The Daily Show - March 12, 2009 - The Extended Jim Cramer Interview pt. 2

I doubt that when Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show years ago that he imagined down the road he would be attempting to keep the mainstream media in check, not only by making fun of their ridiculous coverage but also by going on shows and calling in some of the players that do such a disservice to reporting and, more importantly, the American public.

People don’t expect Jon Stewart’s show to be intelligent, to be anything more than, in his words, “fart noises and funny faces.” Sure, he makes fun of the news every night but underneath of that is a heavy commentary on the sadness of the state of our media. The mainstream media jumps from one issue to another, leaving past issues completely behind in order to capture ratings, entertain and stay current even as “past issues” are still very much happening.

Weeks ago as Iranian elections and the subsequent fallout began to play itself out, the news was so scarce that CNN was doing hours upon hours of news based solely on tweets. They were reading Twitter on the air, calling experts and asking them about the things that people were Tweeting about. Now, as the only real source of information at that time, CNN was doing just about all that they could to report on Iran. The ability to verify and confirm a lot of what they were reporting wasn’t there but then again a lot of what they were reporting was justified by the clips that they showed of the woman being killed who was protesting, riots in the streets, etc.

Then Michael Jackson died. And the media (I think it’s fair to say) completely forgot about anything happening in Iran. The 24-hour news networks turned into circus shows catering to everything Michael Jackson. I’ve always held that if you have 24 hours to cover with news from around the world, maybe you can squeeze in a thing or two above that little bar at the bottom about important things that are going on throughout this ever-changing planet.

And unfortunately, Stewart’s fighting an uphill battle. There’s really no one else in the mainstream media that’s even loosely attempting to keep journalism and reporting in check, at least no one that’s on the air.

In an online poll conducted by Time Magazine, Jon Stewart was voted as the most trusted newscaster in America with 44 percent of the votes. Brian Williams came in second with 29 percent. Now, this poll probably doesn’t capture an extremely accurate sample of the American population but then again it does say at the bottom, “Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who participate.” Still, 44 percent of those who participated said that they would rather get their news from a stand-up comedian on Comedy Central than from the major network news anchors. Isn’t that a problem?

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    soupsoup:shutupinternet Oh dear. This is a very disagreeable statement, so let’s explain how Jon Stewart is the “most...
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