America's politicians, willingly or not, often seem like they’re actors in scripts created by cable producers.
But that's what they are to most people. Literally.
Most people's only perception of politicians is one as disobedient actors in the production of a television show, a truth that's been with us since Kennedy. Politics is, and always will be, a part of infotainment, because news story economics work by the same principles as all other stories on TV.
But think twice before you think the of the reflexive "the internet will change everything". No - a lot has changed, but the vast majority of people will still want and watch the kick-in-the-nuts-humor over NPR, Democracy Now, or The American Conservative, just as they've been doing for decades.
> Oh, Stewart & Co. enjoy a lowbrow laugh as much as the folks over at South Park; heck, next week they’re publishing a book that includes some excellent masturbation jokes. But Stewart and The Daily Show became America’s sharpest political satirists by aiming at least a little bit higher.
Oddly coincidental that if Matt Stone & Trey Parker of South Park fame read this, their response would be "Thanks for the kick in the nuts." As per one of their video interview, this is their usual response to when people categorize them into the same bucket as Family Guy by saying something like "South Park and Family Guy are the only shows I love." Why does the author feel the need to compare South Park and Daily Show, so as to make Daily Show come on top? I would rate both of these shows as the best of their respective genres, neither aiming higher or lower than the other.
As the article noted, both South Park and The Daily Show use gross-out humor. But the article implies that South Park stops there while The Daily Show does grand political satire, when (as the GP notes) South Park's satire is on roughly the same level. Family Guy would have been a better comparison.
"There’s discussion of a possible Stewart-Colbert public event, a parody of Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. “Maybe we would do a ‘March of the Reasonable,’ on a date of no particular significance,” Stewart says."
If you guys haven't heard, we are trying to start a reddit powered pseudo-revolution and I am really glad that this bit made it into this story.
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "
I found the article to be very interesting, and apparently so did many others. Not everything on here needs to be 100% about startups, programming, or business.
I wonder if you guys realize that to republicans, Rush Limbaugh is a comedian. He tells jokes, and when criticizing him to republicans, they will often say he is just making fun.
Jon stweart is the rush limbaugh of The left. And thus as appropriate on hacker news as limbaugh.
I'd like to talk about startups and technology, why do leftists keep posting leftist news stories here and then down voting everyone who doesn't goose step along with them?
I know the answer, but I wish you would keep that kind of activity in reddit/r/politics. Not here.
John Stewart’s show is probably the worst show that someone could create. He does not even attempt to be objective. A large part of 20 somethings use this as their main news source. It is sad when people are not willing to watch news for news’ sake (instead of having it mixed with comedy – like a child gets medicine mixed with syrup).
And whilst the Daily Show serves as the main news source for many of 20 somethings, it does not even try to be objective. It often cuts video tapes completely (usually making fun of someone whose ideology differs from that of the viewers), uses video out of context, have interviews under false pretences and does not give fair coverage. Yet the excuse for that is that “it is a comedy show and not a news show”. It must choose, either one or the other – either it is a news show (and should subscribe to journalistic ethics) or it should be a comedy show (and try and involve itself in politics).
1. According to a study, Daily Show viewers are more informed about current events than those that watch FOX, CNN, etc.
2. They are a comedy show, so it's ok to do that(even though they don't abuse that). FOX on the other hand does more than that, and they are supposed to be a news channel. i.e. take that Hannity clip from a few days ago: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-9-2010/are-y... (fast forward to 5 minutes)
3. Everything doesn't have to be objective, just because you have a scientist on talking about evolution, doesn't mean you have to bring in someone who wants to talk about creationism. This whole "balanced" reporting that you want is one of the reasons all these fringe nut jobs get their legitimacy. "Of course the president was born in Kenya....I saw someone say that on a news show".
Looking at the numbers, though, I'm not sure it says what you think it says. My impression is that it says that people who are interested in politics -- political humor from Jon, major newspaper websites, O'Reilly Factor watchers -- know more than folks who just passively consume news every now and then (Fox News Channel). That's the way the data looks to me, anyway.
I need to go back and study it some more, because from the abstract at the bottom, titled "Knowledge Levels by News Source", The Daily Show/Colbert Report looks like it's tied or bested in almost every category by folks who read newspaper websites. In fact, if you call the margin of error around 4%, there's really not much difference in the top several items. And I can't believe something like this would be accurate down to 1 or 2 percentage points or less.
You're making a lot of claims that don't make sense.
"A large part of 20 somethings use this as their main news source."
I'm a 20 something and know quite a few of them. You'd think that if this were true, my group of 50 or so would show at least one who treats TDS as anything more than a comedy show. They may use it as a starting point for stories they didn't know about, but you would be laughed out of the room if you tried to claim any portion of them treated Jon Stewart as a news man.
"It often cuts video tapes completely (usually making fun of someone whose ideology differs from that of the viewers), uses video out of context, have interviews under false pretences and does not give fair coverage."
Just like a comedy show. Even "news" shows do this, so I don't see why you single out TDS for it.
" It must choose, either one or the other – either it is a news show (and should subscribe to journalistic ethics) or it should be a comedy show (and try and involve itself in politics)."
Again, why single out TDS? All comedy shows dip into politics, and do a poor job of representing things.
> I'm a 20 something and know quite a few of them.
Quite a few of my friends view this as a "serious" news show. If you do not believe this, look at any large social site such as Reddit (where the Daily Show is taken as a serious news source).
> Just like a comedy show.
Of interviews with politicians which they obtained under false pretences? The objective of the Daily Show is to make one ideological grouping laughable. It is inherently a political show that parades as a “quasi-news” show and uses the “comedy show” excuse so that they do not have to show any integrity (journalistic or otherwise).
> Again, why single out TDS? All comedy shows dip into politics, and do a poor job of representing things.
That is quite debatable. Most “comedy shows” do not dip into politics. If it is, it is mostly human interest (and around election time).
The Daily Show also parades around CNN International (a “news network”). Why is it on this channel then?
But I guess that this is just how real journalism fades. Papers become bankrupt whilst people read online “news sources” such as Huffington Post or Alternet. News networks like CNN become Twitter Crazy and airs shows like The Daily Show.
> Of interviews with politicians which they obtained under false pretences?
Why do you say that? I've watched TDS since before Stewart was the host. I think it's pretty clear they are a comedic satire show when they do their interviews. They stage and prompt their interviewees to make the interviews more fun.
"Say, 'I like Cocaine'"
"I like Cocaine"
Only morons believe it's a real news show. But it does a fabulous job, through comedy and satire, at revealing the uncomfortable hypocrisy that underlies an awful lot of news and politics.
There are tons of comedy shows that dip into politics. Lampooning politicians is probably one of the oldest and most common forms of comedy. I won't even attempt to list some, you'd have to be willfully trying to avoid it if you aren't aware of this.
> I think it's pretty clear they are a comedic satire show when they do their interviews.
Nope. They often have interviews under false pretenses (the interviewee doesn't know he is from the daily show). The questions and the persons facial expressions) is often edited in afterwards.
Not according to John Oliver; every pre-arranged interviewee knows exactly who they will be speaking with and what their schtick is. Man-on-the-street interviewees are told they're with The Daily Show, but it's on them to know what that is.
Don't even bother engaging him anymore, he's just regurgitating conspiracy theories that float around in right-wing circles as a way to explain their often public embarrassments.
> he's just regurgitating conspiracy theories that float around in right-wing circles as
Firstly, I am not "right wing". I am libertarian and socially liberal.
> as a way to explain their often public embarrassments.
This is exactly the idiocy that I was talking about. Note that you put everyone in an "us" and "them" basket.
I do not care what the content of the program is, as long as it is objective.
Unfortunately many people on the internet (such as yourself) just flock to news sources that agree with your point of view (such as Huffington Post, reddit.com, Alternet, TDS, etc...) and the right flock to their websites and programs (Glen Beck, Redstate, whatever).
In the end those programs just end up engaging in character assassination instead of having a constructive and rational debate. But I guess that is too much too ask.
>I do not care what the content of the program is, as long as it is objective.
Then WHY do you even own a TV?
The Daily Show is a mock-comedy news program. It's objective is to be funny. That you don't get the joke and complain about how "serious" people take it, well, that only underscores that they've hit their objective right on the nose.
You might want to shop around for a startup who can give you a sense of humor.
This is probably my last response to you and I'm trying to say this without coming across as mean.
First off, there are no serious claims anywhere that TDS misrepresents itself when filming interviews. People here have asked for citations of your claim several times and you've failed to respond. Please stop regurgitating nonsense. This isn't the place for it.
While I enjoy your willingness to engage on some level, and not immediately degenerate every posting into a Godwin's law violation, you really have a terrible awful lot to learn. I don't mean this in a "if only you knew more about the brilliance of leftist politics, the truth would become obvious" sort of way. I mean this completely apolitically. You actually seem to be completely unawares what political parody, satire, irony, sarcasm and comedy is, its history and how it works. The audience of TDS does know. You are clearly not the audience.
The Daily show has been broadcast in the U.S. for almost 15 years on a channel exclusively devoted to broadcasting comedy programming, it's one of the most popular and well known shows in America. It's commonly rebroadcast on the Internet, on other stations and other programs. Its host, Stewart appears often on popular competing and opposing shows. It's commonly derided by right-leaning talkshow hosts, news programs and commentary shows. It makes no claims to be a news show, unbiased or otherwise. Stewart himself has said on many occasions that he and the show are clearly left-leaning but make a concerted effort to make fun of all-sides. Despite their admitted left-lean, the show has gained a strong reputation among the right-leaning people as a place where they can have a fair conversation during the table-talk guest interviews. Every episode is available online, and youtube is practically clogged with TDS clips. It's won dozens upon dozens of major awards (I don't mean this as a point of legitimacy, but as a point of notoriety). It's well known in most English speaking countries and many non-English speaking countries. They even put this up at the beginning of every episode: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/TDSglobal.png. In other words, what it is, and what it serves is well and widely known by anybody who has ever watched it.
Stewart himself says of how they target the show, "Our show would not be valuable to people who didn't understand the news because it wouldn't make sense," he argues. "We make assumptions about your level of knowledge that... if we were your only source of news, you would just watch our show and think, 'I don't know what's happening.'"
Again, I'm not saying this to be mean spirited, but you are clearly not somebody who they are targeting for their audience. In order to understand the show, you have to be well informed about current events, people in the news, politics, who the major players are, and understand parody, satire, sarcasm, irony and comedy. You clearly don't fit into this mold and that's okay. I don't get the work of Mark Rothko, I'm clearly not the intended audience of his work either.
Your objection is that TDS is not an apolitical objective news program doesn't make any sense because you don't know and understand the things you have to know and understand to "get it", it's like complaining that my car is not a helicopter.
We're not going to get anywhere with dueling anecdotes. And you're referencing things I don't recall, and I've been watching TDS for years.
"But I guess that this is just how real journalism fades. Papers become bankrupt whilst people read online “news sources” such as Huffington Post or Alternet. News networks like CNN become Twitter Crazy and airs shows like The Daily Show."
Journalism is doing fine. You're just looking in the wrong places.
"Of interviews with politicians which they obtained under false pretences? The objective of the Daily Show is to make one ideological grouping laughable. It is inherently a political show that parades as a “quasi-news” show and uses the “comedy show” excuse so that they do not have to show any integrity (journalistic or otherwise)."
You are once again making bold and seemingly ideologically-driven claims that don't reflect my own observations. Can you cite something?
> Journalism is doing fine. You're just looking in the wrong places.
Nope. Journalism isn’t doing fine. The majority of papers that do good investigative journalism have serious financial problems.
> Can you cite something?
Here is a good example: Daily Show of 13 July 2010. A large part deals with racism in South Africa and race relations. The author paints a completely wrong picture (of an incredibly difficult and nuanced subject – which involves language and culture rights, economical aspects and poverty, land ownership, illegal immigration, and xenophobia, black economic empowerment, etc…). In that he made a 6 hour interview (under false pretences) with a person with a pretty nuanced view (he only aired snipped parts out of context – his whole interview style was baiting).
The whole fucking video pisses me off – it is such a complex subject which he is making light of (and painting a wrong picture). WTF? But yeah, let’s make fun of extremely complex and delicate subjects because our viewers will laugh!
> The whole fucking video pisses me off – it is such a complex subject which he is making light of (and painting a wrong picture). WTF? But yeah, let’s make fun of extremely complex and delicate subjects because our viewers will laugh!
That's called comedy.
Just like a caricature exaggerates features of a person to look funny, comedy often exaggerates or simplifies complex situations for laughs. (my god I can't believe I have to explain this, I'm suddenly teaching humor to Data from Star Trek).
Stewart knows his audience. They're the sort of people who go looking for longer clips of stuff like that, so he's less concerned with accuracy and more so with comic effect.
Those 20 somethings (myself included) I mentioned readily criticize him whenever he misquotes or misrepresents. But it's still funny.
"Nope. Journalism isn’t doing fine. The majority of papers that do good investigative journalism have serious financial problems."
I did say you were looking in the wrong places. You said you weren't in the US, so I wouldn't expect you to know about what local and regional papers do. Journalism does exist, but you have to go to the locals to find it. By narrowing their focus, they're able to limit the costs.
They have one beat, and it's usually in their own neighborhood.
"Here is a good example: Daily Show of 13 July 2010. A large part deals with racism in South Africa and race relations. The author paints a completely wrong picture (of an incredibly difficult and nuanced subject – which involves language and culture rights, economical aspects and poverty, land ownership, illegal immigration, and xenophobia, black economic empowerment, etc…)."
I can't find any reference to that day's episode or the clip you mention. Can you be more specific by providing a link?
> Journalism does exist, but you have to go to the locals to find it. By narrowing their focus, they're able to limit the costs.
There are many facets of journalism (including regional papers). Regional papers are surviving. But the fact of the matter is that all papers addressing national and international issues are fading and declining (almost as fast as my Karma today).
> I can't find any reference to that day's episode or the clip you mention. Can you be more specific by providing a link?
Everyone I know is fully aware of how some groups are treated in SA. I think this is the disconnect: You see TDS as a news source, and are worried that its viewers take it as news. But they don't.
We watch it to be entertained. We're already well-informed on what they're joking about.
> Everyone I know is fully aware of how some groups are treated in SA.
Nope. Most people will simply not get the nuances. I sincerely doubt (no offense) that you know anything about the situation (economic, cultural, etc...) of several groups.
By the way - getting the interview under false pretenses is still unethical.
But yeah, he is now branded as a racist.
> You see TDS as a news source, and are worried that its viewers take it as news.
TDS is an opinion former. What it does is presents a warped and highly subjective view of certain complex topics.
In any case, I guess that TDS is simply the result for a demand of such programs. Just like the dumbing down of CNN is because of demand factors.
People like their news like they like their fast food: Only the juicy bits and they don't care whether it is accurate or not.
Here's a citation: basically everything Stewart has said about beck is a flat out lie. Of course, Stewart is a socialist and to them, beck must be a theocrat and so they portray him as such, but realitybis, he believes in freedom of religion, not theocracy. He supports individual rights, unlike Jon stewart.
So Stewart makes stuff up about, selectively edits things out of contexts, and makes fun of him. The liberals who watch think it is real and beck gets less credibility among them, even though vie yet to meet one who could accurately describe becks actual positions.
I've watched his show and don't see any divergence between Jon's representations and Beck's general manner. Beck is a political comedian, and political comedians get fun poked at them by other political comedians.
Of course because your understanding of becks general manner comes from the daily show. That's the waht's brilliant about this form of political propaganda- it makes you think your engaging in critical thinking awhile spoon feeding falsehoods to you, to the point that you would sincerely judge the accuracy of the show solely on your understanding derived from the show! You think yore well informed, but you don't even realize how little you actually know.
I'm not saying you havent seen these same falsehoods from other propaganda outlets like huffington post, talking points memo, and daily kaos, etc.
If you knew anything about beck you'd know that his portrayal on the daily show is profoundly dishonest. This is how I can speak conclusively because it is not even a shade of grey.
Elsewhere you assert that you would hold stewart accountable, but here you don't even know enough about beck to know that you're being told lies.
The sad truth is, for so many 20 something, it is a news show and you don't even realize it.
Any time you start off a point by saying "Of course, Stewart is a socialist ....." and then go on to call blogs propaganda outlets, I 100% tune out your opinion. If you are trying to call out someone else as being uninformed, you probably should cut out the double speak before trying to make your point if you want to be taken seriously by anyone who is not indoctrinated into that school of thought.
Guess what, I think socialism is an interesting concept, not the boogeyman! And I have been a registered big L Libertarian from before Ron Paul and Glenn Beck were even known! I ran as a libertarian candidate once, and I still don't use socialist as a degrogatory adjective like you clearly have. Get a grip on reality.
That's sure a big rude assumption (that if you think Stewart is accurate, you must not know anything about Glenn Beck.) I watch Beck every once in a while and I thought Stewart's portrayal of him nailed it.
You should start citing specific things you take issue with.
Of course, i forgot that leftists are always informed about everything, perfectly objectively, and if you catch them in an error, they will simply lie.
Ok, you are all bigots, and you've been told to hate beck so there is no point in taking to you, you will just continue to tell lies.
According to the article, there is a 1.8 million viewer base per night. So a large part of 20-somethings is innacurate. Maybe a large part of 20-somethings you know?
In any case, this line is a brilliant response to your claim:
“We’re not provocateurs, we’re not activists; we are reacting for our own catharsis,” Stewart says. “There is a line into demagoguery, and we try very hard to express ourselves but not move into, ‘So follow me! And I will lead you to the land of answers, my people!’ You can fall in love with your own idea of common sense.
> According to the article, there is a 1.8 million viewer base per night.
It gets viewed more often than that (through video streaming). It also appears on CNN International at different times (WTF?). Many people also watch it irregularly.
> In any case, this line is a brilliant response to your claim:
He just confirms what I've said, but put it more eloquently.
> And I will lead you to the land of answers, my people!’
> You can fall in love with your own idea of common sense.
Usually rational people form conclusions (i.e. reaches answers to questions) based on an objective discussion from all angles/sides to a story. Does this happen on the Daily Show? No. Does the Daily Show go into depth (from all sides) to complex and important news topics, allowing the viewer to come to his own nuanced conclusion? No.
Does it quote people out of context, have interviews under false pretences, cut tapes to put people in bad light, add questions which the interviewee was never asked and break all rules of journalistic ethics? Yes.
The idea of the Daily Show is simple – they would make fun of groups such as the Republican Party (through some of the methods above). Their audience laugh – not because it was really funny, but because it reinforces their own ideological bias.
PS: I am not American, and that show completely irritates the hell out of me. The whole of CNN for that matter went down the drain. If you want (somewhat good) television journalism, it seems that only Al-Jazeera can provide it.
I'm an American, I used to watch the daily dhow regularly, and you are spot on.
The show pretends to be giving the news, t itbis dishonest, and it essentially tells lies about others in order to mock them.
If it mocked them for things they actually did, it would be one thing, but people believe that it is accurately portraying them and so it spreads misinformation as part of a hate campaign.
I've studied leni reifenstahl as well, and this is propaganda of e highest order. Only instead of targeting Jews, it targets anyone who is not a socialist.
Don't feed the troll. This guy is clearly stuck in 1950's McCarthy-land and thinks Godwin's law is a guidebook, not a admonishment of sloppy thinking. You'll only be debating your grandfather here.
Godwins law doesn't exist. If you bothered to know what You were talking a out you'd know Godwin never made any such law. It is an excuse for holocaust deniers to refuse to admit that the Nazi party was real and did exist and therefore the causes and situations relevant to their existence are worth considering.
Notice also, I did not make any comparison to hitler, i asked how he thought the German people let Nazis come to power and why.
Of course, that was a question that you don't answer, instead you engage in personal attack.
If you actually cared for debate, your only contribution wouldn't be ad hominem and lies.
I care for debate, but just to be clear not with insane conspiracy theorists who respond to every claim with "socialism! fascists! lies! nazis!".
Let me short circuit any possible debate anybody will have with you. You have nothing of substance to say, and are not willing to learn anything beyond the tiny bubble of self-selected extremest rhetoric and talking points you've constructed for yourself. Any engagement with you is preordained to end in a flame war full of allusions to Nazis and Communists with you painted as a Bastian of goodness, carefully lecturing the ignorant masses in the one true path you've discovered for yourself. Any statement against you is clearly made by a moron trying to spread lies and deceit.
You believe you know everything but don't even seem to be aware of anything -- least of which is that you come across like a nutter.
Go get a life and leave HN out of your bumbling, ignorant, sheep-like rantings. Find a place in the countryside away from people and stop inflicting yourself on humanity.
Wow. You don't actually know what Godwin's Law is?
To paraphrase:
> As the length of a discussion grows, the probability of there being a comparison with Hitler, or the Nazi party will approach one.
It's an admonishment against exactly what you're doing. As someone's argument is shown to be weak, they inevitably invoke Naziism, not only inappropriately, but in a way that casts light to the weakness of their argument. ... Which is what you're doing.
Absolutely, and I say this as one who studied many semesters in college the films of Germany, Nazi, pre-Nazi and post Nazi.
Of course you won't accept it as a socialist hate campaign.
Do you think that Germans are genetically predisposed to fascism? Do you think they are weak or inferior to Americans in some way? How is it, do you suppose, that they let Nazis take power, and commit such massive crimes?
Why does socialism == hate campaign? What is the association between them?
There is a huge difference between a Democrat/liberal person and a socialist, and a huge difference between socialists and facists, and all of them are short of being Nazis.
Anyone standing on the right, painting everyone to their left as socialist Nazis trying to destroy America are completely out of touch.
Omg, do you know Nazi is short for? Nationalist socialists. It is a socialist party. Fascism differs from socialism only in the businesses being titularly in private hands, but they are completely controlled by the government in both.
I think it is quite sad to see so many people who are clearly ignorant about this history using their ignorance as a justification to call me names.
Of course that's what Nazi stands for. Lets ignore that they were really bad at being socialist among other things, when you think of Nazis what is the first thing you think of? If you are a normal person, it is WW2, the holocaust, death camps, abuse of POWs, Jews (basically everyone), etc.
What does that have to do with their economic policy?
Would you be OK with the Nazis if they cut taxes and reduced regulation? Of course not. The issue with the Nazis is not what they did economically, but what they did militarily.
Socialism is just a set of economic beliefs. And clearly you don't understand them.
I am a 20 something and my main news source is Hacker News :). By that, I mean that I try to avoid conventional news sources on purpose. As far as I can tell news divides into two categories: sensationalist murder stories (which depress me) and political theater (which mostly bores me). Having said that John Stewart to me is just like Bill O'Reilly but funny.
But that's what they are to most people. Literally.
Most people's only perception of politicians is one as disobedient actors in the production of a television show, a truth that's been with us since Kennedy. Politics is, and always will be, a part of infotainment, because news story economics work by the same principles as all other stories on TV.
But think twice before you think the of the reflexive "the internet will change everything". No - a lot has changed, but the vast majority of people will still want and watch the kick-in-the-nuts-humor over NPR, Democracy Now, or The American Conservative, just as they've been doing for decades.