Jon Stewart’s Punching Bag, Fox News

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The New York Times media section has a great article by Brian Selter examing Jon Stewart's ongoing feud with Fox News, the most recent involving Bernie Goldberg and Bill O'Reilly. It's a detailed look at how in a weird way, Jon Stewart IS a journalist by virtue of his fact checking and exposing Fox News for what it truly is, because the mainstream media outlets will not. The bigger question for me (excluding MSNBC) is why doesn't MSM do a better job of taking on Fox News?


Fox News suggested that President Obama's nuclear summit logo was using the Islamic crescent.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are long gone. Fox News Channel is Jon Stewart’s new enemy No. 1. Last week that comedian did something that the hosts of “Fox & Friends,” the morning show on Fox News, did not do: he had his staff members call the White House and ask a question.

It may have been in pursuit of farce, not fact, but it gave credence to the people who say “The Daily Show” is journalistic, not just satiric. “Fox & Friends” had repeatedly asked whether the crescent-shaped logo of the nuclear security summit was an “Islamic image,” one selected by President Obama in his outreach to the Muslim world. The White House told “The Daily Show” that the logo was actually based on the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom. “This is how relentless Fox is” in savaging President Obama, Mr. Stewart said.

On the subject of Fox, Mr. Stewart is pretty relentless too. As demonstrated by that crescent segment and dozens of others since Mr. Obama took office, he may well be television’s pre-eminent fact-checker of Fox News, the nation’s highest-rated cable news channel. It has been noticed by, among other people, the Fox host Bill O’Reilly, who called Mr. Stewart a “devoted critic” of Fox News and said “his influence is growing.”

“Stewart does a great job of using comedy to expose the tragedy that is Fox News, and he also underscores the seriousness of it,” said Eric Burns, the president of Media Matters. The segments about Fox are often replayed hundreds of thousands of times on blogs and other Web sites, amplifying their significance. “Media criticism has become part of his brand,” said Mark Jurkowitz, the associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, who noted that Mr. Stewart had also dissected CNN and CNBC in lengthy segments in the past.

It is true that the often-left-leaning “Daily Show” deals with a wide array of topics, but Fox is one that Mr. Stewart is overtly passionate about; he said on the show this week that he criticizes the network a lot because it is “truly a terrible, cynical, disingenuous news organization.”

(source)

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I think what Stewart is doing is useful, and he's doing it very skillfully, but on the other hand he has become rather obsessive about it, which makes his ultimate purpose kinda questionable.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

His ultimate purpose? Maybe being biased against biased people is enough of a reason in itself.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

'They're doing it so why shouldn't I?'

Makes sense.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

No, to be doing the same thing, Jon Stewart would have to be lying, misrepresenting and fearmongering. Pointing out the above in someone else is not equivalent.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected. So he's not a biased pundit, just a biased comedian. I agree with many of his biases, for the record. I admit my own biases. Would be nice if he did that too, at least more often.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Jon Stewart has frequently said, he's not the one screaming from the rooftops "Fair and balanced," like Fox News. He's not moving to the news box, it's moving towards him.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Yes I watched that show where he said it> ;-)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I was sad when Maddow went on his program and they discussed "The McVeigh Tapes" instead of the deteriorating state of journalism. I thought they could have had an interesting and perhaps fruitful discussion of such.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

(fizzyland) Are we having that other discussion? The one where Vox claimed that since the Native Americans sometimes took land from each other, that the Europeans were just doing the same thing?

I'm not sure which discussion you're talking about, but it sounds like a silly one.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Ah, those handy email notifications.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

False equivalency seems to be a subtheme today.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Sorry - I try not to delete comments but I didn't want to be off-topic here.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I'm offtopic all the time. :-P

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

You have a gift, my friend, never hold it back.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

*whistles*

[adrunkencadence.livejournal.com]

Is be obsessed or is he and his writers demonstrating with accuracy that Fox News' bias is not isolated to one or two small situations and is instead a salient 'narrative' of lies?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Both.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I dunno, he called CNN on some of their crappy reporting. Things like the "We'll have to leave it at that" immediately after someone makes a ridiculous claim, that sort of thing. Perhaps not so avidly as with Fox, but perhaps that's because Fox gives more ammo.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah, especially that appreance Stewart did on CNN's Crossfire with Paul Beglia and giving CNN all sorts of hell. That show was cancelled not long after that.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Of course he did. He has to do that kind of stuff or he'd be called the Glenn Beck of leftism, and that's not a very nice thing.

Perhaps not so avidly as with Fox

Closer, closer.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

So you think he targets CNN just for political cover? What about his tirade against Keith Olbermann's ridiculous overstatements?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I do want to believe that he's not giving CNN and MSNBC a free(er) pass than FOX but I've been finding it harder to believe, the more I watch him. I still love the thing he does, though.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, almost every day I see something on CNN that Stewart could call them on.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

The problem here is that there are *so many* things that Stewart could call *so many* people on.

He has called out CNN before ("nobody leaves more things here then they do" or some such when people always have to "leave it there" and how CNN fact-checked SNL skits but not interviews with officials) and harshly too.

Without doubt, in a 24 hour cycle, FOX and CNN deserve to be criticized. But he does only have a ~22 min show, 5-10min goes to an interview. He cannot be everywhere at once.