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Still Fluxing posted:I think, in the end, Palin proved to be more of a liability than an asset for McCain. And I might be wrong, but before the election, didn't he have a reputation as a straight-shootin' maverick? On paper he was a pretty good Republican candidate. A while back he was respectable. An actual friend of the Daily Show. But then he campaigned for Bush in 2004, transparently in exchange for support from that camp for his turn in 2008. It was hard for anyone to have any respect for him at that point. Given what Bush/Rove had done to him in the 2000 primaries. And then Palin happened and now he's just in crazy old man/Catskills comedian mode.
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Apr 29, 2014 03:36
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Notsosubtle posted:I know they don't want the responsibility that comes with being inherently political, but to say that they aren't at least a source of news explaining, if not outright reporting in some instances, seems disingenuous - in a having your cake and eating it too, sense. Refusing to even broach the issue implies that it's an either/or question in terms of comedy being on one side and 'real' news on the other. Last Week Tonight and its ilk represent a grey area, John and others need to at least come to grips with that. Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and Stephen Colbert do a lot of the same fluff, strawman, appeal-to-a-friendly-audience type stuff that they bash in CNN and Fox News. Every night Stewart is out there twisting words, moving the goalposts, editing interviews to make subjects look worse than they otherwise would. But there's real stupidity behind what he's criticizing, and it's entertainment, so it's not a problem. They don't do it as badly as Fox or in service of an evil agenda, so they retain the high ground. But the minute they claimed any serious journalistic legitimacy they'd be torn apart, and they know it. Which is why they're so vehement about denying it.
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Jul 20, 2014 20:52
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Echo Chamber posted:Jimmy Fallon allowed Chris Christie to bury his scandal by dancing with him in some lovely skit. But he gets a pass because his so-called comedy never had any passion to begin with, even though The Tonight Show's reach is much wider. This is a good example of why Colbert got Letterman's job and Stewart didn't, (not that I think he wanted it) despite the fact that The Daily Show has higher billing on CC. Colbert does character work, he's not really political compared to The Daily Show (despite the fact that politics is often the topic) and the show isn't as substantive in that area. He can easily drop his character and be entertaining to a broad audience. Stewart lives for the criticism of media and politics and puts it above celebrity interviews. I read a profile of him a while ago that talked about how his office has banks of DVRs to record all the news shows and he's glued to them with his staff for hours each day. A network job would bore Stewart.
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Jul 20, 2014 23:29
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IRQ posted:Jon Stewart has unarguably crossed the line between comedy satirist and actually political news figure. His appearance on the 2000s version of Crossfire makes that pretty clear. He told them their show sucked because it's theater, and it's just them yelling at each other. That's not really a political statement, it's media criticism. And he didn't provide a very detailed argument, he spent more time telling them they sucked than supporting why. Carlson came back at Stewart with the charge that he gives softball questions to the politicians on his own side, and Stewart had no choice but to fall back to the point that his show isn't news. He also made fun of Carlson for wearing a bow-tie and called him a dick. He didn't hesitate to stoop to the level that he was claiming wasn't journalism. (Maybe a lower level, depending on how Carlson treats his guests.) Stewart was bullying, the way he did with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Chris Matthews. It was amusing bullying and especially in the Crossfire instance I liked it, but lashing out and name-calling didn't make me take him more seriously. IRQ posted:I don't disagree with Jon Stewart at all (except that Crossfire was amusing in a trainwreck kind of way), but he can't cover himself in that satirist cloak anymore, and even if he could, he, Colbert, and Oliver ARE a source of news for a ton of people and whether it's comedy or not they can't handwave away their impact. Reminding people that they're entertainers first is them taking that responsibility seriously. If a "real" news channel can mislead with impunity, that certainly doesn't imply much about the level of responsibility we expect from a comedy show.
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Jul 21, 2014 02:12
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