, and get taken seriously?

By intellectually plowing them into the ground and kicking them in their weak kidneys like he did in Crossfire. The pundits are weak, their "journalism" is weak, their partisan angle is bullshit and he strips them naked in front of a TV audience. By simply having a better journalistic stance ( "What do do think about the vibrator story?" JS:"I Don't."), exposing the blended-in setting (JS: "How old are you?" "35" "And you wear a bow-tie") and requesting that they DEBATE not just chit-chat in a semi-aggressive way.

Crossfire is the Fake News.

[Big Sean O]

America isn't polarized, it's a big mess of folks right in the middle.

The folks on Crossfire represent their opinions as wholesome American values and the other side represents evil.

Seriously, do you think most Americans think it's right to out a CIA agent for any reason? And Begala ("Politics is show business for ugly people"). These people aren't interested in improving America, they're interested in improving ratings.

Stewart's biggest point is that they don't get paid for coming to consensus on difficult issues and getting both sides to talk instructively on issues. Crossfire is about baiting the other side, spin, and gotchas. It's theater, not debate.

You saw that after the first debate when Stewart interviewed Rudy Giuliani in "Spin-Alley". Jon tried to ask the Mayor about Bush's uneven performance at the debate. Giuliani kept spouting embarrassing spin. It was awful, transparent, and crass. CNN paid attention too. By the second debate, Jeff Greenfield (on CNN) said he didn't like cutting to "spin alley" for instant reaction. By the third presidential debate, CNN toned down the spin to the campaign chairs (which didn't embarrass themselves) and Judy Woodruff talking about spin alley.

Tucker Carlson obviously thought that Stewart would be funny and even tried to divert him to talk about O'Reilly. Stewart kept on the theme that CNN should inform not entertain.

The Daily Show wouldn't be half as interesting and popular if the "News Media" did its job and skewed political spin (read lies) when they saw it. But they won't, because they're part of the party (wink wink nudge nudge). You won't see John King exposing the president's BS because his career is linked to how well he gets along with the White House. So the 'real newsmen' are stifled and the commentators like Carlson, O'Reilly, Begala, and Carville get to do whatever they want, just as long as they stay 'on the reservation' of their political backers. Gross.

It's the movie Network, for real. I wouldn't have be surprised if Jon Stewart yelled "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore".

Re:OT: While I respect Jon Stewart a lot...

[jbash]

I watch the Daily Show everyday, and I have always been impressed with Jon's civility.

He's had on some pretty creepy characters, in my view -- Karen Hughes, Richard Perle, Wolf Blitzer, Ralph Reed, Racicot, etc -- and he has never failed to treat them with respect and conduct a civil discussion. There have been a few times when he did, politely but plainly, point out that someone was a bit "out there" ( a guy STILL claiming close ties between OBL and Saddam comes to mind) -- but again, never in anger, never to humiliate anyone, never contentiously -- just honestly.

Same courtesies he extends to people closer to his own views.

I have to disagree with the parent poster of this thread though -- if Pres Bush were on the show, Stewart would be respectful, just as he had been for Kerry. He is NOT a partisan hack, blind to one side, and not to another. Many times we have seen him point out crazy things my folk (liberals) have done. But never has there ever been any kind of vicious ambush, or shouting down. Instead, it's like a Mad Tea Party that everyone has an equal seat at.

He's the Court Jester of our time -- the guy who can get away with speaking the truth. He doesn't suck up to anyone -- he survives because he is enormously entertaining and charming and does indeed dare to say the things that need to be said, and heard.

I heard Jon interviewed by Charlie Rose -- fascinating intellect. Says his approach is bred in the bone -- when your ancestors have long had Cossacks chasing you across the Steppes to kill you, you find it is useful protection to be cute and charming and make them laugh..... And so it has been with all the *great* clowns.

Jon did not appear on CrossFire to be the amusing monkey - (what a stupid trap *that* schtick is to get caught in) -- he was there as a serious American citizen. He raised excellent issues. But the CrossFire folk just do not receive signals from the frequency of intellect and facts.... I sure as hell appreciate him putting his neck out -- to some degree stepping out of the "court Jester" role to speak simply as a citizen -- he's doing so because the stakes are so high -- not out of any partisanship.

Ah well -- he tried -- but he seems to have to make do with Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers for now, the few remaining denizens of Planet Reality.

Reality check.

[argent]

Um, let's take a reality check here.

Look, Stewart's show isn't about tough questions. It's about cracking jokes and having fun. That's his job there. If he started asking any politician tough questions he'd be out on his ass, sooner or later. It's comedy. It's not supposed to be real. It's like complaining that Readers Digest "Humor in Uniform" doesn't get into the realities of the war in Iraq, or that "Spy vs Spy" isn't as detailed as "Smiley's People".

His point, which nobody addressed, is that there's all this time and energy wasted on crap that is just irrelevant. What was most of that transcript about? Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian, and he seems to have mixed feelings about it. Well, geeze, is anyone surprised? You gotta expect he's going to be touchy about it sometimes, and able to deal with it other times. He's human.

Or let's look at the National Guard. The spin that's going on there is crazy. There's no reason to attack Bush about his service in the National Guard... we know that he had a troubled youth, with a lot of irresponsible behaviour. You either accept that he grew out of it, or you don't. You look for signs that he's learned from his mistakes... in fact that's something that's worth asking: what did he learn from that time. I'd like to know that.

Or the whole Swift Boat melodrama. Whether Kerry exaggerated his role or not, it's a fact that he asked to go to Vietnam, and he volunteered for hazardous duty. If it turns out that he wasn't as courageous as he wants you to think, if his motivations were mixed, he still had more backbone than someone who took a slot in the National Guard.

I could go on and on, but Stewart's right, the media is asking stupid questions and letting the candidates deflect them into concentrating on stupid issues far far too often... and paying attention to real problems far too infrequently. Really, they should ignore what either candidate says about the other. Treat is as a "hot tip" for something to investigate, at the most. They should ignore anything the candidate says about their own character... of course they're going to try and say good things about themselves. Instead, look for the things the candidates aren't talking about or what they're talking about they aren't explaining. Because that's where the real skeletons are going to be buried.

Re:When the hell did Jon Stewart attain credibilit

[mdfst13]

"How is this man -- who has never worked outside of comedy -- going to critique actual journalists, and get taken seriously?"

By pointing out that his comedy show has more credibility than their "news" show? At least, that's how he *did* it.

Attention MODERATORS:

[Tokerat]

if (parent==comment.best.ever) {
mod.parent.up(1,"Insightful");
}

Re:Attention MODERATORS:

[Anonymous Coward]

am I supposed to be impressed that you know VB?

Tokerat's code compiles as C too you bowtie apologist!

typedef struct { char * ever; } B;
struct { B best; } comment;
typedef struct { void (*up)(int, char *); } P;
struct { P parent; } mod;

int main(void) {
char * parent;

if (parent==comment.best.ever) {
mod.parent.up(1,"Insightful");
}

return 0;
}

Re:Listen to yourselves

[FungiFromYuggoth]

Sorry, but you are a cranky crack monkey.

The state of journalism today is an absolute embarassment. It's all about being servants to the powerful, not comforting the powerless and watching the powerful.

Stewart is concerned about TV news - he parodies it. If the media looked at the funhouse mirror, they might think about what they're doing. He came on to talk seriously about them.

I don't think that "tough questions" was the focus of what Stewart was saying - just that shouting head journalism was hurting America. There is a line between infotainment and disinfotainment, but I'll definitely agree that neither one is truly informative.

IMHO, the primary problem with modern US journalism - and this ties into shouting heads - is that no one is willing to say that X is true. The media would much rather say "Well, the Republicans say X, the Democrats say Y", and then punt their responsibilities.

Some people watch the daily show for news because they like to be infotained; other people realize the layers of BS caking the mainstream media. Me, I don't rely on the US media to tell me what color the sky is. (Although I do have to recommend this article on the faith-based presidentcy.

It's by that bastion of the truth that brought us Judith Miller, Whitewater, and Wen Ho Lee. What was that about the Daily Show being pathetic?

I feel for jon stewart

[rattler14]

Watching this interview, I almost wanted to cry with him. Here is a guy who is actually bringing good points to the table, and bowtie boy is asking trite questions like "Are you this funny at home, do you lecture everybody, etc etc". I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point. As soon as things get interesting and THEY get in the hot seat, they start the insults and quick cut to commericial. Meanwhile, Jon Stewart is desperately trying to hold onto the audience that is connecting with him.

Kudos to Jon Stewart. Even though I don't agree with his political views, I support him in his efforts.

No, it's a legit point

[Sycraft-fu]

The point is the Daily Show isn't real news. They explicitly sell themselves as not real. They are a satirical talk show, basically. That's what Comedy Central wants they are, after all, the comedy channel. I tune in when I want something that makes me laugh. That is the reason Time Warner has them, to make people laugh. As Stewart noted, he is often preceeded by Crank Yankers, and often followed by South Park. It's a humour show, in the same vein as Leno or Letterman, who also poke fun at current events and have guests. Their particular twist is as a fake news show.

CNN on the other hand, is Time Warner's news channel, the Cable News Network. They were, to the best of my knowledge, the first 24-hour news network. All news, all the time, with localized versions throught the world. They sell themselves as a very serious news organization, dedicated to news and nothing else. Their tagline from their website is "CNN: The most trusted name in news." Crossfire in particular claims to be "debating the issues that impact your life."

So Stewart is perfectly in the right to rag on these guys from CNN. They are on the news network, they have a responsibility to do news. Stewart is on the comedy channel, he has a responsibility to make people laugh.

You don't have to do something to be able to claim that those doing it aren't doing a good job. You can send back food at a resturant that's bad even if you aren't a chef and you can critique the government even if you aren't a politician.

Stewart isn't a news man, he's a comedian, but that doesn't mean he can't criticize problems in the news media. However when they then try to pretend like those problems are his, he's right in pointing out that he's NOT in news. Being on TV doesn't mean you are in news or have some journalistic responsibility. I don't want the South Park characters doing investigative reporting, I want them making dick and fart jokes.

However just because he is a comedian and does satire on his show, doesn't mean he isn't also an intelligent human, who has opinions that he can express.

Stewart, Moyers, and journalism

[Webs 101]

What Stewart says goes to the heart of journalism. Look at societies that don't have a free press. They are ruled, generally, by governments with strong hands, which have little patience for opposition in thought or practice.

The role of journalist is not strictly to provide a window of truth, but to empower those without power. Journalism, done properly, challenges those who hold power and penetrate the shields held up by those who want to keep all the power for themselves.

As a journalist, you represent the public. You need to fight for access and return to the public what you learn. This is what Stewart is saying. It doesn't matter who you support, what matters is that you get the information that the public can digest.

Power, however, doesn't just mean government. It is also corporate. Companies and organizations can put out press releases all day long. They have the ability to lobby, which the public does not - and by organizations, I mean more than corporations. The NRA and the ACLU lobby just as capably as Monsanto or Microsoft. Journalism's job is to support the little guy.

This is the drummer beating in opposition to complaints that the press is too liberal. It has to be liberal, although it doesn't have to be partisan. It attracts liberal-leaning personalities, those who want to stand up for the common man in the face of financial and ruling interests. The reason so much press is so atrocious today is because so much of the press has been absorbed by those very financial interests. Who does AOL Time Warner serve? I'll give you a hint, and it starts with "stockholders", not "public".

Anybody who wants journalists to serve people rather than interests needs to abhor two things: media conglomeration and government secrecy. One of the Bush administration's very first acts was to limit the release of Presidential records, of the past and the present. It's appalling.

Bill Moyers recently gave a speech discussing these issues. Here are a few choice quotes:

What's important for the journalist is not how close you are to power but how close you are to reality....

The job of trying to tell the truth about people whose job it is to hide the truth is almost as complicated and difficult as trying to hide it in the first place. Unless you're willing to fight and refight the same battles until you go blue in the face, drive the people you work with nuts going over every last detail to make certain you've got it right, and then take hit after unfair hit accusing you of "bias", or these days even a point of view, there's no use even trying....

I am reminded of the answer the veteran journalist Richard Reeves gave when asked by a college student to define "real news." "Real news," said Richard Reeves "is the news you and I need to keep our freedoms."...

One study reports that the number of crime stories on the network news tripled over six years. Another reports that in fifty-five markets in thirty-five states, local news was dominated by crime and violence, triviality and celebrity. The Project for Excellence in Journalism, reporting on the front pages of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, on the ABC, CBS, and NBC Nightly news programs, and on Time and Newsweek, showed that from l977 to l997 the number of stories about government dropped from one in three to one in five, while the number of stories about celebrities rose from one in every fifty stories to one in every fourteen. What difference does it make? Well, its government that can pick our pockets, slap us into jail, run a highway through our back yard, or send us to war. Knowing what government does is "the news we need to keep our freedoms."...

"A journalist tries to get the facts right," tries to get "as close as possible to the verifiable truth" - not to help one side win or lose but "to inspire public discussion." Neutrality, he concludes, is not a core principle of journalism, "but the commitment to facts, to public consideration, and to inde

Re:When the hell did Jon Stewart attain credibilit

[doorbot.com]

How is this man -- who has never worked outside of comedy -- going to critique actual journalists, and get taken seriously?

Stewart can watch the "actual" journalists just as you can: as a talking head in their native environment.

His point is that they claim to be journalists yet at the end of the programs he comes away with a bad taste in his mouth; he, like many of the viewers, feel like they've been taken for a ride and if anything have ended up more confused. Issues that could've been discussed or examined were not, but rather people just spouted off spin/party lines. That's not discussion, it's a live-action campaign ad.

He's telling the "actual" journalists that they're not doing the job that they claim they're doing. I stopped watching the programs in question for that exact reason; that is the problem Stewart is trying to address.

After watching one of these programs, do you think to yourself, "Wow, I'm really glad I watched that program... the commentary was insightful, the moderators asked tough questions, and when the guests dodged those questions the moderators went after them."

Re:Jon Stewart is great

[ravenspear]

But look who the main Republican candidate is... GWB. He *is* conservative.

He is socially conservative on issues like abortion and religion, that's it.

He promotes gross fiscal irresponsibility and ballooning debt. That's not conservative.

He promotes nation building and continual warfare. That's not conservative.

He has supported erosion of civil liberties and violations of due process against American citizens. That's not conservative.

He supports what is effectively amnesty for illegal aliens. That's not conservative.

He supports corporate welfare through huge increases in agriculture subsidies. That's not conservative.

In general he supports expansion of government power, especially that of the executive branch. That's not conservative.

Don't vote the party, vote the candidate; you'll be a more effective citizen.

I wholeheartedly agree. That's why I'm voting for Badnarik. Bush doesn't reflect what I hold to be conservative.

Re:Listen to yourselves

[Quixote]

But Stewart's not helping. And don't sit here and say "it's not his job to help". Obviously, he made it clear that it is, if he really cares that much about it.

You, sir, are a class-A moron.

The reason so many people are cheering Jon Stuart is because he voiced what they've been trying to say for a long time. The average Joe (or Jane) stands a higher chance of climbing Mt. Everest than being invited on Crossfire.

JS got invited (partly because of his book, and partly because he has often criticized Crossfire as sympotmatic of the media corruption), and he took the opportunity to make a sincere plea for change. This was about all he could do. And he did a mighty fine job shooting down those two monkeys.

Anybody else would have been the goody-2-shoes and just bent over for the anal exam. JS took a stand for what he believes is in the best interest of the country, which is honest, open, informative political discourse. He should be applauded, and I do applaud him.

Is he perfect? No. Is he God?? No! But he did a pretty good job of voicing the peoples' concerns on this topic. Just see the amount of applause he got (and I'm sure it wasn't the "APPLAUSE" sign going off, because it was CNN's show, not his).

That was amazing...

[Vthornheart]

They didn't even know what to think! Their response to his heartfelt appeal was lines like:

CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.

Shameful. You know what it is - they knew, both of those fucks knew - that he was right. They had to appeal to distraction tactics and wait him out. I'd be surprised if Stewart ever gets air on a non-Comedy Central station again. He hit them at the core of what is really going on, and they'll never forgive him for it.

Re:Carlson has a point though...

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

The point that complaining and telling people off is not in any way constructive.

No, actually, it's often the necessary first step to getting people to change. Things are the way they are in part because nobody has had the gumption to tell these people off.

If he really cared about this problem, and wanted to be constructive in helping solve it rather than just attacking others, he has the perfect platform.

Indeed. If only he would use his celebrity to get invited to a nationally-broadcast serious show, where he could make his serious points in a relevant context.... oh, wait. That's what he did. If The Daily Show tries to remake itself into a serious news show, he will lose his audience and hence his pull, and nobody will listen to or care about anything he says.

By the way, it's not like The Daily Show doesn't take swings at the bland, uninformative, and partisan media, either. He wasn't really saying anything new here.

Re:Lone Slashdot Conservative Responds...

[Knight2K]

Excellent post, first off. It is easy to forget that an antagonistic system is necessary. Republicans and Democrats can't agree all the time, otherwise the government moves too quickly in one direction and you get things like the Patriot Act. In effect the two party system would become a one party system.

I want the Republicans to call the Democrats on over-spending, higher taxes, and big government. And I want the Democrats to remind the Republicans that we have civil liberties and that you can't rely on amoral institutions like corporations to always do the right thing.

What I really want is for both parties to remember their positions on those things. Instead, both parties think the answer to problems is to form new government agencies and programs. The Democrats add more taxes, the Republicans make a show of not doing that, but don't slow down the spending either. So the choices are: take home a smaller paycheck, or live with a government that is constantly in debt.

So I think Stewart definitely led with his weakest argument, though perhaps more to bring a little levity in before getting into his reason for being there. If Begala and Carlson started to agree with each other all the time, not only would the show go off the air, but the canary would be singing about our government.

That said, I think he has valid points. At heart, I don't doubt that Crossfire is as much about entertainment as it is about news or politics. Really all news programs are about entertainment. People watch the news in hours when they aren't working; they want to know what is going on, but they don't want to hear Harvard professors presenting long, nuanced arguments.

I guess, in trying to address his weakest argument, I'm forming my own weakest argument. Can we hold the media accountable when they are only giving us what we ask for? The answer I guess, is a dialectic one: the media is giving the people what they want, but the people should be demanding more and the media should be giving the people more, even if they don't demand it.

Which gets into what I think are Stewart's better arguments. Nobody can deny that the political campaigns are major marketing machines with tightly controlled messages. The news media most often reports on the strategies of the campaigns rather than analyzing or presenting information on their actual positions. Political reporting is turning into sports reporting: We can expect Kerry to come on strong on this, because Bush said something on that.

What about what they said? What are the ramifications of the policies they are espousing? We don't get a lot of insight into that, we mostly get reports on what the other side says are the ramifications. Reporting doesn't mean finding out information any more, it means being a mouthpiece for both sides. And Fox News isn't even doing THAT anymore.

There have been many reports that the White House Press Corp is heavily under the thumb of Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan. If reporters don't ask the right questions, they aren't heard from that much, if at all. Some may even be asked to leave. I don't really count the Democrats as immune from this. I doubt that the Democrats really want to answer the hard questions either. I expect they will also purposely avoid questions they don't like.

The truth is, the news media has let the American public down. The fact that Stewart is a trusted source of news at all is alarming. He is there to entertain and is very clear about that. Stewart notes that "[t]he show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls." He is on Comedy Central for Bob's sake! I think the show is popular because people recognize the satire of the media that it represents and they trust that more than the 'serious' news outlets.

Begala and Carlson attacked Stewart for not attacking Kerry, and I think Stewart's defense is perfect: it is not his job to do that. It's Begala and Carlson's job, and they don't really do it. They address the surface. If

Re:I wasn't that impressed with jon stewart

[oneiron]

The Crossfire hosts' job is to prevent guests from being able to make detailed points like you're describing by cutting them off and asking pointed questions that provoke negative responses. If you go too deep into making a good point that they don't agree with, then they will start yelling and creating chaos to distract the viewer. He did the only thing he could....repeated the basic ideas over and over so that intelligent minded individuals watching would be able to understand where he was coming from.

You have to understand... Those hosts do not give their guests an opportunity to make a complete point. They ask whatever pointed question pops into their head so that the person speaking is forced to answer it.. If they don't, then it looks like they're avoiding "the issue."

He did what he could, and he did a good job.

Re:Lone Slashdot Conservative Responds...

[Idarubicin]

Now I am going to get pummled by Mods I know :) I see my comments go up and down from +4 to +0 in the course of a single hour as Slashdot is overwhelminingly a left-wing Noam Chomsky echo chamber...

This may, possibly, have something to do with prefacing your remarks with a tacit invitation to flamewar?

Actually, this is rather the point Jon Stewart was trying to make. Modern news/talk/interview programs very seldom engage in the actual debate that is so important to a functional political process. Shows like Crossfire epitomize the problem. In lieu of debate, one sees screaming heads parroting party-line talking points and engaging in as much intellectual dishonesty and name-calling as they think they can get away with.

If you get past the fact that Jon Stewart leans to the left and actually listen to what he said, you might find that you agree with him--he genuinely seems to believe in vigorous, honest debate, and he rightly calls the partisan hacks on Crossfire on their own lack of depth, substance, or independent thought.

"No questions at a photo op"

[Animats]

It's possible to pinpoint the moment when US political reporting tanked. It was during the Reagan Administration, when Ronald Reagan's handler Mike Deaver introduced the "photo opportunity", and imposed the "no questions at a photo op" rule. Up until then, whenever the press met with the President, they asked questions.

At first, there was talk among the press of simply ignoring "photo ops" as not newsworthy. But the press caved in. That was the beginning of the end of political reporting.

Today, Bush's press conferences are scripted. Ari Fletcher, the White House press secretary, tells Bush which reporters to call on. Some, although not all, of the reporters ask only planted questions. The whole process is controlled by the White House, not the press.

The overall effect is that there is no moment left in American politics when the President has to answer hostile questions. Even in the recent debates, that was avoided. Read the rules.

Woulda been nice if they let John finish his point

[twigles]

Stewart had a simple point, but they never let him flush it out. It was that these guys argue back and forth about the little crap like war records and "flip-flopping" that the campaign strategists *want* them to argue about. John seemed to be pleading with them to get real and start arguing about things that both sides are trying to play down, like exact specifics on budgetary (neither sides' line up) and exact specifics on the environment.

Instead the Crossfire guys fill the crucial role of disecting every little thing either candidate says, which leads both sides to avoid saying anything of substance. Bush said the war on terrorism can't be won and people jumped on him. He was right! You can never eradicate every terrorist, you can only bring the level down to a tolerable level ("tolerable" is a subjective point I know). As Bruce Scheier has pointed out, our tolerable level of car accident deaths in the US is 40k/year. So rather than discuss "winning" the war rationally and maybe try and think out loud about what he meant, Kerry's backers ran to twist and exploit it, and Bush's backers ran to do damage control.

So instead of heeding or even listening to his pleas, they interrupted him incessantly and the right-wing dork in the bow-tie was even insulting. BTW, is it me or does the right-wing take criticism exceedingly poorly?

Daily Show audience are better informed

[nyarl]

A number of posts here have belittled "The Daily Show" as being lightweight since is ostensibly a comedy show. However a recent study showed that TDS viewers are on average better educated and much better informed about current events "than people who regularly read newspapers or watch television news".

It may be a "comedy" show, but Jon Stewart is angry because all these "news" shows pretend to do hard journalism and be informative, when it's clear that more often than not they are confusing the issue. He is angry because you must watch a "fake" news show in order to get real facts. He is absolutely correct: shows like Crossfire and "The Factor" do a huge disservice to the citizens of this country. The Daily Show is proof you can be entertaining and informative, whereas Crossfire and others only aspire to be entertaining.

--
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams

Re:Why this has so much impact

[Forbman]

But this is not about Jon's show. It's about the political process in the US. I personally wish we could limit it like it is in Canada, and put some silly rule in that politicians have to have a "home" district (borough, county, district, state) for the office they're running for, with the expectation (not quite a legal requirement) that they need to win on their home turf, limit the duration of the obvious election process to maybe 3 months for the federal level offices, 2 months for state-level offices and measures and one month for city/county level offices.

But, of course, that would "limit free speech". Somehow, I can't help feeling that the sanctity (definitely, for lack of a better term) of the voting process is slightly above "free speech".

Right now, the US Presidency elections take about 4 years. The winner of the Presidency has about 6 months to "be the president", and the rest of the time gradually becomes oriented to getting re-elected or promoting his desired successor, rather than being the president. And it all grinds to a halt the last year or so for the Prez, because he doesn't want to do something that is detrimental to his campaign or fodder for his oppenent's campaign. Where does serving the population come into that?

Oh well. Does anyone else see the similarities in George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, with George C. Scott's character in "Dr. Strangelove"?

As a Canadian observing American politics

[iamghetto]

Now, our system isn't the best either. It has its problems, but at least we have about 5 legitimate parties across the country, and with the "minority goverment" that the Liberals (that is an actual party name) have right now, they to comprimise to get things passed. For those who don't know, everything our Prime Minister puts to the house to vote on, if its not passed by the majority, that is the end of our gov't. It's considered a vote of non-confidence, and we have another round of national elections. So it makes for flexible government, and something more representative of the countries views as a whole...

Anyways... I think Jon Stewart is dead on with his scorn of the crap on CNN and on american political tv in general. I watch a lot of political TV, and after these debates... on all the news channels, I only found one program ON FRICKING PBS that actually discussed the feasability and the logic behind the bush and kerry health care plans. They actually had people on who broke down and explained legit problems with health care in the states. They didn't start with "ten million less people have health care than they did 4 years ago" and respond with "all kerry is going to tax you even more". And actual logical break down of the pros and cons of each of their plans from people in the health care industry. Not some RNC and DNC tools debating who's the liar and who's daughter is a lesbian.

Like christ, all I hear after the last debate is that John Kerry mentioned Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian... DO WE CARE?!!!??? Ya, that affects me. How about the war, how about the economy, health care, education... No, no, no, all we're hearing about is this lesbian. What?

I don't get it.

Atlantic Monthly article on Karl Rove

[maynard]

Don't miss this Atlantic Monthly article by Joshua Green on Karl Rove and his history of campaign dirty tricks. The story to which you refer is presented there in detail:

A typical instance occurred in the hard-fought 1996 race for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court between Rove's client, Harold See, then a University of Alabama law professor, and the Democratic incumbent, Kenneth Ingram. According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign's progress, had flyers printed up--absent any trace of who was behind them--viciously attacking See and his family. "We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people," the staffer says. "You'd roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, 'Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you're with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn't have your tags.' So I borrowed a buddy's car [and drove] down the middle of the street ... I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I'd cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees." The ploy left Rove's opponent at a loss. Ingram's staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate in order "to create a backlash against the Democrat," as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me. Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. "They just beat you down to your knees," Ingram said of being on the receiving end of Rove's attacks. See won the race.

Or a whisper campaign against Alabama state supreme court justice Mark Kennedy, who was unjustly smeared as a peadophile:

Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children. "We were trying to counter the positives from that ad," a former Rove staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. "It was our standard practice to use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign information," the staffer went on. "That was a major device we used for the transmission of this stuff. The students at the law school are from all over the state, and that's one of the ways that Karl got the information out--he knew the law students would take it back to their home towns and it would get out." This would create the impression that the lie was in fact common knowledge across the state. "What Rove does," says Joe Perkins, "is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship. Mark is not your typical Alabama macho, beer-drinkin', tobacco-chewin', pickup-drivin' kind of guy. He is a small, well-groomed, well-educated family man, and what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take."

There's plenty more stories to read. all of which would make any honest person want to puke. Republicans only damage their own credibility by supporting this crap on the national stage. At some point these tactics will backfire and the GOP will wind up badly damaged as a result. JMO. --M

First, lay off the "poor me" intro.

[khasim]

Now I am going to get pummled by Mods I know :) I see my comments go up and down from +4 to +0 in the course of a single hour as Slashdot is overwhelminingly a left-wing Noam Chomsky echo chamber but here goes:

Don't blame others for your faults and do not attempt to catagorize people you've never communicated with.

I read the transcript and I didn't see John Stewart actually say anything.

He said that the "debate" shows were useless as far as actual news or discussion or debate. He said that such shows were tools of the political parties and did nothing to inform their audience. He said that their shows were pure entertainment.

Knock of the "Dialectical" and "Dualism" crap. Both are wrong. The fact is that every single person in the US has his/her own viewpoint and values and so forth. In the end, it comes down to how to spend a limited amount of money/time/people on all the different goals of all the different people.

This evolved from the Judeo-Christian idea of origional sin. That we are not perfect. That we will never be absolutely perfect though we can strive to perfection. The political process for a dualist is a constant war of ideas, compromise and experimentation, moving more slowly toward a better political organization.

Great, whatever. Why does anyone care what this mythical idiot thinks?

If you ask 100 random people to rank 100 goals in order of priority/importance/value, you'll get 100 different answers.

How to attain the goal is not know to a dualist, he realizes that much debate, experimentation and examination of details must occur before things improve.

That's great if there are only two people to be considered. There is no "right" or "wrong". There are only goals and the means by which you attempt to achieve those goals.

The dialecticist on the other hand is far more arrogant believing he can put together the whole solution and all that remains is to push aside the debaters and doubters and implement his vision.

Pay close attention to current politics. Do you see that happening a lot? I thought so.

Yet it seems that you favour your "Dualism" approach.

Here's some advice. Pull yourself out of the crap you learned in Philosophy 101 and look around the world today. Talk to people. LISTEN to people.

Stewart was presenting his beliefs on that show. One of his beliefs is that their show was of a specific format, when it should have been of a different format. He stated that point and illustrated that point very well.

Re:Why this has so much impact

[Anonymous Coward]

The winner of the Presidency has about 6 months to "be the president", and the rest of the time gradually becomes oriented to getting re-elected

Once upon a time, a popular meme for debate was changing the rules so that the President would be elected for only one six-year term, rather than two four-year terms. The idea was precisely to reduce the overhead of campaigning and eliminate the distracting possibility of re-election.

Beautiful irony ...

[Stan Chesnutt]

I don't know if you noticed, but on the bottom of the screen CNN's "news crawl" was reporting the usual celebri-journalism: I saw one item about Sandra Bullock's lawsuit and another about Martha Stewart.

The unintended irony is priceless.

biased, but biased fairly

[Trepidity]

One of the reasons I love The Economist is that it's clear what their viewpoints are, but they still are willing to grant points to the "other side" when they have good points. In contrast, a lot of US biased news sources are merely partisan: they praise everything their side says and slam everything the other side says. To a Democrat, nothing Bush says can possibly be good, and the first thing they try to do is to figure out how to spin it negatively; same for the Republicans and how they view Kerry.

The Economist, meanwhile, is unapologetically for free trade, but has no problems with admitting problems free trade agreements have had, negative effects of free trade, and so on. They have a viewpoint on how to best solve problems, but they are willing to investigate flaws and difficulties that viewpoint presents, because that's, after all, the only way to actually fix them.

To take a concrete example, they actually favored the war in Iraq, and still think it was a good idea, but their coverage has also included quite a bit of criticism of it.

Crossfire, on the other hand, has a team sports mentality where the "right" must always defend what their side says and attack what the other side says, and the same for the "left". Bah.

The "Mote In God's Eye" sci-fi novels

[devphil]

were set in a monarchy for precisely this reason. The authors (Niven and Pournelle) wanted to explore a future where the rulers concentrated more on doing the job than they did on getting the job. A child born to the throne, the idea went, can be trained from a young age on how to do it well. (Assuming the society as a whole is still functioning properly, not gotten corrupt or decadent, etc.)

"Do we 'believe' in a monarchy? Not necessarily," they wrote in a later essay. "Do we believe it's /possible/? Damn straight."

It boils down to

[beakburke]

Culture...

No, I'm serious, the US has attitudes that are culturally much different that that of Europe. In particular, the US learned different lessons from the last century of history. For example, "Patriotism" and "Nationalism" got really bad names in Europe because of WWI and WWII and their apparent causes. Europeans became deeply suspicious of them for that reason, but USians found those attributes a good thing, because it helped them WIN those wars. I guess I'm saying that it's not the the US gets so much different information, (ignorance, FUD, etc) but that USians seem to view it with a much different perspective than the rest of the world.

I'm not sure that it is wrong or right. It just is.

Re:It boils down to

[demachina]

"The American "brand" is dominant"

I think that qualifies as backward looking. Toyota has already passed Ford as the #2 car maker and I wouldn't be surprised if Toyota and Honda ultimately dominate the automotive sector.

Airbus is demolishing Boeing in commercial airliners lately.

Exactly how many American brands do you see on the electronics shelf outside of Ipod and computers most of which are built in Asia and just have an American brand stamped on them.

How much stuff in Walmart is actually made in the U.S., so its got a GE brand on it, not sure stamping GE on a Chinese built phone qualifies as any real economic achievement.

Not sure fast food, convenience stores and increasingly bad movies and music are really brands you can hang your hat on with pride.

Not sure you were aware but "Lord of the Rings" was produced in New Zealand. A LOT of top flight movie production is happening in Canada, Australia and New Zealand now. Aussie actors are doing pretty well at the box office too.

Canada dominates animation software development.

I guess there's Microsoft but I'm not sure that monopoly is a badge of honor either and I wager the world outside the U.S. will abandon it in favor of Linux.

"American is the best nation in the world!"

Again backward looking. Charlie Rose recently did a show on future American competitiveness. Again he cited Weta Studios and Peter Jackson's confidence he could put together a better top flight studio in New Zealand that would out compete the "distractions" in LA. Lord of the Rings proved that he did to and it didn't hurt that there is a big currency advantage there as there is in Canada and Australia.

There is apparently a flood of applications from the top flight graduate students coming in to places like Oxford and the University of Toronto. Its partially because its turned incredibly hard to get visas to study or work in the U.S. thanks to "Homeland Security". They are apaprently doing a great job of hassling top graduate students trying to get in the country while there is still a flood of illegals pouring across the border which would be the easy route for a terrorist to get in to the U.S. now.

The U.S. is also now considered somewhat dangerous for foreign students since the U.S. began arresting and detaining people for long periods without access to a lawyer, family or a trial and often sending them to foreign powers to be tortu..er..interrogated.

And of course the U.S. is just a really expensive place to start any company thanks to skyrocketing insurance costs, cost of living, payroll taxes, etc.

All in all if you are forward looking I'm not sure you can say it is the greatest nation any more in any category other than military dominance. It is #1 in that department and in health care costs. Unfortunately those tend to sap the life out of a robust economy not enhance it.

Jon Stewart: deeply misunderstood

[dutky]

Many people, including Tucker "bowtie-boy" Carlson just don't understand what Jon Stewart and the Daily Show are really about. They think that the point of the Daily Show is to make fun of events and politicians covered by news programs. In fact -- and this is subtly alluded to in the Daily Show tag line "The best fake news show on TV" which implies the existance of other fake news shows: the punch-line is that the other fake news shows are CNN, Fox News, 20/20, 60-Minutes, etc. -- the actual target of the Daily Show is television journalism itself! To some extent this is also true of the late-night comedy revues like SNL and MadTV, though they seem to lose sight of this, frequently.

Until Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, the Daily Show had been playing their punch-line pretty quietly: the punch-line only really works when the butt of the joke doesn't realize what's going on. Tucker Carlson's comparison of Crossfire to the Daily Show is proof that he, at least, didn't realize that the joke was on him and not on George Bush or John Kerry. Unfortunately, Jon Stewart actaully explained the joke: and, of course, once you explain a joke, it's not funny anymore.

Fortunately, it's unlikely that the news media will give Stewart's explanation much play, since it can only make them look bad. The only power the new media has is based on some minimal level of public trust. Running with a story that essentially reads "FLASH: TV News is Bullshit!" just isn't in their self-interest. So long as TV journalism is controlled by a few large corporate interests, we should be able to enjoy the Daily Show's joke at their expense for a good while yet.

"Network," Still Relevant 20 Years Later

[Valdrax]

Every single one of you needs to see the movie Network. Even though it was made in 1976, the movie grows in relevance every day. The plot is about a news anchor who is fired for sinking rating and who is exploited for ratings by his network after he suffers from a mental breakdown. It is about the way that news organizations pander to the lowest forms of thrill-seeking. Howard Beale, the anchor turned madman prophet, is given a show on which he rails against the sickness of his times -- ALL of which is still relevant today. The best soliloquy of the entire movie is all about this:

"You people and sixty-two million other Americans are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books. Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers. Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break Presidents, Popes, Prime Ministers. This tube is the most awesome, god-damned force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the 20th floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome, god-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what s--t will be peddled for truth on this network.

So, you listen to me! Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television is a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, story tellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the truth, go to your God, go to your gurus, go to yourselves because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth. But man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We like like hell! We'll tell you that Kojack always gets the killer, and nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry. Just look at your watch - at the end of the hour, he's gonna win. We'll tell you any s--t you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds - we're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube.

This is mass madness. You maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion. So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!

What makes the Daily Show so good is that they're honest about what kind of show they are. It's the "real" news sites that are too disingenuous to admit that they've made "Network" a reality.