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Jon Stewart Leaving 'The Daily Show'
slimjim8094 writes: According to the NY Times, Jon Stewart is leaving "The Daily Show." This was announced during the taping of this evening's show. He will "remain at the helm of 'The Daily Show' until later this year," but no word on exactly when the change will take place, or what the replacement (host or show) will be. Presumably the current and past correspondents would be the first choice for a new host. His program will be sorely missed by at least this viewer. Maybe Comedy Central can get John Oliver out of his HBO show...
I expect in the morning the conservative talking heads on radio and TV will trip over each other to be the first to take credit for Stewart's departure. Considering how much he - the admitted source of fake news - has made them look like buffoons routinely over the years, they likely won't mourn him much.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Maybe he can replace Brian Williams.
It is still okay to dream, isn't it?
#JonStewart2016.....
He should get Conan O'brian to take his spot. Then 8 months later, take it right back.
Do you remember the daily show back when it was run by Craig Kilborn? Jon Stewart made a huge difference.
It's pretty clear that Stewart has had a profound effect upon how people born after 1980 get their news. He's probably the US's most relevant and well known cultural critic and satirist. Some people bring up Twain but I'm not sure he's there (yet) -- Rosewater demonstrated that Stewart's got something more to say but he's not ready to go into Mysterious Stranger territory.
On the other hand he's flatly more historically relevant, and has made a more indelible impression than H. L. Menken. Time and other outlets have compared him to Walter Cronkite with zero fucking irony, and it's a fair cop.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Well, he could always go work at Arby's.
If you watch his actual announcement (why isn't this in the story?), he says he doesn't have any specific plans yet, but he will be doing something.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Maybe Stewart is going to enter the singularity and become a permanent part of the IoT
Wherever You Go, There You Are
I think the answer can be found in the interviews. He's responsible, well informed, and brilliant.
Sure, there are writers and they prepare the bits, but I, for one, think Stewart is the heart and soul of it.
We'll see what happens after he's gone -- that'll tell us a lot, too.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I don't see how anyone except John Oliver could fill in for John Stewart. Oliver is funny, he's enjoyable to watch, he's political, and the key thing is, he's earnest. Jessica Williams is a name that comes up a lot, and as great as she is, she doesn't have that earnestness that Oliver does, and she doesn't seem to get fired up about issues the same way that Oliver does, or Stewart did. I'd watch a comedy show with Jessica Williams but I don't think she's quite right to head up the Daily Show. She's one of the newer members as well; that may be why Comedy Central didn't give her the Colbert slot. Samantha Bee and Jason Jones? No way in hell that will happen. Samantha's OK but Jason has a grating presence- he pretends to be a dick but when he does, he comes across as actually being a dick. He's got that small, mean laughing-at-you-not-with-you thing that kept Craig Kilbourne from ever going anywhere with the show. Comedy Central clearly feels the same way: he was passed over to fill in for Stewart, and for Colbert's slot. I don't see Larry Wilmore happening either, he seems more annoying than funny and there's just a limit to how much humor about race a largely white audience can handle.
Everybody saw what happened when Oliver took over the Daily Show. Stewart was clearly looking to do other things. Even before this he's seemed worn out and ground-down, he joked a lot about how old he felt, at times he seemed to be going through the motions to manufacture his indignance- I think that's why he bonded with O'Reilly, John Stewart had become a lot like O'Reilly, someone who was paid to go on and pretend to be upset when he'd gotten to the point that he didn't really care that much anymore. And then John Oliver came on and for the first time in years, I actually thought that Daily Show actually was a fun show to watch. And everybody clearly saw that Oliver had that rare talent where you can get him up in front of millions of people, talk about the news, and people laugh and enjoy themselves. HBO saw it and gave him a show and he's proven he's able to headline a show, hell he can even turn net neutrality into comedy.
That's what you want. You want a guy who's funny, who's enjoyable to watch, and can make something as dull as net neutrality funny, and can get fired up about the politics: he actually cares. He's proven that he's all of those things, and none of the other names have. Oliver has the HBO thing, but my guess is that Oliver's agent negotiated some kind of a loophole with HBO so that he could go back to Comedy Central if asked. And the Daily Show is Comedy Central's flagship program. There's no way that they will replace Stewart with an unproven or unknown talent; they have too much at stake to take a chance and gamble with an unknown when they've got a proven talent who can not only do the job that Stewart does, but do it better than Stewart himself. The fact that they haven't named a replacement suggests to me that the deal isn't final, but I'm guessing that Comedy Central is currently in negotiations with Oliver.
He was gone then because he was making a movie.
I doubt anyone could replace him. Maybe CK Lewis?
Do you mean Louis C.K.? If so, I agree!
Somebody doing a good delivery is what is required. That is much easier to find than the creative idea behind the show.
Yes he is acting, but he's certainly not your average "news reader" reading everything from the autocue, it is HIS act, we have similar act here in Oz, but Stewart is the original and still the best. Aside from the ad-lib involved in his act, I'm pretty sure he would have full veto power over the script and who in the "creative pool" should be hired and fired. IMO he's the smartest and funniest act to come out of the US in a very long time, a true "jester" in the original medieval sense of the word. If people who can pull that off are a dime a dozen where you live, I want to move there.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Um, no. Jon isn't just a guy hired to read stuff to the camera, it's his show, he runs the staff that produces the show, and he's responsible for selecting everything that goes on the air. He even writes a fair amount of the material. The bit on camera is just the icing on the cake.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I heard he was leaving because he was caught telling the truth...
Why? Except possibly for money, Oliver has a great gig at HBO. Total creative control, no sponsors to piss off, no forced interview to hock some lame movie or book, and only a half-hour to fill each week.
He would be crazy to give that up to go back to the Daily Show.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Oliver is fine doing his own "Stewart wannabe" show.
There he can be as opinionated and as biased as he wants, his fans will think he's funny and even insightful.
But you can forget him replacing Stewart on the Daily Show.
Cause while Stewart will coast into false equivalences and non sequiturs and even ad hominems for comedic effect - he still always works from a sound and reasoned out perspective, which makes him insightful.
And that practice is what makes people actually turn to that show for their news.
Which might seem kinda insane, but then again...
If you want someone to point out flaws in the logic you're being fed AND explain why it is so in simple, easy to understand terms... who else is there?
Oliver on the other hand is blind to his own flaws.
He does an entire segment on pandering and how it is bad - and then keeps doing exactly that in his other segments.
He doesn't think through or research his segments as thoroughly nor as dispassionately as it is needed, and he loves to preach.
Which makes him a pale copy of Stewart and half a step away from becoming a left/liberal/SJW/whatever version of O'Reilly.
Granted, there is audience for that, but that is not the Daily Show audience.
Put him on as Stewart's replacement and he'll kill it.
Off.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's pretty clear that Stewart has had a profound effect upon how people born after 1980 get their news
I agree and while I'm older than that I'm very much a fan of his work. I think he and his team provide a breath of clarity and sanity to the news media. The only thing that annoys me about Stewart is his continued insistence that he is somehow not delivering news and isn't at least in part in that industry. I think that is false and frankly somewhat disingenuous of him. He knows or should know that lots of people listen to what he has to say precisely because it is news - just delivered more cleverly than most. While he isn't doing live reporting of events, he is very much providing editorial analysis of the news very much like that at CNN, Fox, MSNBC and even newspapers. In fact he goes further by providing commentary about the news making process itself which happens far too seldom. News organizations tend not to be very self reflective and when they are they tend to be overly self congratulatory. Stewart and his team have done a masterful job of pointing out when news organizations (especially Fox News) are spouting bullshit.
I wish Mr. Stewart well in whatever he does in the future. I think the world has been made a better place by his efforts.
Since he was generally referred to as that hip, edgy, young comic that appeals to college kids. That's was a problem when he was 40 but now he's in his 50's. (Getting old sucks btw) I'm wondering how his demographics are now. I wouldn't be surprised if to the college crowd he's now "The guy my parents like"
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
As Colbert said, part of their success came from Stewarts asking them to have an opinion,
instead of going for softball jokes not being afraid to skewer someone.
Part of the appeal of the show, is its willingness to throw the BS flag.
And in so doing, it engages viewers and makes them think deeper than most folks do.
From that standpoint, pretty much any of the correspondents could do it:
Samantha Bee, though her humor isn't always to my taste
Jason Jones, may be the most similar in style, if more abrasive
Jessica Williams, funny but sometimes not as biting as the others
Trevor Noah, I really like the newest member. He really seems not afraid to "go there".
But personally if I had to choose, I'd go with Aasif Mandvi.
He just as funny and qualified as the rest.
But most importantly, he's Muslim, which would provide for years of entertainment from the resulting apoplectic RWNJ's.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I really like the new guy, Trevor Noah.
I'd also go with Aasif Mandvi.
I love Oliver. But I think his spot at HBO may be the best place for him, because instead of nightly digs at current events, he gets to do real long form journalism, which is truly rare these days. And he gets to combine it with the usual BS/hypocrisy-pointing out. Combing the Daily Show with long form journalism and/or investigative reporting is as useful and important, and possibly more so even, as the informational value of TDS.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Do you remember the daily show back when it was run by Craig Kilborn? Jon Stewart made a huge difference.
No I don't. Mostly because I was 14 at the time and my mom wouldn't let me stay up that late.
Jon Stewart has been a trusted newsman for 16 years. Nobody stays that long as a mainstream news anchor anymore. Mainstream news mixes truth, halftruths, and opinions and presents them all in the same manner. Jon Stewart switches to a different tone (or faces a different camera) when he is presenting jokes or opinions. That's why he is so trusted by young people. I don't have to agree with everything he says, and for a long time, many of his views I don't agree with. But he has the decency to give me hints when he is stating facts vs jokes vs opinions.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
The Daily Shows bits with the correspondents are great cause they point out the BS in our own world, and especially our own country.
But being a nightly show production time is more limited, as well as air time.
That's why Last Week Tonight is so great.
They get to the same thing, but because they are weekly and an hour long, it's no longer a bit, but actually in the realm of actual long form investigative journalism. This is good, we actually benefit by having both shows. We get a taste of things with the TDS bits, and LWT is then like an entrée that gets deep into one thing every week. This way we get even more informed than better, creating even more people to terrify Faux.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Do you remember the daily show back when it was run by Craig Kilborn?
Craig who?
Riki Oh?
But yes, John Stewart is the heart and soul of The Daily Show. First, he refers often to the writers' meetings they have about the material, so it's obvious he's not just a prompt reader but someone involved in the writing. Second, his delivery is absolutely unbeatable, and the way he switches between the prepared script and off-the-cuff, let-your-guard-down silliness speaks to his standup background skills. And finally, the way he performs during the live interviews is the part that irrefutably convinces me he is the most quick-witted, fast-thinking man on earth. Even when I think he is wrong in his position, I can't remember seeing a guest who was able to outmaneuver him in a debate to seem credible.
I'm afraid a new host won't be able to recreate the magic. Look at Stephen Colbert for proof. His spinoff is a great success and extremely funny, but IMHO, it doesn't come close to matching the comedy of The Daily Show with John.
Interesting. I've been watching since the Craig Kilborn days and really enjoyed what Jon Stewart has done with the show but I think he lost his magic a few years ago. I'm excited to see what might be next for The Daily Show.
While Jon has been great, in recent years he's relied on the same self-deprecating and hammy schtick more and more. In contrast, Colbert has been far more clever and quick-witted, packing in more info while Stewart labors a subject with rants that deprive the show of more than one or two news items.
M'kay... and what 'other' news source would be more grounded in reality? Maybe Fox News?
Oh, that's right... Fox News fell back to the statement that they are 'opinion' so that they could not be sued for misrepresentation of the facts
The truth is that we have gone from the days of Walter Cronkite when any news anchor was expected to give us the straight dope, into a world of spin an shifting factoids
I remember reading my local (conservative) newspaper (end to end on a daily basis) as a kid a realizing that I had to filter out the right-wing bias that the local publisher would insert (they were owned by the Quayle family)
The gen Y's, X's and Millenials have lived so long in a spin induced world that they have learned from the Daily Show how to decipher bullshit mountain and as a result, the show has taught them better critical thinking skills and made them better news consumers than anybody who lets their senses get twisted by buying into bullshit mountain
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Nonsense. The guest interviews were certainly not scripted. His quick wit, knowledge of current events, historical expertise, and the courteous manner in which he made his disagreements (with his guests) are not easily replaced. So much more than "delivery" must be considered when selecting his replacement.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Well, news flash (heh) - That's not news, and in fact conflating it with news is one of the very things that he harps on.
The hell it isn't. You think a broadcast pointing out that another news organization (Fox News usually) is twisting the facts isn't news? They report on all sorts of events of the day. Get a clue. The Daily Show IS a news show. The fact that it is on Comedy Central is irrelevant. The fact that they do a lot of satire is irrelevant. The fact that they make fun of the conventions of news shows is irrelevant. The simple fact is that at the end of the day they report on topics and present facts, often with an editorial viewpoint. They report on real facts and generally provide a serious (albeit funny) take on world events including how those events are reported.
I respect Mr. Stewart tremendously but I think any claim that The Daily Show isn't also a news show is completely false.
This is news for nerds. Nerds tend to be free thinkers. Jon Stewart's show serves that crowd.
Jon Stewart, he da man!
This doesn't mean that Jon Stewart hasn't been the best newsman around, BTW.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
wow, just wow... or should I say 'whoosh'
I'll just assume that you have actually seen the Daily Show, or maybe any American stand up comedy from the last fifty years
The heart of the matter is that media outlets have used the position of Authority to convince the view to believe what they are telling them
In the long distant past you could see Walker Cronkite furrow his brow and tell you, "that's the way it is", and most people trusted the media enough to believe it. Of course it had some weight to it because there used to be some widely accepted journalistic standards that the media was held to
decades have passed and a small group of really well off people own most of the media outlets. There has been a decided tendency for the owners of companies to 'twist' the facts to their advantage, and sadly enough acceptance of the practice
Some media outlets, in particular Fox News, has taken this practice to a higher (lower?) level than their competitors (you can argue that MSNBC does the same thing, while I differ on the degree). Whether it is Hannity, O'Reilly, Van Sustren, or the rodeo clown, they all use (and abuse) a supposed position of authority to rain all kind of 'spun' crud down on the audience to convince them, nay drive them to the conclusions that the media owner wants them to hold, like don't tax the media owner, don't regulate the media owner, etc...
What comedians like George Carlin, Al Franken (and the rest of the SNL team) and John Stewart have done is dig into the heaped on propaganda of the media talking heads and drag out the chunks of lies that the media owner has buried behind tons of nationalistic hubris to expose their true intent
They walk you through it, step by step, and teach their audience to be critical, use external sources and in most all cases Question Authority
Somehow you 'spun' what I said and turned it into the exact opposite. It is the deluded Fox News watcher who accepts Hannity's position of authority, who responds to their bluster and hubris as if it made them more reliable, and who at every turn responds to the emotional button pushing and false praise that propagandists are so quick to use. I would argue that it is the Daily Show viewer who distrusts and analyzes and researches information far more deeply and honestly
I earnestly hope that you are just blowing smoke and that you do not fear cognitive dissonance to the degree that you allow yourself to intentionally misunderstand everything that you are exposed to. My kids and their friends are millennials and few of them have demonstrated the completely 'thick as a brick' approach to being challenged that you have just presented. I still believe there is hope. Shows like the Daily Show that draw an audience and get them to question authority and think for themselves are part of the solution
Wherever You Go, There You Are