the news is a joke: why stewart and colbert matter.
The Conference on World Affairs has come to CU, and yesterday afternoon, I decided to go to a panel (I mean, I get extra credit for my sociology class if I write a paper about it, so why not?). I made a last-second decision when I found out that I could go listen to something called "Jon Stewart, Colbert, and The Onion: The News is a Joke."
Fascinating?
To say the least.
I'm not really sure what I expected, but it was packed. People got kicked out once it became standing room only, and I was lucky enough to have snagged a spot on the floor up front.
We got to hear from Jon Stinton, the guy who founded Air America Radio (and launched Rachel Maddow to stardom), along with Howard Schultz (who produced Extreme Makeover), Sanho Tree (he's working to end the War on Drugs), and Lynne d Johnson (who helps companies market themselves through social networking).
Basically, the gist of the panel was this: the closest thing we have to "real news" in America is The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and, to a lesser degree, The Onion. Journalistic integrity as we know it is gone. And while I love Jon Stewart and Colbert, it's more than a little frightening to think that two comedic, cynical Comedy Central shows have more integrity than the majority of news networks, who are biased or pandering to radical people or laced with opinion--but not actual fact.
As Howard Schutlz put it: "The most trusted man in America used to be Walter Cronkite. Today, it's Jon Stewart."
Was the point that we should be getting our news from just Stewart or Colbert? No, of course not--but, as Stinton said, the onus is on us, the viewers, to filter what we watch. We can't take anything at face value (not even TDS or the Report). We need to utilize Twitter and Tumblr and LJ and Facebook and whatever else and sift through the bullshit. And, in reality, we could do a lot worse than just watching The Daily Show every night.
Why are Stewart and Colbert so important? Because they serve a function that used to not be needed: they pierce the "veil;" they call out bullshit on both sides. Obama does not get a free pass. Liberals do not get a free pass. If somebody is doing something stupid, hypocritical, or downright ridiculous, Jon Stewart will be the first to let you know. Without Stewart or Colbert, all we have are networks with various biases, presenting facts with an hazy layer of opinion, blithely parrying insults back and forth--or as Sanho Tree said, we have CNN going, "Well, Fox News said the sun rises in the west and MSNBC said it rises in the east, so we're just gonna say that they're both kind of right: it rises in the north!" instead of being like, "No, actually, one of you is wrong and one of you is right." It's the difference between a reporter giving someone who claims the Holocaust didn't happen airtime and attention without validating or invalidating their idiocy versus a reporter saying, "You know what? The Holocaust did happen. Here are the facts. Now shut the fuck up."
I've been considering why I like TDS (I also like the Report; I just tend to watch TDS more) so much, and I think the reason got highlighted at this panel. It's not because it's funny, or because I love Jon Stewart, or because it's liberal-leaning (though all of these things are true). It's because when I watch TDS, I never feel like I'm being bullshitted. I never feel like someone is trying to sell me something. I never wait for the moment when one party is uniformly insulted over the other. It's not that I think TDS is 100% factual all the time and I shouldn't do further research, but what it gives me (for the most part) is truth. It hands it to me layered in cynicism, from behind Jon Stewart's trademark smirk ( on the Report, from behind Colbert's goofy grin)--and at the end of either show, I always feel either a bit better or a bit sadder about the world. But I don't feel ignorant, or condescended to, or lied to--and that's refreshing.
Fascinating?
To say the least.
I'm not really sure what I expected, but it was packed. People got kicked out once it became standing room only, and I was lucky enough to have snagged a spot on the floor up front.
We got to hear from Jon Stinton, the guy who founded Air America Radio (and launched Rachel Maddow to stardom), along with Howard Schultz (who produced Extreme Makeover), Sanho Tree (he's working to end the War on Drugs), and Lynne d Johnson (who helps companies market themselves through social networking).
Basically, the gist of the panel was this: the closest thing we have to "real news" in America is The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and, to a lesser degree, The Onion. Journalistic integrity as we know it is gone. And while I love Jon Stewart and Colbert, it's more than a little frightening to think that two comedic, cynical Comedy Central shows have more integrity than the majority of news networks, who are biased or pandering to radical people or laced with opinion--but not actual fact.
As Howard Schutlz put it: "The most trusted man in America used to be Walter Cronkite. Today, it's Jon Stewart."
Was the point that we should be getting our news from just Stewart or Colbert? No, of course not--but, as Stinton said, the onus is on us, the viewers, to filter what we watch. We can't take anything at face value (not even TDS or the Report). We need to utilize Twitter and Tumblr and LJ and Facebook and whatever else and sift through the bullshit. And, in reality, we could do a lot worse than just watching The Daily Show every night.
Why are Stewart and Colbert so important? Because they serve a function that used to not be needed: they pierce the "veil;" they call out bullshit on both sides. Obama does not get a free pass. Liberals do not get a free pass. If somebody is doing something stupid, hypocritical, or downright ridiculous, Jon Stewart will be the first to let you know. Without Stewart or Colbert, all we have are networks with various biases, presenting facts with an hazy layer of opinion, blithely parrying insults back and forth--or as Sanho Tree said, we have CNN going, "Well, Fox News said the sun rises in the west and MSNBC said it rises in the east, so we're just gonna say that they're both kind of right: it rises in the north!" instead of being like, "No, actually, one of you is wrong and one of you is right." It's the difference between a reporter giving someone who claims the Holocaust didn't happen airtime and attention without validating or invalidating their idiocy versus a reporter saying, "You know what? The Holocaust did happen. Here are the facts. Now shut the fuck up."
I've been considering why I like TDS (I also like the Report; I just tend to watch TDS more) so much, and I think the reason got highlighted at this panel. It's not because it's funny, or because I love Jon Stewart, or because it's liberal-leaning (though all of these things are true). It's because when I watch TDS, I never feel like I'm being bullshitted. I never feel like someone is trying to sell me something. I never wait for the moment when one party is uniformly insulted over the other. It's not that I think TDS is 100% factual all the time and I shouldn't do further research, but what it gives me (for the most part) is truth. It hands it to me layered in cynicism, from behind Jon Stewart's trademark smirk ( on the Report, from behind Colbert's goofy grin)--and at the end of either show, I always feel either a bit better or a bit sadder about the world. But I don't feel ignorant, or condescended to, or lied to--and that's refreshing.