The first clip aired showed a protest happening on clear-skied fall day, autumn in full swing. The second clip, rolled as if it were a continuation of the first, just from a different pan and angle, was of a large group of people, carrying signs on a grey, cloudy, summer day with trees in full green foliage. These clips were of two different protests, pointed out the trusted news anchor; the first of the anti-health care reform rally, and the second from Glenn Beck’s 9/12 rally that had taken place months earlier.
So whose careful eye caught the “mistake” (and I use that term loosely)? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t CNN, or even MSNBC. It was a source that Americans have come to trust just as much, if not more, than Brian Williams, Dan Rather, Anderson Cooper, Charlie Gibson, and their respective networks. In Jon they trust, and rightly so. It was Jon Stewart, the man whose show kept me sane during the Bush Administration, and who keeps me hopeful today.
There are two stories here. The first is that Fox distorts, manipulates, and sometimes just plain old lies in their “news” coverage. The second is that in a nation that champions a free press, it is a fake news comedy show that often displays more integrity, grit, and willingness to pursue the truth and hold public figures accountable for their words than the mainstream media.
It was Stewart, after all, who succinctly broke down the Fox strategy with helpful video clips: the opinion wing—that’s Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity—makes outrageous claims and accusations, founded neither in reality nor fact, and then the following day Fox News reports on these rumors and conspiracies as, “some say…” but never mentioning that those who “say” are Fox personalities and they said it the previous night during their Fox shows.
But beyond the humorous, if sad, moments of catching Faux News with its pants around its ankles, Stewart and his Daily Show have become indispensible not for sophomoric humor, but for what has become its fight for political and media accountability and rationality.
As is becoming more and more the case, while the mainstream media jockey for ratings with up to the minute coverage of balloon boy type incidents, Stewart remains the stalwart inquisitor who not only holds people to their words, but to hold them to reason as well. Where the rest of the news media has decided that they will report (barely), and you will decide, a fake news comedy show has the courage to state that while there may be two sides to every story sometimes one side is true and one side is not. That sometimes one side makes sense, and the other is insanity.
Some of Stewart’s best moments come from his stinging social critique and stern, but fair, questioning of guests that far outpaces the lackadaisical loquacity they are often allowed on CNN, a network more apt to fact check Saturday Night Live than a US Senator—anyone who has seen his “leave it there” montage will know exactly what I mean. But more often, his best moments come from the hypocrisy and inconsistency of his “victims” themselves. Woe to you if you are the subject of a Daily Show video montage, because like Joe Lieberman, you will rue that footage from 2006 when you supported universal health care that will be run side-by-side with current footage of you opposing it.
Though he spares no ridicule for those who provoke it, for the most part Stewart is congenial with his guests…he has to keep them coming back after all. But being congenial does not mean he throws them softballs. I said stern but fair, and that is exactly what he has been to the likes of Bill Kristol, whom he trapped into admitting that the government can in fact provide the highest quality health care (to members of the military). Kristol tried to work his way out of this corner by saying that while yes the government did a good job, it was far too expensive, and undeserved, to be lavished on ordinary Americans in the same way. Tried. It didn’t go over too well with the audience.
“Hey man, did you see The Daily Show last night?” has perhaps become the most common refrain among liberals. Personally, I think he has the best job in the world; one that I wish I had but am glad that he is doing. There’s an unspoken recognition that Jon’s got our backs. That when we want to just tear our hair out (like I do now with Obama’s decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan), all we have to do is wait until 10:00. Politicians will keep making fools of themselves, and a mess of the country, and The Daily Show will keep turning our despair into wary laughter.
As much by his own effectiveness as by news media incompetency, Stewart has made The Daily Show a significant force in American political culture. Over the summer, the Huffington Post joked that a government release of torture documents had been timed to coincide with a Daily Show hiatus, noting that Sarah Palin had resigned on the first day of a Daily Show vacation as well.
It was a joke, but in a lot of ways it makes sense. If I were a politician or the government releasing potentially embarrassing information, I would be sure to steer clear of wrath and ridicule from Stewart and his correspondents.
