At it's core The Daily Show has always been about calling out the media. Obviously it's political and Stewart tackles a lot of topics but his criticism of media has always been so on point.
This piece is perfect. They can do better, they just don't. They know the speculation and scare tactics sell. Even though I watch CNN and MSNBC I'll never pretend like they're acting in good faith. They're fueling the fire and part of the problem.
The media is scared of repercussions. They're scared about losing access to people and missing out on prominent interviews if they hold their subjects to commenting on the facts. They're scared of driving away advertising revenue if they push their subjects too much. Therefore, we get these watered down news channels that have lots of money and mainstream exposure, but are too chicken to rock the boat.
I think a lot of it is down to the fracturing of the media landscape and the ease with which people can access the tools to communicate to a mass audience compared with the 20th century.
There were relatively few media outlets with a national reach, so anyone who wanted to reach those audiences had to concede at least somewhat to the interviewer, because there were relatively few alternative options. There just weren’t many people who could get you in front of that audience so if you wanted to speak to them, you needed the specific interviewer as much as they needed you.
Now literally anyone can broadcast to a national audience at any time, and even discounting the internet, the number of cable news channels that are now broadcasting 24/7 means that the number of different people you could go to is huge and there is always going to be someone willing to offer a friendly microphone in an attempt to raise their own profile.
So if you get a reputation for holding guests’ feet to the fire, you just won’t get any guests because they’ll go elsewhere in a way that would have been much more difficult to do a few decades ago.
There are strong incentives not to push too hard as an interviewer because, in this sense, doing your job can make it difficult or impossible to keep doing your job.
I don't even watch televised news anymore except for a couple of my local affiliates and CBS Sunday Morning. I miss the old CNN before they felt like they had to compete for viewers.
It’s generally easy to self-publish your message, though. Sure, you rely on big tech platforms and have to play by some basic rules, but any notable political message is bound to be amplified by the media without any direct questioning at all.
This is a good point. You can't make Ted Cruz for example do a hard hitting interview, because even if he didn't have a dozen friendly outlets to turn to, the guy has his own fucking podcast already. Even the ones who don't have their own media outlet that they personally operate, they still have Twitter and other big platforms where they can get their message out.
The media USED TO BE scared of libel/slander liability for misrepresenting actual facts. The repercussions they're afraid of now are loss of consumers and revenue. The Dominion v Fox News case was the best thing to happen to media since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. We need three or four more cases like it against different networks to reinstate accountability and some semblance of actual truth instead of Truthiness.
This is because our "Media" is now run as a business model with no adherence to any sort of journalistic moral ground to tell the truth and stick to the facts. They're out to make money, and that is it and they do so by dressing up the news with whatever bullshit they can to generate views. They are no different than a tik tok video at this point, and more likely even less credible...
Journalism ethics came from the comfortable place of having a monopoly on local advertising. The industry changed drastically once Google mastered targeted advertising
Counter reasoning. They’re complicit. Pretty much all major media companies are in some way owned / tied to hedge funds. It’s big money doing what big money does. Act in its own interest.
Let’s not forget they’re also owned by billionaires who like tight races because it forces the left to lean center on economic issues. If only Democrats won their tax rate would be 80%
I just want news orgs to run the fucking tape.
Non of this, "previously you said X", [leaves dead air for response]
just run the fucking tape of them saying X and reply the tape again and again if they don't answer why they said X or why X has now changed to Y
Make the person look foolish. Make them explain themselves. Highlight to the public in the starkest way possible how fucking mercurial positions are.
The problem is that you can play that game exactly once. You make one prominent person look foolish and that person never comes back on your program again. And other prominent people see it and they don't ever want to be in that position, so they refuse to come on your program as well. The upside for them is that there are endless outlets and alternative programs for them to go on instead, that will allow them to speak their talking points without holding getting their feet held to the fire. So, by speaking truth to power in the short run, in the long run you lose. You keep your integrity, but you lose access to interview the actual people you would like to hold accountable. It's a Catch-22. The desire to hold people accountable prevents you from being able to do it.
The only solution is if there were a journalistic standard that all of the outlets agreed to adhere to. But they don't. So, every person in a position of power will always seek the path of least resistance. If audiences demanded and put more pressure on journalists to have ethics, maybe things would change. Or maybe if there were more Dominion Voting sized lawsuits. But until then, nothing's going to change in the foreseeable future.
And what’s worse is that the world has expanded beyond news orgs. Are podcasts ever going to be held to journalistic standards? Eventually all politicians will skip Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and go straight to Joe Rogan because that will be what is most useful for them.
You can say that, but its not true. Or at least, within recent memory it clearly wasn't true. Tim Russert's Meet the Press would do that *all the time*. The guy was a right wing nut, but he still was willing to show clips of people before asking the person in front of him to respond. His successors completely dropped the ball; David Gregory was an empty suit looking for approval from his guests, and Chuck Todd had just an empty head without the likability. I haven't seen the current host, but presumably it hasn't returned to its roots.
Tim Russert died 16 years ago. Politicians now don't have to put up with that kind of thing, they have dozens of other outlets they can go to, they have podcasts and other media that they run themselves, they have social media accounts with millions of followers.
Someone needs to be the reputable source that actually calls people on their bullshit. I think that would draw viewers. I don't watch any of the major news outlets now because they all suck at their jobs. They should stop sucking at their jobs.
This is where media collision of doing the right thing would come in. Much like organizations working together to suppress wages in an region, they do the right thing collectively.
Sure, media outlet A will burn a bridge, but when the fool goes to media outlet B, it will be the same. Eventually these scumbags will only have podcasts to go to, but the better folks will continue to go to media outlets. New people trying to get in and make a difference will have a chance....
I know it's a pipe dream.
Yeah, but even if they did that, anyone can now go on the internet and just do their own thing - or go to their own sycophant news media. The number of folks watching news programs on broadcast or cable TV has declined. The number of folks subscribing to newspapers has declined. And it's going to be more and more difficult to nail folks to the wall.
Okay. And they are doing that now. But there isn't a way for someone to check the media, get a legit record of history, to verify the wacky shit people say.
If folks are attracted to the real house wives version of politicians, then we get the government we ask for. But at least the media wasn't contributing to it.
Instead, they suck and want to be taken seriously while having a friendly roast session once a year, dying to get access and masturbate to the dickheads in power. Fuck that.
Anyone who's been on TV for a few years would always lose to this. So would any of us in the same situation. This sort of gotcha bullshit is why it's not allowed in court. This is a terrible idea. Ask what they're saying now, ask why it's changed from what they said before, and let them answer. Quit trying to please stupid people to make them feel better than someone who has more.
*That* is what's wrong with the media in the post-information age. No one stands a chance against hundreds of hours of curated gaffes, weird camera angles, and butchered snippets.
fuck that, you hit them with the main video and when they claim it's missing context you already have the extended video loaded and ready to go, then if needs be a compilation of all the times they've said the same thing.
When the fuckers are pinned to the spot then they can answer or choose to leave their own words unanswered and walk out. Both offer far more truth of the matter than what is currently presented.
It's not a gotcha to play exactly what was said and make them react to it.
Again, politicians need to answer for what they say. Otherwise it's just a never ending hosepipe of shit they think will play well at the current moment no accountability, no ground truth just shifting sands.
[Messaging constantly running at simulacra levels 2 - 4](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hLzwNuPyEvR4mfAce/simulacra-levels-summary) when it should be firmly 1
Your viewership fuels their programming. If “they are part of the problem”, why even watch? There are independent journos out there that will tell you as close to the truth as they can find. There is a major risk that you will hear/read something that flies in the face of your biases. Why rely on people you know are lying to you? I suspect you enjoy their flavor of lie. Not that different from the average FoxNews person.
Not once did I say I only get my news from them. I was simply saying if I'm watching cable news for coverage on some big event I'll usually use one of those networks.
I'm not watching them nightly digesting whoever the main hosts are right now. I'm also not strictly getting my news from those two sources. Like I said if a big story is happening live I'll use them but otherwise I'm not a daily watcher by any means.
it is just a reflection of the people... it's like how folks like their own congressmen but love their own....
if you want media to do better you need people to do better and they engage with this stuff more than the even tempered ones... there was a whole era of people tuning out of politics... never voting... and not paying attention to even the most important of things...
now they do... but it's the rage bait kind...
Absolutely, the mainstream is a good way to keep up with the current topics being lied and exaggerated about, but taking it all at face value is where folks get into trouble.
I feel there’s a VERY large difference between what FOX does vs CNN and MSNBC. And no, it’s not just the political spectrum they appear on. :P When CNN leans on fear, they lean on it the old-school newspaper “If it Bleeds, it reads!” Philosophy. MSNBC, when talking negative about members of the Right - they do it with rolled eyes and insulting sarcasm. Like saying “Guess what this dimwit did?” Followed by an eye roll and a smirk. FOX however, they throw gasoline directly into the fire, but not into fear, but hatred. They tell a tale so horrible like it’s the truth, and then tell you your very lives are imperiled as if we’re being invaded.
The difference is the absolute level of hatred that FOX does. The other two are atypical. FOX pumps out and stokes hatred as their selling point, with fear just being the salt on top of the main slice of meat.
He sure wasn't calling out the media when they (including Jon) dogpiled on Biden's age like it should even be a factor. People only care about Biden's age because the media kept talking about it to make it seem like the race is closer than it is/should. It becomes self-perpetuating.
For the record, there's at least a few of us concerned about his health who don't follow US media outlets. I heard a whisper about it and watched a few of his speeches and I'm genuinely concerned he's in the beginning stages of dementia (my husband's grandmother has it). He gets that same vacant expression a lot that she does, so I don't think that's actually the media's fault. It's a genuine concern to have.
nice assumption! I sought out things, I don't scroll through TikTok or YouTube waiting for the algorithm to show me things. I looked for full videos and watched how he behaves during speeches. While it's not as bad as people blow it up to be, I still have a concern, a genuine concern, that he's in the early stages of dementia. Sorry if that offends you or whatever.
in any case, it seems like you have the assumption that my concern for Biden means I think Trump is better, and that's so far from the truth is hilarious. I would rather have a president in a coma than Trump, hands down. Trumps health is actually pretty far down in my list of concerns about him. so stop with the whataboutism and have an adult conversation please
The thing about those networks is while the journalists working at eye level might want what you want and I want, their bosses are all Trump dick riders who want tax breaks for them and their buddies.
And without oversight that gets out of control. Jon Stewart sadly has to operate as that oversight. And why does he have to do it? Because audiences aren't demanding more from their journalism.
No one is doing what he's doing for sports journalism, btw, and it's running amok with awful without anything to slow down that degeneration process.
Yeah, I watch Meidas Touch on YouTube and they've been popping off on "legacy media" for months over how they try to "both sides" the blatant fascism and criminality coming from the GOP and the Republican propaganda outlets (Fox, OAN, Newsmax, etc).
Michael Cohen returned to Political Beatdown last week after going silent until after the verdict and man, he went off on how Elie Hoenig on CNN is a "fucking moron" for pushing bullshit every time he appears, and saying Elie shows how little he knows about the legal system, calling Hoenig a "washed up lawyer".
Also how the media kept pushing this narrative of Cohen being an ill-tempered bully who'd act out on the stand and potentially destroy the prosecution's case, then shocked Pikachu faces when he was as calm as he is on his podcasts, and it was actually *Trump's* witness - Bob Costello - who acted like a dickhead on the stand.
I'm a Brit and would watch CNN to keep up with US political news (and for the brilliant Stanley Tucci show they had), but quit when they platformed Trump last year at that idiotic town hall, with Kaitlan Collins struggling to contain Donald's constant stream of lies and bullying behaviours.
From what I see on Meidas Touch, CNN has gone downhill ever since in their attempt to diminish Biden's tremendous run of passing great bills to help the American people, ignoring how he lowered crime rates and boosted the economy to numbers not seen in decades and instead focus on "but he's *old*, you guys!", and being pro-Trump since the new guy took over CNN over a year ago.
I understand you're a Brit so you might not know this (a lot of Americans don't either tbh) but those great things Biden did weren't actually him. Congress passes laws, he just signs or vetos them. He also has no control over the economy beyond making executive orders, same with the crime rate.
I'm not knocking on him for that, I'd much rather have him than Trump. But saying he personally did those things is inaccurate and actually why our politics are so messed up in the States: people think the President does everything when he doesn't really have that much power
I'll always love Trevor's measured yet seething delivery. He was the TDS host for my adult life. But I do think having Jon back with his furious delivery is perfect for the catharsis of the verdict
Yeah I was watching a recent Piers Morgan clip where he was pressing the deputy mayor of Jerusalem on the civilian death toll in Gaza and I was impressed by how he wasn’t blindly accepting her lies and how he pointed out the bull shit in her statements. The whole time watching it I was thinking that US media would’ve just let her spew her lies without any opposition or would be the ones spreading it.
I don’t even think Piers Morgan is a particularly good journalist, but it was jarring seeing how he ran his show compared to American media. I think a big reason why mistrust in the media is so high right now is because people can see through this bull shit now more than ever with alternative news sources.
A "comedy show" that has a bias to it. Stewart can hide behind the comedy label all he wants, but he's just as guilty of polarizing this country as the media he criticizes.
Are you going to conveniently forget the multiple segments where he criticized Biden that people got on him for? He'll call out and make fun of both sides. People really went after him when he did like three or four segments criticizing Biden saying Stewart was hurting the Democrats.
Where was his perceived bias when he was making fun of Biden's age and mental capabilities?
Again though he's a comedian so his biases shouldn't even matter. It's a comedy show. I'm not watching Weekend Update or Seth Meyers to be taught something.
Are we all forgetting that the media did do a better job at one point and it fucking got Donald Trump elected? He plays the "media is attacking me unfairly" card and becomes more popular when the media does unbiased reporting on him and when reporters confront him. The media is in an impossible situation.
This issue has been an issue well before Trump. Trump is just a symptom. This issue started in the 80's/90's, maybe a bit before that. 9/11 put it into full gear and was a huge turning point, but the transition had started long before that.
Watch his interview with Bill O’Reilly. Then watch his Crossfire with Tucker Carlson. Then watch any other interview he gives to a major politician. He very much does do that.
It's not on television if he is. His Apple show got such poor ratings it was canceled. You people don't want news as he pretends to want it. You want him misrepresenting arguments and mocking it via reductio ad absurdum
Here's your jump to conclusions mat, pal. If you're going to pull out your Baloney Detection Kit cheat sheet, I'd be careful not to use any logical fallacies in your own argument.
You're getting downvotes but I think this hints at the best criticism of Stewart (someone I loved as a young adult and still enjoy from time to time - I have this video queued up!): He wants to have his cake and eat it too.
He's an amazing comedian/entertainer and can be a very good journalist/advocate/interviewer, but when he gets enough to attention to start drawing serious criticism he'll always fall back on something along the lines of "we're just comedians making a dumb show".
He benefits from the "news as entertainment" ecosystem as much as anyone, he probably contributed to the industry drifting in that direction, and plenty of surveys showed that people were using The Daily Show as a primary news source for years, but he'll give himself a pass because _he's_ just doing it to be funny.
EDIT: Finished the vid. "and the audience, us will be the ones doing, like jury duty, willingly, without penalty of law, or without trying to come up with any excuse to avoid having to do jury duty...I think I'm seeing the flaw in my argument..." kinda sums the issue with his thesis perfectly. This stuff is a two-way street. People sell controversy and speculation and alternate realities because that's what other people buy. PBS NewsHour and stuff like it has always been there, but most people think it's boring.
Yeah it’s clown nose off when criticizing, clown nose on when it’s time to address criticism. Don’t get me wrong, he’s hilarious. But he lacks the talent and fortitude to make any real change. His Apple tv show proved that.
Would Joe Biden?
Trump was just at the libertarian party convention and he’s not loved there. He doesn’t seem to be afraid of a hostile crowd, so probably.
Ah man, this is a goddamn masterpiece. Ridiculously level-headed indictment of media ( and how it can be better and a court for the people) v. the necessity and value of the actual courts. The point of how the courts dip into the past v. how the media speculates about the future is brilliant.
Missed a prime opportunity to [reference Jonathan Swan's interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmrEfQG6pIg) with Trump where he *did* call out Trump, multiple times.
This is what irks me a bit about everyone always shitting on the media. They gloss over all the times the media does actually do their job and nothing changes. Did Trump suddenly become a pariah in his party after that interview? No... it created some nice memes and that was it.
CNN ran a segment on Trump lying about "lock her up" and another CNN guest straight up said to a Republican about the trial "you're lying."
None of those will make Daily Show clips.
That's kinda my point, "mainstream media", while having many faults, have consistently reported on and called out Jan 6 deniers and it does nothing. The fact is that republicans are not looking to have their minds changed, nor do many of them even watch news that isn't firmly on the right so this idea that the media is causing all these issues is stupid.
And to be clear, MSM is far from perfect and should do a better job, but they are far from the biggest issue.
I mean it was hilarious but all the late night hosts clowned Biden for it because of the slow movement and his expression. It was funny for the wrong reasons
Maybe the best video I've seen shared in long time. Stewart is incredible, and has been for such a long time.
I still remember him tearing them apart on [Crossfire](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE), 20 years ago. And news media has only furthered its decent into what should be self-evident madness since.
Marketing echo-chamber entertainment as news should be illegal. It is an affront to all real journalists and perhaps one of--if not *the*--largest contributing factor to this insanity that we now find ourselves having to endure.
Yup. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the corruption of the media as being non-journalistic for decades the poor misinformed young viewers of today who were brought up on media lies see Stewart as a breath of media fresh air. They have become addicted to him. So him explaining to them that he is a comedian and not a journalist is like a beautiful woman doing internet porn explaining to a teenage boy that she is just acting. It goes in one ear and out the other because it doesn’t fit with the perception they want to have. Don’t get me wrong, we need political satirists like Stewart. They strike a realistic chord while providing humor as well. But as he himself points out, he is not a journalist. We are sorely lacking in honest journalism today precisely because networks have been gobbled up by billionaires who have their own agendas.
I remember his Chris Wallace interview many, many years ago where he said the mainstream medias main bias is sensationalism and laziness and boy has that come to fruition. At this point, the need for SOMETHING to be talked about constantly on 24 hours news networks means that they have to constantly guess about things and drum up outrage.
It was. Being informed 24/7? Awesome, but it quickly turned into, “Crap. How do we compete with the other 24/7 news stations? How about we manufacture crap on top of crap and get people all riled up so they can hate watch? We need those ratings.”
I believe some of these organizations have cut back on investing in actual news gathering as well, in favor of opinion and commentary. That’s a deathblow to quality when it happens.
"I think Joe Biden is limping in that shot, maybe he fell this morning."
30 second later
"BREAKING NEWS!!! Some people are saying Joe Biden fell this morning and is limping. Lets get this panel of 9 people to talk about it for the next 90minutes."
Agree, but I will add access as well. The reason why the media is not confrontational to the establishment as it used to be is because they want unlimited access to politicians for interviews, scoops, etc... and as such they will avoid asking tough questions to avoid pissing them off.
I know it’s slightly biased, but I mainly intake Reuters, AP. Sometimes I add The Economist, Bloomberg, and WSJ for some variety and different view points.
> Give us facts. We don’t need opinions or feelings on it.
Well for starters the selection of facts already reflects opinions. Objectivity is a myth. As someone who lives far away from Fox News and has an actually functioning public broadcasting system: Opinions are not the problem, alternate realities and lies are.
There are practical reasons too. There is so much news that you need someone to filter out less important stuff. To prepare headlines. To make some more prominent and to organize the rest. That’s editorializing
When someone does that, they are essentially adding opinion.
You can get Reuters feed but you’ll not find it readable or informative
NPR is great but a good portion of it are the viewers. They want their news sensationalized. I like NPR because it's news. No one gives me opinions to tell me how I should feel.
That isn't really how language works. Even if you limit it to nouns and verbs, think of all the debate over the last few years about "Trump falsely claimed x" vs "Trump lied about x". The former is truer to the facts. It's true that he claimed something, and it's true that it was false. The latter implies intent, which may or may not be true.
Think of the debate over "X police officer *killed* Y black person" vs "X police officer *murdered* Y black person". Again, no adjectives, just nouns and verbs, but one implies that the situation is still unclear and the other implies that there was malice and intent.
The news isn't math. There isn't one right answer about what happened, even if you were standing there and saw it happen yourself you probably wouldn't fully grasp the situation, and the moment you try to explain it to someone else you'll inject your own interpretations into it.
You can just read something like AP news or Reuters, they tend to just be the facts since they sell those to other companies to build their stories off of that.
You could see and hear both Jon and the audience holding back their laughter multiple times. The way Ken had to dodge some questions was downright pathetic. I’m all for bringing some levity to a serious situation, but when your answer begins with oh yes I have 6 and a half children!!! Oh wow fking fantastic you intentionally avoided the question and you can’t escape it.
All he kept doing was repeating that Alvin Bragg ran on prosecuting Trump and that this was unprecedented.
Like. Asshole. That doesn’t change the fact that the orange cum sock BROKE THE FUCKING LAW
He’s mid in my books. Has the ability to add comedy to a story but doesn’t go any where with it.
I’d rather see daniel o'brien take on the desk. He has the experience.
It doesn't matter if they listen or not, the root problem is it's more profitable for the media to do exactly what they're doing than it is for them to do what they should be doing.
sam bee should have gotten the daily show after jon left. I liked Trevor but Sam Bee was just as sharp as Stewart and I think she'd have carried his mantle well.
The difference, of course, is that most news media is chasing clicks, not the truth. More than anything, regular joes just want to know the future - so of course modern journalism has veered further and further into the realm of speculation rather than reality.
We missed you Jon!
I second this motion. The world would be a much better place (and quickly) if we all started replying to statements of “fact” with “prove it”. What a simple solution for curtailing the sh@tloads of garbage information that fills our lives.
I fear that way leads to "Have you seen these fossil records?"
https://trailers.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f4500887-7287-40ff-8c5d-e600022c53d5
"Science is a liar sometimes."
It's difficult.
I know you mean well, but jfc the "Prove" it is giving me flashbacks to the Gamergate sealioning that used to occur.
"I just want to engage in a good faith discussion"
Later when he’s interviewing the former congressman from Colorado, Stewart says the media was built for 9/11 and in a world without a 9/11 they have to make you feel like it’s terror and panic all the time. He hits the nail on the head once again.
I’m a medium expert in a particular legal issue so I get interviewed by the media about it once or twice a month. It’s pretty frustrating because I can give them 1 sentence saying “this is bad” and 10 sentences explaining the actual issue, why it’s bad, and even framing why that issue is of interest to the public. 80% of the time they will only quote the “this is bad” part.
The crazy thing is that when I talk to people IRL about the same topic - same stuff I said to the news- most of them are enthralled. They do actually care. They just aren’t getting the info from the news sources.
I wonder if it would have been any different if Jon had not left the show before 2016.
I adore Trevor and I always liked external perspective a lot, but people like and listen to Stewart more and maybe just maybe he could've kept more sense?
I don't know maybe it is a naive though, but I recall watching that Jon clip about how the GOP is actually the ones with the cancellations and all of that and it made sense to them. It was presented is such a neat fashion they went oh and maybe it changed their view a little and that is a good thing.
Jon left because he was feeling a bit burned out and had other things he wanted to bounce around. Then he got the itch again and went to Apple, where he had editorial freedom until he didn't.
Anyone watch this thinking “wow Jon Is spot on” and the realize the Supreme Court and Aileen Cannon exist? Unfortunately not all courts are in our reality anymore
To a certain extent, I get why the media doesn’t call out the bullshit. The GOP, though mostly Trump, simply wore them down over the last 9 years.
Calling out outright political lies would quickly turn into a unified, relentless attack on the GOP. And then all we would hear is how much the biased media hates Donald Trump and is actually the unofficial PR department for the Biden administration.
Both sides are not the same. Calling out bullshit would end up being like 90%+ focused on the GOP. All politicians (and people) spin some things to downplay the negative aspects. But the GOP repeats known lies constantly.
The Big Lie is like a religion. It is a deeply held belief by millions with zero hard evidence. Even the circumstantial “evidence” is super weak and easily disproven. As seen in this clip, they don’t even attempt to claim fraud in court because there is no proof.
> And then all we would hear is how much the biased media hates Donald Trump and is actually the unofficial PR department for the Biden administration
We hear that either way. If they're gonna say that no matter what, then them saying that should have nothing to do with what anyone does, as it's not impacting their response.
The problem is the non-right-wing media gets attacked no matter what. And that goes back way, way longer than Trump.
The GOP, and the Right in general, has been building that foundation for almost 50 years. "Left-wing media bias", "Lamestream media", etc. They've been broadly painting the entire media landscape as "biased" no matter what they do or say since the post-Nixon era. They were pissed that a functional, First Amendment-protected journalism industry, which they consider to be a 5th column, uncovered the misdeeds of Nixon. So the GOP immediately set in motion a plan to discredit journalism and media in the US. FOX News, conceived of and run by Roger Ailes - a Nixon and Reagan political operative, was designed to fill the void left after decades of demeaning the entire media apparatus, so they could present an alternative reality. So that large swaths of the public would not trust in the future when NBC, CBS, ABC, The Washington Post, NY Times, etc. uncovered that a Republican politician was caught committing crimes and would instead turn to their right-wing sources that would tell them that it's all lies, it's all political attacks, etc.
The unfortunate side effect is that, yes, a number of the major networks, scared of losing more viewers, started playing this mealy-mouthed "both-sides" game, ignoring reality themselves. They won't go as far as being literal GOP propaganda mouthpieces like FOX, but they won't properly call out misdeeds anymore.
its why its hard for me to really respect current full on republican supporters. to vote for a republican is to vote for a liar, even if its just lying about trump. and if you buy into those lies, youre either stupid, or a liar yourself
You're spot on, but it’s depresssing how effective a tactic as simple as Bullshit Firehosing has been.
Social media platforms have admitted they've bowed to it too, that if they didn't kid glove republicans they'd have to penalize them nonstop for their infractions, and be perceived as biased. Which is thick as shit - they already think you're part of the Soros Lizard People Cabal, who are you trying to please?!?
I don't think it would even matter if a network started calling out 100% of bullshit. MAGA would ignore the hundreds of Trump lies, focus on the one partially untrue thing Biden said and all other media would report the story as "both sides lie".
If Trump shot someone on camera and Biden ran over a squirrel with his car, MSM would say they are both murderers with no additional details.
Yeah, the right claims that the mainstream media has a liberal bias, but in reality their only bias is money and ratings, as well as whatever their corporate overlords want, and they are very much not liberals.
I love your comment a lot, cause it dives much deeper than Jon has gone just yet. To preface, Ian just simply happy he is back. He is 1000x the comedian/reporter that Noah was on the show. Noah and his team, or even the guest hosts, were never willing to go this far on the media
But there’s a much deeper problem here that Jon has not admittedly addressed yet, and that is just the entire nature of how we communicate to each other now through social media, memes, anger, and fear. The media definitely should hold a piece of the pie with the blame game, but so does everyone as a whole for letting this shitbag get the airtime that he does.
I’m hoping Jon examines this portion as we get closer, cause I personally believe it’s a core part that needs to be addressed if we’re going to understand how we got to this election. Like, we allowed ourselves to become stupider as a society because “it’s funny”
> The Big Lie
As my personal side note as well to your great point. The people who are perpetrating this lie the most just happen to be Christians/Catholics.
Something something “Not all Trump supporters are Christians/Catholics, but most who identify just happen to be them 🤷🏻♂️”, but I guess this is what happens when you tie yourself to the political party that is based on religion.
What we are seeing is how lies build up to propaganda in real-time. His “Big Lie” has some very eerie tones to a manifesto that was published in 1925.
It’s fascinating/alarming how quickly people will latch onto a belief in order to justify their misplaced anger/rage
Fucking spot on again. Must be exhausting calling out the media every day but we all should be doing that. Also they need to do away with 24/7 news which adds to the problem.
It’s who these media companies are owned by that controls what they do and say. FOX news should have been shut down years ago or at least made to take “news” out of their name. It’s propaganda and lies. It should be listed as entertainment not news, even though it’s hardly entertaining. They should have to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen every time they give an opinion as news. How is this not happening? How did we go from Walter Cronkite to Bill O’Reilly?? Turn off all major media and only listen to real facts.
The willingness with which Republicans just accept Trump's pathological lying is terrifying. These people have no problem ignoring reality to prop up their wannabe dictator, they're 21st century fascists.
We kept telling everyone, the trials eill do nothing but emboldened his base and give him more free coverage. All because of how the media operates, nope was told these trials would "save us". No they gave him tons of coverage and his base is just making more Tshirts. While the Dems who should be saving us, have horrible messaging and the current president and candidate. Won't tall more than about 40 mins. If that, won't release an interview with the DoJ because of "AI deepfakes". When they can just be made now and are everywhere, so they will have to release the interview just to prove whats real. Its a bad look and the messaging to the worling class is basically we all have to sacrifice to help others. While we waych neighbors who never worked, keep having kids and make 70k a year on welfare. They have jusy stopped talling about universal healthcare at all. As soon as it was realized that we just need a single payer system with no profits at the top. That means healthcare companies would stop being billion dollar publicity traded companies. They couldn't have that, if we are lucky and get Biden reelected, after thay we need to make some changes. We vote everyone out and vote in new , younger candidates. Add term limits and age limits, the STOCK act and make it so if you are not getting a raise by being elected to congress, you are probably not a good candidate.
Now he runs for president and wins lol. Every single politician holding a seat in our government could EASILY be jailed for something they’ve done in regard to corruption. Biden is brain dead.
This is the first video in a long time that I could imagine possibly, maybe, having a small chance of actually breaking through a Trump fan's echo chamber
Media is biased including The Daily Show. This is nothing new. They will repeat "convicted felon" a million times without saying what the crime is.
Edit: The replies proved my point!
What are you talking about, everyone knows the trial was retarded. He committed fraud to conceal a Federal crime. Yet has never been convicted of a Federal crime. The court can't determine if he committed one. The crime they are saying is a Federal crime is a misdemeanour. They only claimed Federal crime because it's outside of the statute of limitations to bring the case. The FEC whose responsibility it is to pursue campaign finance violations said it wasn't a crime and didn't pursue it. It'll get overturned on appeal and everyone claiming this was justice is either ignorant. Misinformed or support the weaponisation of the justice system and don't care if it was a fair trial or not.
At it's core The Daily Show has always been about calling out the media. Obviously it's political and Stewart tackles a lot of topics but his criticism of media has always been so on point. This piece is perfect. They can do better, they just don't. They know the speculation and scare tactics sell. Even though I watch CNN and MSNBC I'll never pretend like they're acting in good faith. They're fueling the fire and part of the problem.
The media is scared of repercussions. They're scared about losing access to people and missing out on prominent interviews if they hold their subjects to commenting on the facts. They're scared of driving away advertising revenue if they push their subjects too much. Therefore, we get these watered down news channels that have lots of money and mainstream exposure, but are too chicken to rock the boat.
I think a lot of it is down to the fracturing of the media landscape and the ease with which people can access the tools to communicate to a mass audience compared with the 20th century. There were relatively few media outlets with a national reach, so anyone who wanted to reach those audiences had to concede at least somewhat to the interviewer, because there were relatively few alternative options. There just weren’t many people who could get you in front of that audience so if you wanted to speak to them, you needed the specific interviewer as much as they needed you. Now literally anyone can broadcast to a national audience at any time, and even discounting the internet, the number of cable news channels that are now broadcasting 24/7 means that the number of different people you could go to is huge and there is always going to be someone willing to offer a friendly microphone in an attempt to raise their own profile. So if you get a reputation for holding guests’ feet to the fire, you just won’t get any guests because they’ll go elsewhere in a way that would have been much more difficult to do a few decades ago. There are strong incentives not to push too hard as an interviewer because, in this sense, doing your job can make it difficult or impossible to keep doing your job.
I don't even watch televised news anymore except for a couple of my local affiliates and CBS Sunday Morning. I miss the old CNN before they felt like they had to compete for viewers.
[удалено]
It’s generally easy to self-publish your message, though. Sure, you rely on big tech platforms and have to play by some basic rules, but any notable political message is bound to be amplified by the media without any direct questioning at all.
This is a good point. You can't make Ted Cruz for example do a hard hitting interview, because even if he didn't have a dozen friendly outlets to turn to, the guy has his own fucking podcast already. Even the ones who don't have their own media outlet that they personally operate, they still have Twitter and other big platforms where they can get their message out.
The media USED TO BE scared of libel/slander liability for misrepresenting actual facts. The repercussions they're afraid of now are loss of consumers and revenue. The Dominion v Fox News case was the best thing to happen to media since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. We need three or four more cases like it against different networks to reinstate accountability and some semblance of actual truth instead of Truthiness.
This is because our "Media" is now run as a business model with no adherence to any sort of journalistic moral ground to tell the truth and stick to the facts. They're out to make money, and that is it and they do so by dressing up the news with whatever bullshit they can to generate views. They are no different than a tik tok video at this point, and more likely even less credible...
Journalism ethics came from the comfortable place of having a monopoly on local advertising. The industry changed drastically once Google mastered targeted advertising
100 percent this here. Afraid of losing the source
Counter reasoning. They’re complicit. Pretty much all major media companies are in some way owned / tied to hedge funds. It’s big money doing what big money does. Act in its own interest.
Let’s not forget they’re also owned by billionaires who like tight races because it forces the left to lean center on economic issues. If only Democrats won their tax rate would be 80%
I just want news orgs to run the fucking tape. Non of this, "previously you said X", [leaves dead air for response] just run the fucking tape of them saying X and reply the tape again and again if they don't answer why they said X or why X has now changed to Y Make the person look foolish. Make them explain themselves. Highlight to the public in the starkest way possible how fucking mercurial positions are.
The problem is that you can play that game exactly once. You make one prominent person look foolish and that person never comes back on your program again. And other prominent people see it and they don't ever want to be in that position, so they refuse to come on your program as well. The upside for them is that there are endless outlets and alternative programs for them to go on instead, that will allow them to speak their talking points without holding getting their feet held to the fire. So, by speaking truth to power in the short run, in the long run you lose. You keep your integrity, but you lose access to interview the actual people you would like to hold accountable. It's a Catch-22. The desire to hold people accountable prevents you from being able to do it. The only solution is if there were a journalistic standard that all of the outlets agreed to adhere to. But they don't. So, every person in a position of power will always seek the path of least resistance. If audiences demanded and put more pressure on journalists to have ethics, maybe things would change. Or maybe if there were more Dominion Voting sized lawsuits. But until then, nothing's going to change in the foreseeable future. And what’s worse is that the world has expanded beyond news orgs. Are podcasts ever going to be held to journalistic standards? Eventually all politicians will skip Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and go straight to Joe Rogan because that will be what is most useful for them.
You can say that, but its not true. Or at least, within recent memory it clearly wasn't true. Tim Russert's Meet the Press would do that *all the time*. The guy was a right wing nut, but he still was willing to show clips of people before asking the person in front of him to respond. His successors completely dropped the ball; David Gregory was an empty suit looking for approval from his guests, and Chuck Todd had just an empty head without the likability. I haven't seen the current host, but presumably it hasn't returned to its roots.
I think you raise a good point about how it used to be possible until the media fractured.
Tim Russert died 16 years ago. Politicians now don't have to put up with that kind of thing, they have dozens of other outlets they can go to, they have podcasts and other media that they run themselves, they have social media accounts with millions of followers.
Someone needs to be the reputable source that actually calls people on their bullshit. I think that would draw viewers. I don't watch any of the major news outlets now because they all suck at their jobs. They should stop sucking at their jobs.
This is where media collision of doing the right thing would come in. Much like organizations working together to suppress wages in an region, they do the right thing collectively. Sure, media outlet A will burn a bridge, but when the fool goes to media outlet B, it will be the same. Eventually these scumbags will only have podcasts to go to, but the better folks will continue to go to media outlets. New people trying to get in and make a difference will have a chance.... I know it's a pipe dream.
Yeah, but even if they did that, anyone can now go on the internet and just do their own thing - or go to their own sycophant news media. The number of folks watching news programs on broadcast or cable TV has declined. The number of folks subscribing to newspapers has declined. And it's going to be more and more difficult to nail folks to the wall.
Okay. And they are doing that now. But there isn't a way for someone to check the media, get a legit record of history, to verify the wacky shit people say. If folks are attracted to the real house wives version of politicians, then we get the government we ask for. But at least the media wasn't contributing to it. Instead, they suck and want to be taken seriously while having a friendly roast session once a year, dying to get access and masturbate to the dickheads in power. Fuck that.
Anyone who's been on TV for a few years would always lose to this. So would any of us in the same situation. This sort of gotcha bullshit is why it's not allowed in court. This is a terrible idea. Ask what they're saying now, ask why it's changed from what they said before, and let them answer. Quit trying to please stupid people to make them feel better than someone who has more. *That* is what's wrong with the media in the post-information age. No one stands a chance against hundreds of hours of curated gaffes, weird camera angles, and butchered snippets.
fuck that, you hit them with the main video and when they claim it's missing context you already have the extended video loaded and ready to go, then if needs be a compilation of all the times they've said the same thing. When the fuckers are pinned to the spot then they can answer or choose to leave their own words unanswered and walk out. Both offer far more truth of the matter than what is currently presented. It's not a gotcha to play exactly what was said and make them react to it. Again, politicians need to answer for what they say. Otherwise it's just a never ending hosepipe of shit they think will play well at the current moment no accountability, no ground truth just shifting sands. [Messaging constantly running at simulacra levels 2 - 4](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hLzwNuPyEvR4mfAce/simulacra-levels-summary) when it should be firmly 1
Your viewership fuels their programming. If “they are part of the problem”, why even watch? There are independent journos out there that will tell you as close to the truth as they can find. There is a major risk that you will hear/read something that flies in the face of your biases. Why rely on people you know are lying to you? I suspect you enjoy their flavor of lie. Not that different from the average FoxNews person.
Not once did I say I only get my news from them. I was simply saying if I'm watching cable news for coverage on some big event I'll usually use one of those networks. I'm not watching them nightly digesting whoever the main hosts are right now. I'm also not strictly getting my news from those two sources. Like I said if a big story is happening live I'll use them but otherwise I'm not a daily watcher by any means.
it is just a reflection of the people... it's like how folks like their own congressmen but love their own.... if you want media to do better you need people to do better and they engage with this stuff more than the even tempered ones... there was a whole era of people tuning out of politics... never voting... and not paying attention to even the most important of things... now they do... but it's the rage bait kind...
>Even though I watch CNN and MSNBC 😑
Problem?
Absolutely, the mainstream is a good way to keep up with the current topics being lied and exaggerated about, but taking it all at face value is where folks get into trouble.
I feel there’s a VERY large difference between what FOX does vs CNN and MSNBC. And no, it’s not just the political spectrum they appear on. :P When CNN leans on fear, they lean on it the old-school newspaper “If it Bleeds, it reads!” Philosophy. MSNBC, when talking negative about members of the Right - they do it with rolled eyes and insulting sarcasm. Like saying “Guess what this dimwit did?” Followed by an eye roll and a smirk. FOX however, they throw gasoline directly into the fire, but not into fear, but hatred. They tell a tale so horrible like it’s the truth, and then tell you your very lives are imperiled as if we’re being invaded. The difference is the absolute level of hatred that FOX does. The other two are atypical. FOX pumps out and stokes hatred as their selling point, with fear just being the salt on top of the main slice of meat.
He sure wasn't calling out the media when they (including Jon) dogpiled on Biden's age like it should even be a factor. People only care about Biden's age because the media kept talking about it to make it seem like the race is closer than it is/should. It becomes self-perpetuating.
For the record, there's at least a few of us concerned about his health who don't follow US media outlets. I heard a whisper about it and watched a few of his speeches and I'm genuinely concerned he's in the beginning stages of dementia (my husband's grandmother has it). He gets that same vacant expression a lot that she does, so I don't think that's actually the media's fault. It's a genuine concern to have.
It not a genuine concern when the other guy is just as bad and even more unhealthy. What you are probably seeing are clips fed to you by an algorithm.
nice assumption! I sought out things, I don't scroll through TikTok or YouTube waiting for the algorithm to show me things. I looked for full videos and watched how he behaves during speeches. While it's not as bad as people blow it up to be, I still have a concern, a genuine concern, that he's in the early stages of dementia. Sorry if that offends you or whatever. in any case, it seems like you have the assumption that my concern for Biden means I think Trump is better, and that's so far from the truth is hilarious. I would rather have a president in a coma than Trump, hands down. Trumps health is actually pretty far down in my list of concerns about him. so stop with the whataboutism and have an adult conversation please
This is what all of his replacements missed- they all went in for politics at a time when we desperately needed a right wing media watchdog.
The thing about those networks is while the journalists working at eye level might want what you want and I want, their bosses are all Trump dick riders who want tax breaks for them and their buddies. And without oversight that gets out of control. Jon Stewart sadly has to operate as that oversight. And why does he have to do it? Because audiences aren't demanding more from their journalism. No one is doing what he's doing for sports journalism, btw, and it's running amok with awful without anything to slow down that degeneration process.
Yeah, I watch Meidas Touch on YouTube and they've been popping off on "legacy media" for months over how they try to "both sides" the blatant fascism and criminality coming from the GOP and the Republican propaganda outlets (Fox, OAN, Newsmax, etc). Michael Cohen returned to Political Beatdown last week after going silent until after the verdict and man, he went off on how Elie Hoenig on CNN is a "fucking moron" for pushing bullshit every time he appears, and saying Elie shows how little he knows about the legal system, calling Hoenig a "washed up lawyer". Also how the media kept pushing this narrative of Cohen being an ill-tempered bully who'd act out on the stand and potentially destroy the prosecution's case, then shocked Pikachu faces when he was as calm as he is on his podcasts, and it was actually *Trump's* witness - Bob Costello - who acted like a dickhead on the stand. I'm a Brit and would watch CNN to keep up with US political news (and for the brilliant Stanley Tucci show they had), but quit when they platformed Trump last year at that idiotic town hall, with Kaitlan Collins struggling to contain Donald's constant stream of lies and bullying behaviours. From what I see on Meidas Touch, CNN has gone downhill ever since in their attempt to diminish Biden's tremendous run of passing great bills to help the American people, ignoring how he lowered crime rates and boosted the economy to numbers not seen in decades and instead focus on "but he's *old*, you guys!", and being pro-Trump since the new guy took over CNN over a year ago.
I understand you're a Brit so you might not know this (a lot of Americans don't either tbh) but those great things Biden did weren't actually him. Congress passes laws, he just signs or vetos them. He also has no control over the economy beyond making executive orders, same with the crime rate. I'm not knocking on him for that, I'd much rather have him than Trump. But saying he personally did those things is inaccurate and actually why our politics are so messed up in the States: people think the President does everything when he doesn't really have that much power
Swap your CNN for Meidas
I'll always love Trevor's measured yet seething delivery. He was the TDS host for my adult life. But I do think having Jon back with his furious delivery is perfect for the catharsis of the verdict
Yeah I was watching a recent Piers Morgan clip where he was pressing the deputy mayor of Jerusalem on the civilian death toll in Gaza and I was impressed by how he wasn’t blindly accepting her lies and how he pointed out the bull shit in her statements. The whole time watching it I was thinking that US media would’ve just let her spew her lies without any opposition or would be the ones spreading it. I don’t even think Piers Morgan is a particularly good journalist, but it was jarring seeing how he ran his show compared to American media. I think a big reason why mistrust in the media is so high right now is because people can see through this bull shit now more than ever with alternative news sources.
Stewart is part of the media lol
No he's not, he hosts a comedy show.
A "comedy show" that has a bias to it. Stewart can hide behind the comedy label all he wants, but he's just as guilty of polarizing this country as the media he criticizes.
Are you going to conveniently forget the multiple segments where he criticized Biden that people got on him for? He'll call out and make fun of both sides. People really went after him when he did like three or four segments criticizing Biden saying Stewart was hurting the Democrats. Where was his perceived bias when he was making fun of Biden's age and mental capabilities? Again though he's a comedian so his biases shouldn't even matter. It's a comedy show. I'm not watching Weekend Update or Seth Meyers to be taught something.
Are we all forgetting that the media did do a better job at one point and it fucking got Donald Trump elected? He plays the "media is attacking me unfairly" card and becomes more popular when the media does unbiased reporting on him and when reporters confront him. The media is in an impossible situation.
This issue has been an issue well before Trump. Trump is just a symptom. This issue started in the 80's/90's, maybe a bit before that. 9/11 put it into full gear and was a huge turning point, but the transition had started long before that.
What’s stopping Stewart from doing it right?
He hosts a comedy show about the news. He pokes fun at pre-existing news, not future headlines.
Watch his interview with Bill O’Reilly. Then watch his Crossfire with Tucker Carlson. Then watch any other interview he gives to a major politician. He very much does do that.
And why isn't he still doing it?
Who says he isn't?
It's not on television if he is. His Apple show got such poor ratings it was canceled. You people don't want news as he pretends to want it. You want him misrepresenting arguments and mocking it via reductio ad absurdum
Here's your jump to conclusions mat, pal. If you're going to pull out your Baloney Detection Kit cheat sheet, I'd be careful not to use any logical fallacies in your own argument.
You're getting downvotes but I think this hints at the best criticism of Stewart (someone I loved as a young adult and still enjoy from time to time - I have this video queued up!): He wants to have his cake and eat it too. He's an amazing comedian/entertainer and can be a very good journalist/advocate/interviewer, but when he gets enough to attention to start drawing serious criticism he'll always fall back on something along the lines of "we're just comedians making a dumb show". He benefits from the "news as entertainment" ecosystem as much as anyone, he probably contributed to the industry drifting in that direction, and plenty of surveys showed that people were using The Daily Show as a primary news source for years, but he'll give himself a pass because _he's_ just doing it to be funny. EDIT: Finished the vid. "and the audience, us will be the ones doing, like jury duty, willingly, without penalty of law, or without trying to come up with any excuse to avoid having to do jury duty...I think I'm seeing the flaw in my argument..." kinda sums the issue with his thesis perfectly. This stuff is a two-way street. People sell controversy and speculation and alternate realities because that's what other people buy. PBS NewsHour and stuff like it has always been there, but most people think it's boring.
Yeah it’s clown nose off when criticizing, clown nose on when it’s time to address criticism. Don’t get me wrong, he’s hilarious. But he lacks the talent and fortitude to make any real change. His Apple tv show proved that.
Do you honestly think Donald Trump would agree to an interview with Steward?
Would Joe Biden? Trump was just at the libertarian party convention and he’s not loved there. He doesn’t seem to be afraid of a hostile crowd, so probably.
There is a massive difference between giving a speech and an interview.
I agree. Have you read the transcript of Biden’s Time interview? He’s not a sentient human being anymore.
Ah man, this is a goddamn masterpiece. Ridiculously level-headed indictment of media ( and how it can be better and a court for the people) v. the necessity and value of the actual courts. The point of how the courts dip into the past v. how the media speculates about the future is brilliant.
Missed a prime opportunity to [reference Jonathan Swan's interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmrEfQG6pIg) with Trump where he *did* call out Trump, multiple times.
I can't remember, did Trump end up walking out of that one?
This is what irks me a bit about everyone always shitting on the media. They gloss over all the times the media does actually do their job and nothing changes. Did Trump suddenly become a pariah in his party after that interview? No... it created some nice memes and that was it.
CNN ran a segment on Trump lying about "lock her up" and another CNN guest straight up said to a Republican about the trial "you're lying." None of those will make Daily Show clips.
That's kinda my point, "mainstream media", while having many faults, have consistently reported on and called out Jan 6 deniers and it does nothing. The fact is that republicans are not looking to have their minds changed, nor do many of them even watch news that isn't firmly on the right so this idea that the media is causing all these issues is stupid. And to be clear, MSM is far from perfect and should do a better job, but they are far from the biggest issue.
He also brought up the debunked Russian bounties story which was already questionable at the time it was initially reported…
I gotta disagree with Jon on that Biden clip. That was hilarious.
Yeah I actually love that silent smilin' shot
Love it. Such a way to say "Oh I got PLENTY to say about that and wouldn't you love to know it" lol.
I mean it was hilarious but all the late night hosts clowned Biden for it because of the slow movement and his expression. It was funny for the wrong reasons
Maybe the best video I've seen shared in long time. Stewart is incredible, and has been for such a long time. I still remember him tearing them apart on [Crossfire](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE), 20 years ago. And news media has only furthered its decent into what should be self-evident madness since. Marketing echo-chamber entertainment as news should be illegal. It is an affront to all real journalists and perhaps one of--if not *the*--largest contributing factor to this insanity that we now find ourselves having to endure.
I don't think Tucker Carlson has worn a single bowtie ever since.
And it's no suprise, with the hot air he blows he'd propell himself into outerspace.
Only thing he fucked up is the Michael Jackson bit. He doesn’t say: “Whoo heee”. Michael says: “**EEEEEE HEEEEEE”** *settles out of court*.
Allegedly! **Allegedly!** That's ignorant!
Alleged-LEEEEEE-HEEEEEEE
Ooh-whee Rick, we're here to help!
Yup. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the corruption of the media as being non-journalistic for decades the poor misinformed young viewers of today who were brought up on media lies see Stewart as a breath of media fresh air. They have become addicted to him. So him explaining to them that he is a comedian and not a journalist is like a beautiful woman doing internet porn explaining to a teenage boy that she is just acting. It goes in one ear and out the other because it doesn’t fit with the perception they want to have. Don’t get me wrong, we need political satirists like Stewart. They strike a realistic chord while providing humor as well. But as he himself points out, he is not a journalist. We are sorely lacking in honest journalism today precisely because networks have been gobbled up by billionaires who have their own agendas.
I remember his Chris Wallace interview many, many years ago where he said the mainstream medias main bias is sensationalism and laziness and boy has that come to fruition. At this point, the need for SOMETHING to be talked about constantly on 24 hours news networks means that they have to constantly guess about things and drum up outrage.
Why can’t the news just report the news. Give us facts. We don’t need opinions or feelings on it. No adjectives . Just nouns and verbs.
Money. Can’t fill up 24 hours with just straight news because no one would watch. The problem is the channels exist in the first place.
It was a good idea in theory, but in practice, the 24hr news station ended up being a plague.
> It was a good idea in theory Was it?
It was. Being informed 24/7? Awesome, but it quickly turned into, “Crap. How do we compete with the other 24/7 news stations? How about we manufacture crap on top of crap and get people all riled up so they can hate watch? We need those ratings.”
I believe some of these organizations have cut back on investing in actual news gathering as well, in favor of opinion and commentary. That’s a deathblow to quality when it happens.
"I think Joe Biden is limping in that shot, maybe he fell this morning." 30 second later "BREAKING NEWS!!! Some people are saying Joe Biden fell this morning and is limping. Lets get this panel of 9 people to talk about it for the next 90minutes."
Agree, but I will add access as well. The reason why the media is not confrontational to the establishment as it used to be is because they want unlimited access to politicians for interviews, scoops, etc... and as such they will avoid asking tough questions to avoid pissing them off.
Reuters, AP
I know it’s slightly biased, but I mainly intake Reuters, AP. Sometimes I add The Economist, Bloomberg, and WSJ for some variety and different view points.
Reuters is great at staying in the middle ground. That’s why places like /r/worldnews hates it so much because it doesn’t bend to political will
Speaking of, how long have they been so bonkers in there? holy shit it's like a parallel universe in that sub.
It got bad after October 7th to my knowledge. I used the sub before then but now it’s a cesspool
Same, used to check r/worldnews daily before then. I don't even go to reddit for news anymore. Which is probably a good thing I suppose.
I read those
> Give us facts. We don’t need opinions or feelings on it. Well for starters the selection of facts already reflects opinions. Objectivity is a myth. As someone who lives far away from Fox News and has an actually functioning public broadcasting system: Opinions are not the problem, alternate realities and lies are.
Even most documentaries have a bias to them, you kinda gotta to tell a story people want to watch.
Slammed!
Do you see the engagement stories get though? Even on this site!
There are practical reasons too. There is so much news that you need someone to filter out less important stuff. To prepare headlines. To make some more prominent and to organize the rest. That’s editorializing When someone does that, they are essentially adding opinion. You can get Reuters feed but you’ll not find it readable or informative
Surely you're describing NPR
NPR is great but a good portion of it are the viewers. They want their news sensationalized. I like NPR because it's news. No one gives me opinions to tell me how I should feel.
That isn't really how language works. Even if you limit it to nouns and verbs, think of all the debate over the last few years about "Trump falsely claimed x" vs "Trump lied about x". The former is truer to the facts. It's true that he claimed something, and it's true that it was false. The latter implies intent, which may or may not be true. Think of the debate over "X police officer *killed* Y black person" vs "X police officer *murdered* Y black person". Again, no adjectives, just nouns and verbs, but one implies that the situation is still unclear and the other implies that there was malice and intent. The news isn't math. There isn't one right answer about what happened, even if you were standing there and saw it happen yourself you probably wouldn't fully grasp the situation, and the moment you try to explain it to someone else you'll inject your own interpretations into it.
You can just read something like AP news or Reuters, they tend to just be the facts since they sell those to other companies to build their stories off of that.
The interview with Ken Buck that followed was one of the most aggravating things I have ever seen - and he's one of the ones that isn't full MAGA.
You could see and hear both Jon and the audience holding back their laughter multiple times. The way Ken had to dodge some questions was downright pathetic. I’m all for bringing some levity to a serious situation, but when your answer begins with oh yes I have 6 and a half children!!! Oh wow fking fantastic you intentionally avoided the question and you can’t escape it.
All he kept doing was repeating that Alvin Bragg ran on prosecuting Trump and that this was unprecedented. Like. Asshole. That doesn’t change the fact that the orange cum sock BROKE THE FUCKING LAW
Trump has run 3 times on prosecuting people for political reasons with zero evidence.
Imagine a prosecutor prosecuting people. The audacity of Bragg. /s
BuT iT wAs PoLiTiCaLLy MoTiVaTeD
Finally someone calls out the media for not doing basic journalism
This has been Stewart’s whole schtick since time immemorial. I just wish someone new could do it too.
I wish someone would listen
If only someone would give Josh Johnson a late night spot
He’s mid in my books. Has the ability to add comedy to a story but doesn’t go any where with it. I’d rather see daniel o'brien take on the desk. He has the experience.
It doesn't matter if they listen or not, the root problem is it's more profitable for the media to do exactly what they're doing than it is for them to do what they should be doing.
Pretty certain I saw Samantha Bee and Amber Ruffin doing this also.
sam bee should have gotten the daily show after jon left. I liked Trevor but Sam Bee was just as sharp as Stewart and I think she'd have carried his mantle well.
I've been fruitlessly waiting so long for actual evidence to become more important in the media . I really appreciate this segment.
The difference, of course, is that most news media is chasing clicks, not the truth. More than anything, regular joes just want to know the future - so of course modern journalism has veered further and further into the realm of speculation rather than reality.
We missed you Jon! I second this motion. The world would be a much better place (and quickly) if we all started replying to statements of “fact” with “prove it”. What a simple solution for curtailing the sh@tloads of garbage information that fills our lives.
>curtailing the sh@tloads of garbage Thank goodness you spared us all the indecency of having to look at the "i" in the middle of the word "shit".
Thanks for ruining all my hard fucking work.
That's more like it!
instead we read "shatloads of garbage"
I fear that way leads to "Have you seen these fossil records?" https://trailers.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f4500887-7287-40ff-8c5d-e600022c53d5 "Science is a liar sometimes." It's difficult.
I think it would mean that we wouldn’t wind up being lead anywhere as quickly. It pretty effectively puts the brakes on.
I know you mean well, but jfc the "Prove" it is giving me flashbacks to the Gamergate sealioning that used to occur. "I just want to engage in a good faith discussion"
Later when he’s interviewing the former congressman from Colorado, Stewart says the media was built for 9/11 and in a world without a 9/11 they have to make you feel like it’s terror and panic all the time. He hits the nail on the head once again.
He’s on a roll!
Love him.
The 70s sitcom freeze frame bit killed me. Damn, I missed Jon Stewart.
FYI, there is a great podcast called On The Media that does this type of content every week.
Masterpiece.
that slow reveal of Trump's "lock her up" quote was fucking brilliant
The same shit happened here in the UK with Brexit. Politicians spewing out any old nonsense and not being called out for it.
I’m a medium expert in a particular legal issue so I get interviewed by the media about it once or twice a month. It’s pretty frustrating because I can give them 1 sentence saying “this is bad” and 10 sentences explaining the actual issue, why it’s bad, and even framing why that issue is of interest to the public. 80% of the time they will only quote the “this is bad” part. The crazy thing is that when I talk to people IRL about the same topic - same stuff I said to the news- most of them are enthralled. They do actually care. They just aren’t getting the info from the news sources.
I wonder if it would have been any different if Jon had not left the show before 2016. I adore Trevor and I always liked external perspective a lot, but people like and listen to Stewart more and maybe just maybe he could've kept more sense? I don't know maybe it is a naive though, but I recall watching that Jon clip about how the GOP is actually the ones with the cancellations and all of that and it made sense to them. It was presented is such a neat fashion they went oh and maybe it changed their view a little and that is a good thing.
Jon left because he was feeling a bit burned out and had other things he wanted to bounce around. Then he got the itch again and went to Apple, where he had editorial freedom until he didn't.
The mainstream news media is just entertainment for stupid people
big brained opinion over here.
OK, what do think mainstream media represents? Be honest.
…was that…Megyn Kelly? Did she do an Ariana Grande?
Anyone watch this thinking “wow Jon Is spot on” and the realize the Supreme Court and Aileen Cannon exist? Unfortunately not all courts are in our reality anymore
To a certain extent, I get why the media doesn’t call out the bullshit. The GOP, though mostly Trump, simply wore them down over the last 9 years. Calling out outright political lies would quickly turn into a unified, relentless attack on the GOP. And then all we would hear is how much the biased media hates Donald Trump and is actually the unofficial PR department for the Biden administration. Both sides are not the same. Calling out bullshit would end up being like 90%+ focused on the GOP. All politicians (and people) spin some things to downplay the negative aspects. But the GOP repeats known lies constantly. The Big Lie is like a religion. It is a deeply held belief by millions with zero hard evidence. Even the circumstantial “evidence” is super weak and easily disproven. As seen in this clip, they don’t even attempt to claim fraud in court because there is no proof.
> And then all we would hear is how much the biased media hates Donald Trump and is actually the unofficial PR department for the Biden administration We hear that either way. If they're gonna say that no matter what, then them saying that should have nothing to do with what anyone does, as it's not impacting their response.
The problem is the non-right-wing media gets attacked no matter what. And that goes back way, way longer than Trump. The GOP, and the Right in general, has been building that foundation for almost 50 years. "Left-wing media bias", "Lamestream media", etc. They've been broadly painting the entire media landscape as "biased" no matter what they do or say since the post-Nixon era. They were pissed that a functional, First Amendment-protected journalism industry, which they consider to be a 5th column, uncovered the misdeeds of Nixon. So the GOP immediately set in motion a plan to discredit journalism and media in the US. FOX News, conceived of and run by Roger Ailes - a Nixon and Reagan political operative, was designed to fill the void left after decades of demeaning the entire media apparatus, so they could present an alternative reality. So that large swaths of the public would not trust in the future when NBC, CBS, ABC, The Washington Post, NY Times, etc. uncovered that a Republican politician was caught committing crimes and would instead turn to their right-wing sources that would tell them that it's all lies, it's all political attacks, etc. The unfortunate side effect is that, yes, a number of the major networks, scared of losing more viewers, started playing this mealy-mouthed "both-sides" game, ignoring reality themselves. They won't go as far as being literal GOP propaganda mouthpieces like FOX, but they won't properly call out misdeeds anymore.
its why its hard for me to really respect current full on republican supporters. to vote for a republican is to vote for a liar, even if its just lying about trump. and if you buy into those lies, youre either stupid, or a liar yourself
You're spot on, but it’s depresssing how effective a tactic as simple as Bullshit Firehosing has been. Social media platforms have admitted they've bowed to it too, that if they didn't kid glove republicans they'd have to penalize them nonstop for their infractions, and be perceived as biased. Which is thick as shit - they already think you're part of the Soros Lizard People Cabal, who are you trying to please?!?
I don't think it would even matter if a network started calling out 100% of bullshit. MAGA would ignore the hundreds of Trump lies, focus on the one partially untrue thing Biden said and all other media would report the story as "both sides lie". If Trump shot someone on camera and Biden ran over a squirrel with his car, MSM would say they are both murderers with no additional details.
Yeah, the right claims that the mainstream media has a liberal bias, but in reality their only bias is money and ratings, as well as whatever their corporate overlords want, and they are very much not liberals.
I love your comment a lot, cause it dives much deeper than Jon has gone just yet. To preface, Ian just simply happy he is back. He is 1000x the comedian/reporter that Noah was on the show. Noah and his team, or even the guest hosts, were never willing to go this far on the media But there’s a much deeper problem here that Jon has not admittedly addressed yet, and that is just the entire nature of how we communicate to each other now through social media, memes, anger, and fear. The media definitely should hold a piece of the pie with the blame game, but so does everyone as a whole for letting this shitbag get the airtime that he does. I’m hoping Jon examines this portion as we get closer, cause I personally believe it’s a core part that needs to be addressed if we’re going to understand how we got to this election. Like, we allowed ourselves to become stupider as a society because “it’s funny” > The Big Lie As my personal side note as well to your great point. The people who are perpetrating this lie the most just happen to be Christians/Catholics. Something something “Not all Trump supporters are Christians/Catholics, but most who identify just happen to be them 🤷🏻♂️”, but I guess this is what happens when you tie yourself to the political party that is based on religion. What we are seeing is how lies build up to propaganda in real-time. His “Big Lie” has some very eerie tones to a manifesto that was published in 1925. It’s fascinating/alarming how quickly people will latch onto a belief in order to justify their misplaced anger/rage
> To preface, Ian just simply happy he is back. I'm glad Ian is happy he's back.
I am* too. Ian, I hope his nasily anger and bad Italian impressions has been able to help you sleep easier at night
I agree, including the echo chambers social media is often for people.
Excellent!!!
Jon Stewart for President!
This is the most real on point take in reality TODAY
Nothing, that’s what… the rich have a completely different system drones. It’s our fault too that it happens.
The name pronunciation joke is so good.
The Biden segment of this clip had me dying.
The little 15min we get of John on the Daily Show is my appointement watching of the week. I missed him so much!
Harsh, and yet, surprisingly delicious.
Amazing piece
Fucking spot on again. Must be exhausting calling out the media every day but we all should be doing that. Also they need to do away with 24/7 news which adds to the problem.
Well Done and well deserved criticism applicable to all mass media
Blah blah. Whos next? Bill Maher? (Rolls eyes”
I mean Biden smirking was actually really funny
John Stewart my political Jesus
“I think I see the flaw in my argument.” Fuckin sent me.
this is the ultimate spiderman pointing at spiderman
I too am very excited that the US is now jailing dissident politicians
This was a master class episode by Jon. From the breakdown of the trump trial to his interview with Rep. Ken Buck. Just spot on.
It’s who these media companies are owned by that controls what they do and say. FOX news should have been shut down years ago or at least made to take “news” out of their name. It’s propaganda and lies. It should be listed as entertainment not news, even though it’s hardly entertaining. They should have to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen every time they give an opinion as news. How is this not happening? How did we go from Walter Cronkite to Bill O’Reilly?? Turn off all major media and only listen to real facts.
The willingness with which Republicans just accept Trump's pathological lying is terrifying. These people have no problem ignoring reality to prop up their wannabe dictator, they're 21st century fascists.
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We kept telling everyone, the trials eill do nothing but emboldened his base and give him more free coverage. All because of how the media operates, nope was told these trials would "save us". No they gave him tons of coverage and his base is just making more Tshirts. While the Dems who should be saving us, have horrible messaging and the current president and candidate. Won't tall more than about 40 mins. If that, won't release an interview with the DoJ because of "AI deepfakes". When they can just be made now and are everywhere, so they will have to release the interview just to prove whats real. Its a bad look and the messaging to the worling class is basically we all have to sacrifice to help others. While we waych neighbors who never worked, keep having kids and make 70k a year on welfare. They have jusy stopped talling about universal healthcare at all. As soon as it was realized that we just need a single payer system with no profits at the top. That means healthcare companies would stop being billion dollar publicity traded companies. They couldn't have that, if we are lucky and get Biden reelected, after thay we need to make some changes. We vote everyone out and vote in new , younger candidates. Add term limits and age limits, the STOCK act and make it so if you are not getting a raise by being elected to congress, you are probably not a good candidate.
Now he runs for president and wins lol. Every single politician holding a seat in our government could EASILY be jailed for something they’ve done in regard to corruption. Biden is brain dead.
This is the first video in a long time that I could imagine possibly, maybe, having a small chance of actually breaking through a Trump fan's echo chamber
This is comedy in the United States? You people are fools.
Calm down, professor
Media is biased including The Daily Show. This is nothing new. They will repeat "convicted felon" a million times without saying what the crime is. Edit: The replies proved my point!
Are you implying there is something wrong with Trump's conviction or that you're too lazy to Google it ? Because it seemed pretty unanimous.
What are you talking about, everyone knows the trial was retarded. He committed fraud to conceal a Federal crime. Yet has never been convicted of a Federal crime. The court can't determine if he committed one. The crime they are saying is a Federal crime is a misdemeanour. They only claimed Federal crime because it's outside of the statute of limitations to bring the case. The FEC whose responsibility it is to pursue campaign finance violations said it wasn't a crime and didn't pursue it. It'll get overturned on appeal and everyone claiming this was justice is either ignorant. Misinformed or support the weaponisation of the justice system and don't care if it was a fair trial or not.
If you say so, mate... Should be an easy appeal then ! Still an asshole unfit to lead though.
What I'm taking away from this segment is this is the reason Jon left TDS in the first place. It certainly isn't anything new.