Posted by Damozel | Or, as CNN put it, "lectures reporters on coverage." Touchy, touchy!
He's only saying it 'cause it's true:
Jon Stewart ripped the cable news networks Monday as a "brutish, slow-witted beast" and castigated Fox News in particular as "an appendage of the Republican Party."...
And he did it at breakfast!
I love Fox's response.
"Jon's clearly out of touch," citing a Pew Research Center study showing the network has the most balanced audience in cable news, 39 percent Republicans and 33 percent Democrats."(WaPo)
It's true. We do watch Fox---so we can point and laugh. As more people find out about Newshounds, the number of Dems watching Fox will doubtless drop sharply. Though there again, there's really nothing like Fox if you understand the joy of outrage.
Stewart also said:
I'm stunned to see Karl Rove on a news network as an analyst," he said of the Bush White House aide turned Fox commentator. Stewart...said he didn't see CNN's James Carville, the former Bill Clinton aide, in the same category because "I don't think he's being passed off as a sage." (WaPo)
No. No, no one ever could really pass off Carville---as much fun as he is to watch and listen to--- as a sage/elder statesman.
But---as the title of CNN's piece shows---he didn't stop with Fox.
Stewart included CNN and MSNBC in a far-ranging indictment of what he called "that false sense of urgency they create, the sense that everything is breaking news. . . . The 24-hour networks are now driving the narratives and everyone else is playing catch-up."..(WaPo)
He said the never-ending television news cycle... forces reporters to "follow the veins that have been mined," instead of pursuing serious and in-depth reporting. (CNN)
This is something that I've been complaining about the constant recycling of urgent stories since the pope got shot. (TIME 5-25-1981) I think that was the first time I really noticed it. SNL even did a sketch about it: Buckwheat buys the farm. They kept playing the footage over and over during the episode. The catchphrase? "Let's see that again!"
David Brooks and others were hurt when he criticized journalists who attend (off-the-record) McCain barbecues. (WaPo) They said that it was useful to get to know the candidates "privately." (WaPo) But Stewart says, 'The more you get sucked into it, the more you become part of that machinery." (WaPo)
When someone said in effect, "Pot? Meet Kettle," Stewart dismissed this as crazy. (WaPo)
I mean...hello? As he has for some reason been repeatedly compelled to point out to critics, Jon Stewart is a comedian. He never presents himself as an unbiased source of factual information.
And he's right about this as well: "It's stunning where this election is going to be decided on....Or what we allow it to be decided on." (CNN)
RELATED POSTINGS
New York Times: Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?
Comments