At a point in history where journalists do not hesitate to toss aside any shred of impartiality and advocate for politicians and partisan political issues, some people are starting to mutter that Jon Stewart, of all people, was somehow out of line with his obvious influence in helping the 9/11 First Responders bill pass–something even the White House acknowledges.
For those who missed it, in last Thursday’s “Daily Show” Stewart excoriated the press for their silence on the inability of Congress to pass the bill that would provide financial relief for First Responders to 9/11. Then, doing the job that they were unable/unwilling to do, he interviewed four suffering First Responders which is, y’know, what REAL reporters are supposed to do. But they weren’t, so he did.
This national bìŧçh slapping of the media woke them up and suddenly had shamed senators scrambling for political cover. Lo and behold, the bill was revived from the dead and has now passed.
Some are claiming that, because of this, Stewart has crossed a line from comedian to political advocate.
They’re wrong on two counts.
First: He was covering a news story. Sometimes lack of coverage is a story in and of itself.
Second: Jon Stewart is not a political advocate. He’s a New York advocate. He was letting New Yorker’s Finest and New York’s Bravest know that he had their backs.
Ðámņëd straight.
PAD
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He’s not even a journalist, and can therefore advocate for whoever or whatever he wants at any given time. Much like Stephen Colbert plays the character of a conservative pundit, Stewart’s function as a news anchor is completely a fabrication in the form of a role on a comedy television show, which airs on a comedy television network.
And both somehow manage to do more to present news and facts to American viewers in 22.5 minutes than do 72+ network/hours from the “mainstream” media.
Not that *you* don’t already know all this, mind you. 🙂
Wildcat
Fûçkìņg A.
I think the main thing that keeps him from being a political activist is that this isn’t the new norm. This episode was very different from the usual, more focused on the story and less on the jokes they made about the story. I got the feeling that he walked into the writers room that day and said, “we’re not going to tell as many jokes tonight, guys. I’m too angry.”
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From time to time he’ll do something like this, but for the most part he’ll maintain his usual position: The court Jester who gets to say things nobody else can say because it’s hidden in a joke.
Stewart is the best journalist on TV right now, and he’s a comedian! What a sorry state our news reporters have sunk to when the comedian is better at their job than they are!
I’ve been saying that about Jon Stewart since 2001.
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“Some are claiming that, because of this, Stewart has crossed a line from comedian to political advocate.”
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Seriously? Was there some rule that I was previously unaware of that stated that a comedian couldn’t be an advocate for something they believed in? Pretty much every comedian I’ve ever seen who is also a political or social critic essentially advocates for their beliefs by ridiculing the “other side” in whatever subject they’re targeting. And maybe my memory has just gone loopy, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen in my lifetime more than just a couple of comedians use their fame to draw serious attention to a cause they supported and advocated for.
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It’s almost comical how much flak Jon Stewart catches from some quarters for advocating for a position and/or somehow betraying journalistic standards. Even here he’s catching grief over something that is (I’m 99.9% sure) grief stemming from the fact that so many people too stupid to get that he’s not a real journalist and that he’s not hosting a real news program. And a lot of those stupid people seem to be professionals in the news media.
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More and more the news I see about how people are reacting to Jon Stewart and his show make me weep for just how far the American news media has fallen that a show that is meant as social satire with the occasional serious point can be confused for an actual news program or that people seem to want to hold that show and its host to the standards of journalism that they don’t seem to want to hold the people claiming to be actual journalist to.
Actually, part of this comes from Stewart himself. He has said before that he’s not a political activist.
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Yeah, and this wasn’t political activism.
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Stewart made a point of addressing a cause he felt strongly about. It wasn’t about the politics around it. And it certainly wasn’t Stewart’s fault that the Republicans made it look like a purely political issue by being so stupid that they thought that they party line vote to kill such a bill’s passage (or for that matter not even allow the bill to come up for a vote) and come away looking good for it.
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He’s advocated for/spoken about 9/11 issues in the past. He’s taken people on both sides of the political divide to task for falling down on the job when it comes to this issue. So how is this political activism for him and not simply Stewart fighting for a specific cause that he believes in supporting?
“So how is this political activism for him and not simply Stewart fighting for a specific cause that he believes in supporting?”
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Because that’s the definition of political activism. Especially when the cause in question is a bill before Congress.
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There’s nothing wrong with political activism. He had a cause he believed in, it dealt with something political that is happening, he did something about it. I wouldn’t say that he’s a political activist in general because this level of commentary is outside the norm for him, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong that he was politically active this time.
So do Rushbo and FOX Izvestia.
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Well, I’m not sure that Stewart may see this as political activism and I’m certainly not sure that I would immediately peg it in that hole. it was activism to be sure, but anything political about it was created by outside POVs and not from him.
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He wasn’t advocating for one political party over the other. He wasn’t pushing for one political ideology over another. He wasn’t championing a political figure, cause or movement over another. He simply shined a spotlight on something wrong that he felt strongly about and that he felt should be rectified; parties, politics and votes for one side over the other be dámņëd.
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“So do Rushbo and FOX Izvestia.”
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Yes and no. There is practically no position or cause that Rush and 99.9% of the Fox News crowd won’t turn on a dime on when it’s politically expedient to do so to promote “their side” over “the other side.” The vast majority of the causes that they advocate for are based on getting their side elected/votes/power. This cause would likely have been treated by Jon Stewart the same way at this point no matter who was in power and no matter who was standing against the aid that these guys needed.
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I hold the same position (I think) on this that Jon Stewart does. I never thought of this as a political matter. It was simply something that was the right thing to do and, quite honestly, it blew my mind when the Republicans declared the other week that they would block even the procedural matters to bring this to a vote and that they were still declaring as late as Wednesday morning that they would filibuster and block the bill. The difference between Rush and Fox News and my position on this (and I believe Stewart’s) is that I would hold the same position on it I held 24 hours ago and now even if it had been a Republican majority voting for it with a Democratic crew declaring that they would put a stop to it.
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Case in point; given the ways that both Fox and the Republicans have exploited 9-11 for political benefit it was hilarious to see them this last week as they did everything they could from spinning this to imply that it was Republicans and Democrats blocking the passage of this bill right up to defending the Republicans for blocking the bill. Do you seriously think that if the political powers in DC were reversed that they would be doing anything less than branding every Democrat who voted against this Republican supported bill a traitor who hated the 9/11 rescue workers and America?
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Oh, there was one thing Fox News related in this that I did find funny though. Wasn’t it just hilarious seeing the Fox & Friends crew whine and cry for five or more minutes about Jon Stewart and the Daily Show getting any credit at all for this and then throwing their rocks through all of their glass walls by whining about how some people mistake The Daily Show’s programming for anything like real news. Seriously, three of the biggest clowns in the Fox news empire who between the three of them have less journalistic credibility than some guy on the street corner declaring that the end is near are going to try and talk smack about someone else not being a real journalist while engaging in a whining fit about who should get the most credit for raising awareness on the bill that would put a two year old child’s tantrum to shame? There was more comedy in that than some of the stuff out there that’s supposed to be funny.
Remember when people were screaming how dare Trudeau actually talk about politics in Doonesbury? (And some of the bitterest invective came from Oliphant, who apparently saw Trudeau as trying to work his side of the street…)
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Some still do, of course.
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Of course, the same ones who still complain about Trudeau’s “left wing commie-lib-socialist agenda” think Mallard Fillmore is hilariously funny and a voice of one who cries in the wilderness against the MSM’s librul bias…
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OTOH, there The Boondocks which is sort of the funhouse- mirror equivalent to MF from the other end…
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But they’re all more-or-less acceptable nowadays.
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Stewart is already on his way to that sort of status. I forget what percentage of USAians i read consider him their primary news source … but it’s a decent-size number.
Was there some rule that I was previously unaware of that stated that a comedian couldn’t be an advocate for something they believed in?
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Yes, and the ‘rule’ has been there for quite awhile. After all, as we’ve been told time and again, Hollywood actors (of which Stewart was, at one point) aren’t supposed to use their pulpit to speak out for anything… unless they’re standing up for a GOP-supported cause (see: hypocrisy; Ronald Reagan).
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And, in the end, support of health care isn’t a GOP cause, ergo, Stewart should shut his mouth and go away. Right?
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Wrong.
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The problem here is that the media no longer has the sack to do their job. They rip on Stewart, they rip on Assange and Wikileaks, on the bloggers and TMZ’s of the world (while most of it is junk, both of the latter can occasionally find a gem that the media ignores).
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The media only cares about how much people are paying attention to them, how much revenue can be generated. And if you’re not generating it for them, you’re just another outlet to be stepped on and brought down. It’s pathetic.
Craig,
I’m sorry, but I have to reply…
Which universe have you been in? You know, the one where liberal comedians have been unwilling and unable to speak out against ‘the war’ or ‘the poor’ or ‘the illegals’ or any other liberal cause? It has ALWAYS been the tradition in this country, from Will Rogers to Bob Hope, to Whoopi, Bill, and Robin, to speak out in a humorous fashion on causes that concern them! It has never been a liberal or conservative exclusive.
And that is how it should be! God Bless America!!! 😉
Charlie
I don’t think Craig was saying that liberal entertainers don’t speak up (because, ghu knows, they do), but that the right-wing party line is that “mere entertainers” are irrelevant and should shut up and let the Real Authorities (read; those who agree with us) talk.
Yes, that was my point, Mike.
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A short list example of Right Wing standards for entertainers speaking their mind.
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Dixie Chicks: Don’t like Bush – “Shut up and sing because nobody wants to hear what an entertainer thinks about politics.”
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Ted Nugent: Doesn’t like Obama, makes remarks about putting a gun in mouths of Hillary and Obama – Great American with a funny sense of humor. Come on our shows and tell everybody why the Republicans are great and Democrats hate God, country, freedom and prosperity.”
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Sean Penn: Champions Liberal causes – “Despicable, untalented hack. Needs to go away and have his films boycotted.”
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Jon Voight: Champions Conservative causes – “A great American. Very intelligent man and you should go see his next project.”
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Tom Clancy: Supports attacking Iraq – “An intelligent guy who has done his homework and knows what he’s talking about. Great writer and you should buy his new book.”
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Tom Clancy: Speaks out against the mistake that is the Iraq War and the bungling of the Administration – “We don’t know what’s wrong with that man. He’s crazy, he’s just gone crazy!”
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The really funny bit is that, while those are not exact quotes attributed to a single specific person, the quotes for Tom Clancy are dámņëd near exact quotes from the same person. It was funny seeing Hannity promoting Clancy as an expert on the subject of Iraq and the need to go to war pre-war and in the beginning of the war and then, once Clancy became a critic of the piss poor way the war was being executed and the stupidity being displayed by the Bush Administration, turned on a dime and declared that Clancy was just some guy who was going crazy and didn’t know what he was talking about.
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POV from the majority of the freedom loving, free speech advocating Right Wing Conservative Media talkers: Entertainers have no business expressing an opinion on anything and they’re know nothing idiots who should be shunned and boycotted if they do so (unless they’re expressing pro-Right Wing Conservative Media talking points which makes them great Americans of courage and intelligence and you should pay your hard earned cash to support whatever they’re doing that week.)
For the most part, I agree with your sentiment. I only have one nitpick – I wouldn’t put Jon Stweart and the Wikileaks debacle in the same sentence. They arn’t playing the same game.
One does political satire and comedy. The other divulges stolen classified material. One is honest, the other is a thief.
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“One does political satire and comedy. The other divulges stolen classified material. One is honest, the other is a thief.”
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One does political satire and comedy. The other can help whistleblowers get the truth out. One is entertaining, the other is a useful tool in today’s world.
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There, fixed that.
No… Still a thief.
Let’s agree to disagree.
Jon Stewart’s no political activist. He’s the most honest “journalist” around.
And after helping the 9-11 responders… a bloody HERO.
Another thing to bear in mind is that this almost literally hits home for Stewart – he lives in the area.
Well, yeah, that’s what I said. He’s not a political activist; he’s a New York activist.
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PAD
So how is this political activism for him and not simply Stewart fighting for a specific cause that he believes in supporting?
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Because of the traitors who voted against the funding in the first place. They made it into politics in the first place.
“Traitors” is a bit strong; it’s falling into the invective of the Tea Partiers and others of that ilk.
How about: idiots, morons, imbeciles or áššhølëš? Take your pick and bit any descriptive modifier of your choice in front of it.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
Taking away needed support of the men and women who responded to this attack is beyond moronic. It destroys our ability to defend ourselves. The NYPD and NYFD paid a price in defending the US that those politicians refuse to pay.
Doug: Yep.
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roger: Absolutely agree. However, the word “traitor” gets thrown around rather too loosely these days, as does “treason” – in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I don’ think it means what you think it means.”
He isn’t a journalist, but he takes journalism very seriously – more so than most journalists do today. (Journalists take themselves and their institutions seriously, but have long discarded the principled journalism they were taught in school).
Because he embarrasses them, journalists and pundits have been trying to label him as a journalist or a pundit for a long time now (long before the rally) so they can paint him as a hypocrite the next time he makes them look foolish.
Of course, Jon wants the freedom of being a comedian and so resists any other label. Which means the rest of the fourth estate will be after him like hungry hyenas every time he pops up.
And of course the same kind of thing is happening about Wikileaks. “Are they journalists, or anarchists?” As if the two were mutually exclusive.
I think what struck people wasn’t Stewart getting political but *completely* abandoning humor and replacing it with outrage. And guess what? That outrage was justified. He’s a New Yorker, so 9/11 is a bit more personal for him. He’s often noted how conservatives have used 9/11 for their own political agendas, yet completely abandoned “their” heroes when it came to paying their health care for the illnesses they got doing their jobs and risking their lives during 9/11 and the aftermath. (The montage of Fox News getting 9/11 responders opposed to the Ground Zero mosque, but nothing about Republicans blocking their health care, was saddening.) Heck, he told Huckabee how outraged he was that Democrats weren’t calling Republicans out on this, that they weren’t trying to shame the Republicans to get this passed.
The sad thing is that most of the coverage followed Stewart’s two days of outrage. I’d hope the comedy would follow in the wake of the news, and not the other way around.
I thought Jon Stewart was being a social activist and not political.
Political activism is supporting a particular candidate or party.
I`ve always felt raising awareness for a specific cause (as is the case here) was social activism. Stewart was shaming all the senators to finally take action on an issue he feels strongly about.
Some will try to argue that since it was (if not in fact at least perception) the Republicans that were holding this up it bacame political. But having watched the Daily Show all these years I believe that he would have taken the Democrats to task just as fervently.
Just my 2 cents north of the border.
Anyone remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_%28TV_series%29#Jon_Stewart.27s_appearance ?
I get the idea that Jon Stewart’s acting as a journalist without calling himself a journalist can be explained by him having high standards about what a journalist should be.
But then, what do I know? I like the Christian Science Monitor.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
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Yeah, I always thought that his appearance on Crossfire was the final nail in the coffin for that show. I still watched Crossfire semi-regularly by then and even I was shaking my head and snickering as Tucker Carlson kept defending (4:15 in the video) their show by trying to take the comedian and the comedian’s show to task for not living up to their responsibility to the news and comparing Jon’s show to theirs.
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When two minutes later the Crossfire audience was applauding and cheering Stewart as he ripped the show and the news media in general apart… You had to know the series was dead in the water.
I never realized it before, but I think you hit the nail on the head.
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I think that Stewart doesn’t let himself get labled as a journalist because he holds himself to a higher standard of impartiality (as said elsewhere in this thread, he’ll rip into Democrats as harshly as Republicans when they do something ridicule-worthy) than he believes the journalistic community adheres to.
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Theno
Jon Stewart is a social satirist, not a journalist or a pundit, and part of being a social satirist has always been pointing that satire at political targets. It’s been done since Will Rogers and before. Now what he did last Thursday was take his “stage” and use it to address a serious issue, something that’s also been done in the past by many celebrities. The only problem anyone is having is with the issue. The Right never criticized Charlton Heston for his active pro-gun stances and if what Stewart did was “Political Activism”, then so was what Heston did.
What it boils down to is that the phrase “Political Activism”, like the phrase “Judicial Activism”, is a code word for “How dare he not agree with me”.
Stewart’s critics have no idea of what humor is. There is no division of the whole: He is a social commentator, like many others and better than a lot of them. Sometimes he wants you to laugh, and sometimes he wants you to think, but humor is the medium rather than the content.
I am impatient with those who suggest comedians must avoid certain aspects of society. This is the same thinking which ghettoizes genre and format, and it is completely mistaken. We’ve all heard that detective fiction, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, comic books, paperback originals, comic strips, movies, television, videogames or some other things just aren’t really art, or serious, or worthy of protection, or worth discussing, or – something. There are bad comics, westerns, mysteries, space and soap operas: There are also bad literary fiction, poetry, fine art and theater. All of this is genre or format – not content. What is good is good without consideration of the shape of the package in which it was delivered.
PAD, who exactly are these people who are grumbling about Jon Stewart’s actions?
Well, they probably overlap significantly with the sort of people who invited Colbert as a speaker at a conservative love fest without understanding that his persona on his show was all an act…
I got that idea, but I would like to take a look at who said what. We’re all talking about “How dare they say that!” and I’m not even sure exactly what was said.
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Unsurprisingly, some of the potshots and comments I’ve heard have come from Fox News personalities.
I saw the articles on the google news feed. I don’t recall who said what.
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PAD
Maybe if the media had actually reported the issue, Stewart wouldn’t have felt the need to devote his entire show to it? Maybe if CBS, FOX, NBC, etc. had actually talked about the issue, Stewart would have played a sound byte, told a joke, and moved on.
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Maybe if news networks actually reported news such as this, Comedy Central wouldn’t scoop them on the story and instead just make fun of them for their presentation, like The Daily Show usually does.
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Theno
Actually, Fox did cover it, though certainly not on par with the Mosque story.
The networks didn’t.
CNN & MSNBC both spent some time on it, which Jon later (slightly grudgingly) admitted to Huckabee.
In “fairness” to Fox News, their coverage managed to omit the fact that it was Republicans who were preventing passage of the bill. Makes me glad they at least (at most?) dropped their “Fair and balanced” tagline.
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“… their coverage managed to omit the fact that it was Republicans who were preventing passage of the bill.”
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Omit that fact? They had hosts discussing how it was some of the Republicans and the Democrats fighting to prevent the bill’s passage.
When someone sees an injustice, doing nothing is wrong. Stewart did exactly what he should have done. He may be a “comedian” but he can sleep easier at night than most so called journalists.
As if the so-called “journalists” over at FOX News aren’t political advocates.
Personally I like getting my political news from the Daily Show. Jon Stewart has much more integrity than most political news correspondents these days anyhow – comedian or not.
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And speaking of…
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It’s all good, but I like the comment at the 2:24 mark.
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http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-december-20-2010/a-look-back—april-2010?xrs=synd_facebook
Like I’ve said before, I get my news from the usual suspects (NYT, CNN, etc.), but I get my news analysis from Stewart and Colbert.
To say that the Republican Senators’ resistance to the passing of this bill was literally jaw-dropping for me initially is a gross understatement. Further reflection later allowed me to remember how some of them have absolutely no boundaries in advancing their political agendas, but, as it has been stated repeatedly already, the real shame goes to the media for long ago allowing themselves to devolve into sensationalistic ratings monsters rather than being chroniclers of the truth.
I have no qualms at all believing “comedy” from the Daily Show over what comes out of the network and cable “news” shows, knowing that Stewart relays the stark reality of any issue through both humor and irony, and isn’t afraid of incurring the wrath of any politician or pundit who’ll try to discredit him. If this leads to more “reporting” in his manner, the better off we’ll all be.
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“If this leads to more “reporting” in his manner, the better off we’ll all be.”
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no, we won’t be and I think from things he’s said that Jon Stewart would be the first person to tell you that. A huge part of the problem we have with out news media now is that entertainment and ratings became the goal of the news bosses and not actually reporting the dámņëd news properly. We’ve got jáçkáššëš on the “news” programs trying to use humor and irony, trying to use outrage (faked or otherwise) and putting on performances rather than reporting the news.
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The Daily show is funny. The Daily Show is entertaining. The Daily Show has lots of bits that can be repeated at work for big laughs the next day.
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And The Daily Show or any other programs that you can say that about ARE… NOT… NEWS… PROGRAMS.
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And the simple fact that most people feel like their news has to entertain them for 30 minutes to an hour is as equally sad a commentary on the people watching the news as it is on the news media for devolving so badly that many people can’t tell that The Daily Show, the Colbert Report and most of what’s on cable news channels these days are not real news programs.
You’re absolutely right that Stewart and Colbert aren’t actual journalists, but they do tackle significant political and social issues often watered-down or completely ignored by the actual media, comedy notwithstanding, because they do want those issues to stick in the public consciousness.
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You can’t imagine Leno, Letterman or O’Brien being invited to spesk before Congress the way Colbert was, or any of them holding rallies in Washington as Colbert and Stewart just did. I’m not saying that real news shows should strive to emulate the format of the Daily show, but in the absense of them doing their actual jobs, I’ll happily keep watching Stewart and look to him to keep the important issues from getting overlooked light of the media’s other endeavors.
He was letting New Yorker’s Finest and New York’s Bravest that he had their backs.
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I think a verb is missing.
Well done. I posted a link to this on my blog.
perhaps if the “real media” had done some real reporting in the past two years the republicans could have been shamed into doing something instead of being the party of obstruction
As I’ve said to a friend whose daughter does stand-up “If I needed to know the news and didn’t have access to a newspaper, I’d look for a comedian.” As has been stated, Will Rogers (and Mark Twain before him) wouldn’t have been nearly as funny as they were if they didn’t inject a dose of truth in their jokes. I don’t know who originated the phrase “Many a truth is told in jest,” but some of the smartest people I’ve seen on TV and film have been the folks who make us laugh ON PURPOSE!
Sorry. I meant to say “…As has been stated, comedians like Will Rogers (and Mark Twain before him)…