Posted on 12/02/2008 10:50:23 AM PST by My Favorite Headache
On last night's "Daily Show", Jon Stewart took aim at MSNBC for the network's continued slide toward what he sees as the same partisan cheerleading that one has witnessed over the past eight years at FOX News. Watch:
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=210922
While many liberals have hailed the rise of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow as a long-overdue cable news counterweight to their ideological rivals on FOX, others, like Stewart, bemoan the further blurring of the line between news and commentary. The latter group decries the loss of objectivity in journalism. Left or right, it matters not who commits this crime. What's important is keeping the news, for lack of a better phrase, fair and balanced.
Somehow lost in this discussion is the fact that Bill O'Reilly and Olbermann are not news anchors, they are commentators. Sean Hannity and Rachael Maddow play different roles on television than do Katie Couric and Brian Williams. Really, the bloviating commentators who dominate the screen time at MSNBC and FOX, are nothing more than glorified bloggers. They have been hired to stir controversy and generate ratings. And guess what? They're popular.
For his part, when it comes to media critiques, Jon Stewart has always enjoyed having his cake while eating it, too. His show, after all, is based largely on political commentary, but with laughter, rather than angry rants, as its foundation. In fact, "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" exist on the same plane with "Hannity and Colmes" and the like, albeit at a different end of the aesthetic spectrum. When Stewart famously launched his takedown of CNN's "Crossfire," an incredulous Tucker Carlson demanded to know why he went easy on his Democratic guests (including John Kerry). His response? It's not his responsibility to play the journalist.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.aol.com ...
As slanted as John Stewart is in his own beliefs, I have admired him for putting Newt on the air and also for calling the media on their stupidity some times.
No, Fox News is the mirror of CNN.
MSNBC is a cartoon network.
Why is it every relatively successful comedian wants to be Hamlet?
Shut up, Jon. You are the second biggest hypocrite on cable, after Bill Maher.
Oh goody. Now that the American sheeple have elected a marxist crackhead terrorist lover as President, lil’ Johnny Leibowitz decides to name names.
Who cares what Jon Stewart thinks?
For MSNBC to be another Fox, they'd have to turn way towards the right.
Bingo. If MSNBC is left and FOX is right does Stewart think that puts him somewhere in the middle? I’d argue he’s still left of center...
The fact that anyone gives a crap about what Jon Stewart says, and treats his mutterings as newsworthy, is indicative of the gross stupidity of the American populace that has given us Obama.
MSNBC is a cartoon network.
I agree with the first part, but I think MSNBC is more like the liberal equivalent of talk radio. Air America may not have succeeded, but Air Olberman/Maddow has.
The men and women at Fox are ordinary Americans and look at the world the way ordinary Americans do. This can lead to an appearance of bias to the lefties but it is just an appearance.
Olberman on the other hand is a deranged America hater and always has been. His slant is intentional.
I agree. Jon Stewart is a jerk.
This is a typical leftist false-premise hit piece. If you want to say that commentators O’Reilly and Olbermann are opposite sides of the same coin, okay. But to equate Fox’s news coverage with MSNBC’s is laughable. Fox does a great job of balancing its newscasts while MSNBC is partisan-left all the way.
I caught his exchange with Begala and Tucker Carlson on CNN a couple of years ago. I couldn’t help but wonder why he went on CNN if that was how he felt, then it dawned on me he did so just to produce some ‘bonafides’ for his young non voting audience.
Thats how shallow the man is.
Stewart is merely firing a shot across the bow of M(isery)SNBC, they are the “new” target of his show, which makes sense, there really is no Republican or Conservative Structures to satirize.
So out with Hume, O’Reily and Hannity, and in with Olbermann, Madcow and The Tingle...
That is an excellent observation. The libs turn to Olbermann like we turn to Rush.
Thing is, you have to be REALLY nutty/nasty to like Olbermann and Rush appeals to the mainstream, when they take a chance and listen.
I have a superlib family, and I was listening to Rush one day when one of them walked in. He turned and said, I agree with that guy. *Choke* (Rush was talking about borders).
You make a good point. For all the demonizing about talk radio, they are much more reasonable (read: centrist) than liberals give them credit for. Olberman has more in common with Severin or Savage than he does with Rush.
...Disagree. Fox is far more tabloid than CNN. It’s because Murdoch is involved...
I couldn’t agree more. Let me preface this by saying “I hate CNN,” but FNC is almost unwatchable. Between the obnoxious on-screen graphics and some of the incredibly unimportant National Enquirer-esque stories that they have on, it has almost no “serious news.” Say what you want about CNN (and you can say plenty), at least it’s a serious news gathering, not commentating, organization.
CNN is very clever in it’s biases - very stealthy. FNC, on the other hand doesn’t mince words and to a large degree wears it’s point-of-view on it’s sleeve. This is what allows it’s critiques to so easily dismiss FNC as a propaganda instrument of the right.
FNC should try less to mirror the NYPOST and try harder to mimic the Wall Street Journal - but, unfortunately more people read the Post than read the Journal and that’s all Murdoch really cares about. He’s a showman, not a conservative ideologue.
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