The Daily Show is pretty honest about what it is, yet thousands of college aged adults are constantly proclaiming what an awesome news source it is. Except it’s not. and Jon Stewart doesn’t even claim it is. It is not news delivered in a funny way. Its fake news. Jokes based on news content. it never claims to be anything else.
Recently a clip from the show went viral allegedly exposing that Fox News has become exactly the type of “whiny liberal” that it used to be against since the network is now praising protesters against the Obama’s health care plan as average Americans rising up to be heard but treated protesters against Bush as whining crazy liberal lunatics.
The truth is that that meme is a big fat lie. I watch Fox News and there was never a running theme of “protesters who protest Bush are crazy, whining liberals” that has switched now to “protesters who protest Obama are patriotic courageous Americans” except for one show and one personality: Sean fkking Hannity. As I’ve pointed out recently on RichWatch, Sean Hannity used to blindly mock Bush’s opponents regardless of context and is now blindly endorsing Obama opponents for purely partisan reasons. It’s mock-worthy and an example of hacktivism, but its one guy at the news channel. Claiming FNC as a whole was anything like that is just a smear to fit a “please, for the love of Christ don’t watch Fox News” narrative.
So is Jon Stewart a liar? He says he’s not, and there’s no reason to doubt him. He’s not a liar, he’s a frigging comedian. It’s only a lie if you present false information in a humorous way with the goal of making a political point. That’s why columnists like Maureen Dowd or Ann Coulter can’t rely on the fact that they use humor in their published works as a shield against criticism: because if you’re trying to make an actual point, you can’t just make shit up. You have to be present the facts and THEN make the jokes. But Stewart doesn’t claim this position. Stewart is not a funny news commentator – he is a fkking comedian who uses content from the news to make jokes. Colbert, I think is a different story because I have never heard him go on record saying that he makes things up and his presentation suggests that his show is in fact meant to be humorous political commentary through satire, sarcasm and farce. But The Daily Show, to its credit, has never denied making shit up for the sake of comedy.
So now TDS mocks Fox for a thing most people who hate Fox suspect the channel probably did and that’s enough to make it true. Never mind the stuff about you blindly accepting a comedian as a credible source of news and turn a blind eye to all those times Jon Stewart publicly admits that his show takes things out of contexts to make them funny — what matters is that someone (anyone) bashed Fox News, and since they’re evil over there, then its true.
Bill O’Reilly, featured in the Daily Show montage of alleged Fox flip flops pointed this out tonight, showing in good humor and respectful tone, that those of you who blindly took TDS’s montage as hilarious ownage were in fact victims of an epic FAIL.
This will no doubt be met with the usual hate and smearing that any good natured response to a freaked out ideologue is met with: O’Reilly will be said to be “whining”, he’ll somehow be an asshole for even mentioning this and the entire response will be disregarded anywhere because O’Reilly didn’t refute every syllable Stewart uttered – therefore they continue trusting the news-comedian over the news-commentator. Why in fact, how can you tell which is which? yuk yuk lolz harr harr omgz.
As O’Reilly said – “some young people actually believe he presents an accurate view of the country on his program… and that is frightening” – especially due to the fact that Stewart himself admits it.
You’re right, of course. During the Bush years, Stewart acquired a liberal audience because he was making fun of Bush. Now that Bush is out of office and the public eye, he must find other targets that liberals hate to keep his audience. In other words, he’s telling them what they want to hear-to get laughs, not to mislead them. But many fans are mislead by him nonetheless, because they expect more of him than he can or should deliver.