Article about the idea of having 'Jon Stewart types of newscasters' on the local news.
Now that's funny
When the project's researchers asked Americans to name the journalists they most admired, comedian Jon Stewart ranked number four. That may be a disturbing fact for journalism's purest, (sic) but perhaps it's an indicator of an overall cultural shift in the way we now choose to experience the news.
These facts make many in the journalism profession shake their heads in disgust. However, I'm suggesting we should be inspired by these trends rather than dismayed. Specifically, local broadcasters ought to be actively engaged in finding their own Jon Stewart-type personalities in their communities. I'm not suggesting that newscasts change their entire formats to become comedy shows. However, a lighthearted segment or two that takes a satirical look at local headlines would liven up an otherwise predictable and failing format.
I’m a Jon Stewart fan, and I’d love to see it locally. But I don’t think it’ll happen for these three reasons:
* It’s hard. Doing good topical comedy isn’t like reporting a story. Stewart has a team of writers helping him with his scripts. Who has the money to hire those folks?
* Local television hasn’t been a home for pointed editorial positions since the days when the late Jesse Helms was holding forth on WRAL. That was 50 years ago.
* Television viewers - like newspaper readers - are traditionalists. Humor is in the eye of the beholder and, as we have learned with editorial cartoons, what's funny to one is annoying to the next. And political humor, as Stewart does? Well, alienating viewers isn’t a dominating feature of TV’s DNA.
As a member of the competing media, I know we’d be a target, as Fox, CNN and the networks are on The Daily Show. I probably wouldn't like it some days...others I'd consider myself lucky to escape.
The writer doesn't let papers off the hook.
Newspapers in search of readers have perhaps forgotten that many of their loyalist fans turn directly to the comics section. Again, I'm not suggesting that news would by and large be better presented as entertainment. Rather, we should be mindful that as journalists, first and foremost, we are storytellers and that humor can be a highly effective tool in telling stories with great substance.
Well, yes, it can. But the value of comic is that you can offer a couple dozen of different styles and let people choose. It's much tougher when you only provide one or two humor pieces. After all, not everyone is Dave Barry.
Source: http://www.news-record.com/blog/56184/entry/90341.