I don't think it is sad. Comedy is (and has always been) the one true check on both media and politics from sarcastic bardic songs to today.

Just happens the Daily Show has a pretty good market share right now.

Myrdinn: I don't think it is sad. Comedy is (and has always been) the one true check on both media and politics from sarcastic bardic songs to today.

Just happens the Daily Show has a pretty good market share right now.


Agreed. They don't get lost in the hyperbole that plagues a lot of other media outlets.

brigid_fitch: came to post exactly said graphic...

hubiestubert: brigid_fitch: came to post exactly said graphic...

I suspect lots of people will come in to do so.

What's sad is that I'm pretty sure you can watch The Daily Show every night and get more news in that half an hour than you could get watching CNN, Fox or MSNBC all day.

Not a new situation.

DamnYankees: Not a new situation.

Definitely not.

ne2d: DamnYankees: Not a new situation.

Definitely not.

For sure.

Every time Brian Williams is on the Daily Show I laugh until my anus hurts.

Also,

On occasion, when we've been on the cusp of doing something completely inane on NBC Nightly News, I will gently suggest to my colleagues that we simply courier the tape over to Jon's office, to spare the Daily Show interns the time and trouble of logging our broadcast that night. That usually gets us to rethink the inane segment we were planning on airing.

That's awesome.

ne2d: DamnYankees: Not a new situation.

Definitely not.

Ridiculous !!

The Daily Show wouldn't be such a good news source if they didn't take it upon themselves to fill the void left by the inadequacies of the 24-hour news channels. I am amazed at how great an interviewer Jon Stewart has become.

What's really impressive is that they don't lose the funny.

The number of times Jon Stewart must say "But that's your job. You are the media. You are supposed to do that" or something similar when Fox, CNN, MSNBC placate the stupid and ignore actual journalism is quite sad.

blackminded: Every time Brian Williams is on the Daily Show I laugh until my anus hurts.

I saw Brian Williams on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me when they came to Carnegie Hall earlier this month. The guy is funny & scary-quick. AND he's a music buff. He's got a music site on msnbc.com called BriTunes^

deadapostle: I am amazed at how great an interviewer Jon Stewart has become.

Great big ol' this. I love that he seems to actually take the time to educate himself about a topic rather than rely on talking points. The difference shows, particularly during something like the Barghouti/Baltzer interview (new window). I don't see any other interviewer (or network for that matter) handling it the way Stewart did.

/regardless of your personal bias

DamnYankees: Not a new situation.




as long as things don't get too nasty...

GAT_00: What's sad is that I'm pretty sure you can watch The Daily Show every night and get more news in that half an hour than you could get watching CNN, Fox or MSNBC all day.

The current news cycle:

Big story, call in panelists to discuss it for 12 hours.
Small stories, smaller panels - 12 hours.

Daily show:
Big story, joke, rimshot.
Politician/talking head vs. very same Politician/talking head from 2 years ago, joke, rimshot.

brigid_fitch: blackminded: Every time Brian Williams is on the Daily Show I laugh until my anus hurts.

I saw Brian Williams on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me when they came to Carnegie Hall earlier this month. The guy is funny & scary-quick. AND he's a music buff. He's got a music site on msnbc.com called BriTunes^

I had no idea who this guy was.....some good-lucking talking head to do the news. Then I saw him doing a couple of interviews, and I was very impressed. And he's still good-looking, so there's that, too.

cryinoutloud: brigid_fitch: blackminded: Every time Brian Williams is on the Daily Show I laugh until my anus hurts.

I saw Brian Williams on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me when they came to Carnegie Hall earlier this month. The guy is funny & scary-quick. AND he's a music buff. He's got a music site on msnbc.com called BriTunes^

I had no idea who this guy was.....some good-lucking talking head to do the news. Then I saw him doing a couple of interviews, and I was very impressed. And he's still good-looking, so there's that, too.

Brian Williams is a funny mother farker and a nice guy too.

/wants more giant head of Brian Williams

The fact that one of the few legitimate, old-school broadcast journalists on the airwaves respects Jon Stewart so much ought to be the only justification anyone else needs to respect him as well.

Y'know, It always cracks me up when Jon Stewart tries to trip Brian Williams up with the high-speed double-talk, and trick him into taking an actual position on the issues. Williams catches it every time, and staunchly refuses, re-asserting his iron-clad neutrality. Given the current state of journalism, with hard-line opinioneering masquerading as reportage, it's awesome to see that someone still has a rock-solid commitment to eschewing bias. Brian Williams is one of the few journalists alive whose personal politics I have no idea about, and that means he's one of the few I can actually trust to give it to us straight.

blackminded: Every time Brian Williams is on the Daily Show I laugh until my anus hurts.

I thought I was the only one. I don't know what surprises me more...The fact that Williams is as funny as he is during those shows, or that Stewart continues to be one of the few people alive who isn't afraid to ask people the questions they most need to be asked. The script-flipping and line-blurring those two pull off between who is supposed to be the funny one and who is the legit journalist is nothing short of masterful.

By the way, the writeup for Steve Jobs by Fake Steve Jobs is damn funny.

First of all, thanks for singling me out as the one human being who has done more than anyone else to shape life on our planet over the past decade. I definitely deserve it. I've done many amazing things in the last 10 years, but I think the best single thing I've done is to get people to stop thinking about computers and the Internet as weird, complicated things for techies. Thanks to me, computers and the Web are omnipresent in our lives and easy to use. You no longer "go online"-you're always online. And you're no longer chained to a clunky box while using the Web. Instead, you have a skinny glass-and-metal slice of magic called the iPhone. (Unless you use a BlackBerry or a Palm Pre, in which case I will pray for your soul.) Of course, I've also dramatically changed the music industry. Music used to be sold in quaint little places called "music stores," shipped on discs, and controlled by record labels. Now it's sold by a software company (Apple), shipped as digital bits, and controlled by me. Movies are headed that way, too, and soon I'll be running that business as well. Publishing: you're next. In our brave new world, whoever controls the devices and the distribution is king. That's why millions of fanboys see me not as a mere CEO, but as a Silicon Jesus who has come to Earth to restore a sense of childlike wonder to their lives. I can't say I disagree.

blackminded: Every time Brian Williams is on the Daily Show I laugh until my anus hurts.

you really need to re-evaluate the way you laugh.

Having someone intelligent critiquing you to a respectable number of people is a good thing, not a sad thing. What's sad is that more TV journalists don't pay attention to the critiques, or don't find them important when weighed against ratings.

cryinoutloud: brigid_fitch: blackminded: Every time Brian Williams is on the Daily Show I laugh until my anus hurts.

I saw Brian Williams on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me when they came to Carnegie Hall earlier this month. The guy is funny & scary-quick. AND he's a music buff. He's got a music site on msnbc.com called BriTunes^

I had no idea who this guy was.....some good-lucking talking head to do the news. Then I saw him doing a couple of interviews, and I was very impressed. And he's still good-looking, so there's that, too.

To be honest, and at the risk of sounding elitist, I don't watch American MSM so only knew Williams from TDS. I knew he was an NBC anchor because that's how Stewart always introduced him, but I don't watch NBC. But I always love watching him on TDS and was pleasantly surprised to find he was the guest for WWDTM.

brigid_fitch: and was pleasantly surprised to find he was the guest for WWDTM.

it was hilarious to listen to the panel attempt to keep up with him- i don't think they expected him to have such a quick wit.

thomps:
you really need to re-evaluate the way you laugh.

Really? You've honestly never had such a rip-roaring, uncontrollable laughing fit that your exhaust port stings a little? That's kind of sad, actually. I'd say THAT'S the more concerning issue. You need more funny in your life.

MaxxLarge: thomps:
you really need to re-evaluate the way you laugh.

Really? You've honestly never had such a rip-roaring, uncontrollable laughing fit that your exhaust port stings a little? That's kind of sad, actually. I'd say THAT'S the more concerning issue. You need more funny in your life.

well yeah, but i was sitting on a pool cue at the time. i guess if that's how you like to watch TDS then i'm not going to judge, but it seems like an uncomfortable half hour.

And yet they never really listen or else they'd have put some of Jon's preachings into practice by now.

thomps: brigid_fitch: and was pleasantly surprised to find he was the guest for WWDTM.

it was hilarious to listen to the panel attempt to keep up with him- i don't think they expected him to have such a quick wit.

Agreed. I remember that was an enjoyable ride home when I heard that episode

Gosling: And yet they never really listen or else they'd have put some of Jon's preachings into practice by now.

i think they're just happy to get some airtime with jon's viewers.

blackminded: deadapostle: I am amazed at how great an interviewer Jon Stewart has become.

Great big ol' this. I love that he seems to actually take the time to educate himself about a topic rather than rely on talking points. The difference shows, particularly during something like the Barghouti/Baltzer interview (new window). I don't see any other interviewer (or network for that matter) handling it the way Stewart did.

/regardless of your personal bias

Now, that was 15 minutes long, and, my guess is on the show they only showed 7-8 minutes total of it and parts got edited out. Still, I can't think of the last time I saw a drawn out, thoughtful, though somewhat laid back discussion of serious issues on "regular" news outlets. Unfortunately the norm seems to be either:
(A) Getting on an extremely skewed program where the interviewer has a clear agenda to one side or the other, and half the time it degrades to mostly yelling or rude discussion (most FOX and MSNBC shows)
(B) Getting discussed in an inane manner by someone who doesn't seem qualified to arbitrate the discussion (most CNN shows)

brigid_fitch: I saw Brian Williams on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me when they came to Carnegie Hall earlier this month.

Aw man, you got tickets to that show?

/shakes tiny fist

thomps: brigid_fitch: and was pleasantly surprised to find he was the guest for WWDTM.

it was hilarious to listen to the panel attempt to keep up with him- i don't think they expected him to have such a quick wit.

Taping the show took 2 1/2 hours. Williams' segment was at least 40 minutes and you're right--he was running rings around everyone.

/BTW, if you think Mo Rocca hems & haws a lot when answering a question, know that it's SEVERELY edited for radio. I swear he takes 5 minutes to answer each question.
//Quick, cool story, bro: When Peter Sagal asked, "The furniture industry is creating custom beds for who?" I and about 6 others in my section immediately said, "Whom". Usher behind me chuckled and muttered, "NPR people."

brigid_fitch: thomps: brigid_fitch: and was pleasantly surprised to find he was the guest for WWDTM.

it was hilarious to listen to the panel attempt to keep up with him- i don't think they expected him to have such a quick wit.

Taping the show took 2 1/2 hours. Williams' segment was at least 40 minutes and you're right--he was running rings around everyone.

/BTW, if you think Mo Rocca hems & haws a lot when answering a question, know that it's SEVERELY edited for radio. I swear he takes 5 minutes to answer each question.
//Quick, cool story, bro: When Peter Sagal asked, "The furniture industry is creating custom beds for who?" I and about 6 others in my section immediately said, "Whom". Usher behind me chuckled and muttered, "NPR people."

god, i can't stand mo on that show. i love him in a lot of other venues, but on wwdtm he is miserable. i really need to get to a taping at some point when they get back to chicago.
that actually was a cool story bro - i think it was last week, one of the callers was a girl who had just turned 21, and said that since she was an npr listener she celebrated with a good book or something, and sagal quipped "ah youth is wasted on the npr listener." i laughed.

Bek: brigid_fitch: I saw Brian Williams on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me when they came to Carnegie Hall earlier this month.

Aw man, you got tickets to that show?

/shakes tiny fist

Wasn't easy! I logged onto the site as soon as tickets went on sale and it crashed a dozen times. Then it said I couldn't buy tickets there & had to call. I was on hold for 45 minutes. By the time I got through, there were only 2 seats together and they were in the SERIOUS nosebleed section (I had vertigo whenever I stood up) and a column blocked part of the stage. Here's a pic of the view:

brigid_fitch: Wasn't easy! I logged onto the site as soon as tickets went on sale and it crashed a dozen times. Then it said I couldn't buy tickets there & had to call. I was on hold for 45 minutes. By the time I got through, there were only 2 seats together and they were in the SERIOUS nosebleed section (I had vertigo whenever I stood up) and a column blocked part of the stage. Here's a pic of the view:

Damn, still, even with the blocked view... you are so lucky you're on my list of awesome farkers, otherwise I'd be filled with blinding rage towards you.

/Roy Blunt Jr this week!

MaxxLarge: thomps:
you really need to re-evaluate the way you laugh.

Really? You've honestly never had such a rip-roaring, uncontrollable laughing fit that your exhaust port stings a little?

I hope you check your shorts afterward.

It's not sad and it's not unusual. Ancient cultures had their jesters that spoke truth when no one else would or could.

It's actually quite normal.

The fact that Jon Stewart is considered indispensable is more a reflection on how far mainstream media has fallen. They're too partisan; and too much in the entertainment business.

Not a new situation.

Myrdinn: I don't think it is sad. Comedy is (and has always been) the one true check on both media and politics from sarcastic bardic songs to today.

Just happens the Daily Show has a pretty good market share right now.

Well, to be fair bard songs have also been useful to lower your party's AC or provide a source of illumination.

ne2d: DamnYankees: Not a new situation.

Definitely not.

Nope.

HawgWild: ne2d: DamnYankees: Not a new situation.

Definitely not.

Nope.

Totally not.

Sad because he can't spell "indispensable"?

Huh huh...bears repeating...

Has anyone posted this yet?

Link (new window)

1:51 for the great kid and Jon's excellent reaction.

Above link shows why Jon and the daily show are indispensable.