SANITY NOT RESTORED b/w FEAR STILL ALIVE
Nov. 15th, 2010 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogThere’s been a lot of talk about Jon Stewart’s appearance on Maddow, and I’ve noticed much of it is focused on a couple of key issues that have been brought up before:
1. Is the Daily Show the new, new journalism?
2. Is it unfair for Stewart to equate Fox News with MSNBC?
The full interview is worth watching, if only to start an argument. What it boils down to for me is this:
Jon Stewart is not a journalist. But it’s clear that most people on the hardcore Left and Right wish he was, albeit for different reasons. The Left generally want him to be a journalist because they want someone on national television to expose the hypocrisy and evilness of the Right, and no one at CNN wants to step up to the plate. And the Right generally want to classify him as a journalist so they can hold him accountable for not being objective and thus being another Socialist Liberal with an agenda.
I think Stewart is dead-on for much of this interview (if not that articulate, but then the guy was seriously ill when they taped it): his main point is that cable TV news has devolved into an ideological playground pitting red states against blue states because it’s Good Television and they need something to fill the 24-hour news cycle. Moreover, Stewart is not in the same game as cable news – he’s in the stands yelling things and, in doing so, demonstrating that the game has become one big joke.
That’s what comedy does. That’s what it’s supposed to do. Whether people perceive TDS (and Colbert, while we’re at it) as being “in the game” as TV news is irrelevant. If people see more truthiness in those shows than “real” news programs, that’s a failure of the news people. It’s not Stewart’s or Colbert’s responsibility to pick up their slack, and it’s silly of left-wing activists to hold it against them for not doing so.
As for comparing MSNBC to Fox, I get that Maddow fans and liberals don’t like being compared to Fox News. Who would? But they’re missing the point, which is this:
Both networks are in fact guilty of employing people to present and analyze news stories encased in emotions ranging from sarcastic to angry hyperbole, with all of that sarcasm and anger aimed almost exclusively at the opposition. It’s just as much about making the other side look bad as it is about getting to the “truth” of the story. (And "truth" is relative here, because both sides are coming at this with the basic assumption that they are right and have all the facts, and reaching the often-false conclusion that the other side must therefore be making shit up.)
The question of whether Fox does it more or resorts to lies and chyron “mistakes” to do it doesn’t excuse MSNBC from heading down the same path in terms of helping to demonize the other side as unreasonable and a DANGER to America’s way of life – which in turn becomes a distraction from the bigger picture (which is why the last few elections have been based on the premise that the solution to America’s problems is to vote the other party out of power for as long as possible, preferably forever). Demagoguery is demagoguery whether you use truth or lies as yr ammo.
That’s the real issue here, and the point Stewart has been trying to make: the problem isn’t so much news channels with opinions and taking sides as the sensationalist bombast they deploy to keep the ratings going, and framing the age-old GOP vs Democrat debate as a simplistic tribal struggle of Good Vs Evil with America as the grand prize.
Granted, a lot of conservatives and liberals would see it that way even if Fox and MSNBC were completely neutral, thanks in no small part to the self-enforcing echo chambers of Big Loud OMG Interwub sites like World Net Daily, Newsmax, Daily Kos and Buzzflash. But the Big Question is whether cable TV news – allegedly the most trusted news sources in the US, if you believe this poll – should be serving as part of that echo chamber, and how that’s impacting their editorial decisions on what is newsworthy and what’s not.
Which is why I figure the fact that people would rather argue over whether Stewart and Colbert are shirking their responsibilities as journalists and making apples/oranges comparisons to Fox goes a long way in proving Stewart's point.
Well. I do go on. I’ve actually spent several days trying to get my thoughts down in a semi-coherent manner. And only now does it occur to me that I could have saved a lot of time and effort by quoting a Buffalo Springfield song:
Which pretty much sums up what Stewart has been trying to tell us in a nutshell. And it was written 43 years ago.
Res ipsa loquitur.
BONUS TRACK: Regarding the Rally To Restore Sanity – which raised the same basic issues (and subsequent criticisms) – I’d direct you to this article, which pretty much covers what I have to say about it.
Stop hey what’s that sound,
This is dF
1. Is the Daily Show the new, new journalism?
2. Is it unfair for Stewart to equate Fox News with MSNBC?
The full interview is worth watching, if only to start an argument. What it boils down to for me is this:
Jon Stewart is not a journalist. But it’s clear that most people on the hardcore Left and Right wish he was, albeit for different reasons. The Left generally want him to be a journalist because they want someone on national television to expose the hypocrisy and evilness of the Right, and no one at CNN wants to step up to the plate. And the Right generally want to classify him as a journalist so they can hold him accountable for not being objective and thus being another Socialist Liberal with an agenda.
I think Stewart is dead-on for much of this interview (if not that articulate, but then the guy was seriously ill when they taped it): his main point is that cable TV news has devolved into an ideological playground pitting red states against blue states because it’s Good Television and they need something to fill the 24-hour news cycle. Moreover, Stewart is not in the same game as cable news – he’s in the stands yelling things and, in doing so, demonstrating that the game has become one big joke.
That’s what comedy does. That’s what it’s supposed to do. Whether people perceive TDS (and Colbert, while we’re at it) as being “in the game” as TV news is irrelevant. If people see more truthiness in those shows than “real” news programs, that’s a failure of the news people. It’s not Stewart’s or Colbert’s responsibility to pick up their slack, and it’s silly of left-wing activists to hold it against them for not doing so.
As for comparing MSNBC to Fox, I get that Maddow fans and liberals don’t like being compared to Fox News. Who would? But they’re missing the point, which is this:
Both networks are in fact guilty of employing people to present and analyze news stories encased in emotions ranging from sarcastic to angry hyperbole, with all of that sarcasm and anger aimed almost exclusively at the opposition. It’s just as much about making the other side look bad as it is about getting to the “truth” of the story. (And "truth" is relative here, because both sides are coming at this with the basic assumption that they are right and have all the facts, and reaching the often-false conclusion that the other side must therefore be making shit up.)
The question of whether Fox does it more or resorts to lies and chyron “mistakes” to do it doesn’t excuse MSNBC from heading down the same path in terms of helping to demonize the other side as unreasonable and a DANGER to America’s way of life – which in turn becomes a distraction from the bigger picture (which is why the last few elections have been based on the premise that the solution to America’s problems is to vote the other party out of power for as long as possible, preferably forever). Demagoguery is demagoguery whether you use truth or lies as yr ammo.
That’s the real issue here, and the point Stewart has been trying to make: the problem isn’t so much news channels with opinions and taking sides as the sensationalist bombast they deploy to keep the ratings going, and framing the age-old GOP vs Democrat debate as a simplistic tribal struggle of Good Vs Evil with America as the grand prize.
Granted, a lot of conservatives and liberals would see it that way even if Fox and MSNBC were completely neutral, thanks in no small part to the self-enforcing echo chambers of Big Loud OMG Interwub sites like World Net Daily, Newsmax, Daily Kos and Buzzflash. But the Big Question is whether cable TV news – allegedly the most trusted news sources in the US, if you believe this poll – should be serving as part of that echo chamber, and how that’s impacting their editorial decisions on what is newsworthy and what’s not.
Which is why I figure the fact that people would rather argue over whether Stewart and Colbert are shirking their responsibilities as journalists and making apples/oranges comparisons to Fox goes a long way in proving Stewart's point.
Well. I do go on. I’ve actually spent several days trying to get my thoughts down in a semi-coherent manner. And only now does it occur to me that I could have saved a lot of time and effort by quoting a Buffalo Springfield song:
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
Which pretty much sums up what Stewart has been trying to tell us in a nutshell. And it was written 43 years ago.
Res ipsa loquitur.
BONUS TRACK: Regarding the Rally To Restore Sanity – which raised the same basic issues (and subsequent criticisms) – I’d direct you to this article, which pretty much covers what I have to say about it.
Stop hey what’s that sound,
This is dF
