DAILY DOSE
Every time I despair over the state of our national media, especially when it comes to broadly and deeply covering the real issues important to our long-term well-being, I take some solace in the work of "The Daily Show", hosted by Jon Stewart. In my mind, this "fake" evening news show is one of the best things on television for almost a decade.
So I was glad to see this feature piece by the New York Times on Jon Stewart and his show, providing some great background on how this show became the success it is, especially for those of us who tend to run in the middle of the right and the left. The piece gives some perspective on how the sausage is made daily, and the types of talented people that help make it:
"Offices for “The Daily Show” occupy a sprawling loftlike space that combines the energy of a newsroom with the laid-back vibe of an Internet start-up: many staff members wear jeans and flip-flops, and two amiable dogs wander the hallways."
What I like particularly about The Daily Show, is that it tries very hard not to be partisan on it's lampooning of national and international issues, as the NY Times piece highlights:
"“The Daily Show” is animated not by partisanship but by a deep mistrust of all ideology. A sane voice in a noisy red-blue echo chamber, Mr. Stewart displays an impatience with the platitudes of both the right and the left and a disdain for commentators who, as he made clear in a famous 2004 appearance on CNN’s “Crossfire,” parrot party-line talking points and engage in knee-jerk shouting matches."
If you haven't seen the "Crossfire" exchange, it's worth seeing. This 14 minute YouTube clip gives a taste:
It's a message really for our broader media outlets and the executives who run them, and they've not really taken heed in the years since the piece was aired. But the message is worth remembering on a regular basis.
I liked this take on the NY Times piece by Greg Mitchell at the Huffington Post:
"The Daily Show is now "a genuine political and cultural force."
That's partly because other cable news shows have been "larding" their coverage with missing teens, celebs, "bloviation" and fake news while the proudly fake news Daily Show sticks to "super-depressing" important issues."
It'd be nice if the real news media really started to give a damn.
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