Daily Show host blasts media for treating the “most mundane bulls**t” as “Earth-shattering”
Comedian Jon Stewart on Monday launched into a fiery rant aimed at the media coverage of former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial in the latest episode of “The Daily Show.”
Stewart spent a portion of Monday’s segment lambasting media outlets for their coverage of Trump’s criminal trial unfolding in Manhattan, in which prosecutors have alleged that he falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election.
“This trial will obviously be a test of the fairness of the American legal system, but it’s also a test of the media’s ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way. A task they have acknowledged they’ve performed poorly in the past,” Stewart said before showing a montage of clips from notable outlets like CNN and MSNBC acknowledging that they need to give less obsessive attention to the former president’s every antic.
I liked the bit between him and Jessica that followed.
It showed some self-awareness I appreciated, and damn do they have good chemistry.
I’ve missed Stewart’s ability to sum up stories in such a grounded way. Oh, how I wish that we had him from 2016-2020.
At the same time, his leaving was also a success story in itself. He had all the money he ever needed in life, he was at the top of his game except just was exhausted working that continual grind, and was feeling his age so unlike e.g. any member of Congress, decided to voluntarily relinquish his power in order to create room for new people to step up, while he went on to blaze entirely new pioneer territory outside of mainstream TV, which was quite a risk even for someone like him. Wow… what a class act! 😍
Just that the new people that should have stepped up where mere shadows of Jon, unfortunately
John Oliver stepped up, although not on the Daily Show itself. I’m always excited to have something new ruined for me every week.
Afaict he is the last “investigative journalist” left in America, though he is biased himself, yet who else comes close that amount of depth?
There are loads of investigative journalists they just don’t have the audience size these satirists have.
Propublica does insane work. PBS Frontline as well. Amanapour. Many stories break from the likes of WaPo as well.
Jessica Williams‘ rebuttal was kind of legit though. Everything else in the news is miserable, and this case is pretty funny. Involves an orange jackass, a porn star, and opening testimony from a dude named pecker. Maybe is ok to have some trash reality TV at Trump’s expense.
Sure, but that’s not what I want from the news.
Eh it’s 24/7 news.
Jon nailed it that covering this stuff isn’t necessarily an issue unless something more important comes up.
And sure we could say these news outlets could cover a range of topics if not just teach civics when nothing is happening… But they’re viewer/profit driven.
But they’re viewer/profit driven.
That’s the problem right there.
Absolutely. I didn’t mean to sound like I’m excusing it as Jon also noted the problem is how everything is a crisis and breaking news and it just exhausts what actually is urgent.
Cable news’ job is to sell advertising. Nelson is the judge of how well their doing.
This is what’s so frustrating about neolibs like Jon. They think a call to honor, or perhaps some light regulation can reform capitalism. And even sillier, they imagine that a responsible cable news would somehow lead to an informed electorate.
This is an old schtick for Stuart. Fox News is crazy and CNN is stupid. Both sides, you guys. Please don’t look at the incentive structure behind the curtain.
Cable news’ job is to report the news.
A few decades ago, we had this thing called Fairness Doctrine, which more or less forced news organizations to behave as, well, news organizations first and foremost. But then Reagan decided we didn’t need to worry about that anymore, and Fairness Doctrine was repealed, and the quality of news as a public service in the United States has declined precipitously since that point.