Thursday, January 11, 2007

Rant: The Daily Show

Why do people brag about watching the Daily Show as though laughing at a mediocre comedian going slack-jawed at out-of-context news clips is today’s equivalent of reading Dostoevsky?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Worse than that, I met some droolers who actually watch it for its "news" value.

I weep for the future.

Road Hammer said...

Right on, Webber.

It saves people from actually having to think for themselves because that's just too difficult, so for most twenty somethings, it's become the equivalent of reading The Economist.

How pathetic.

Anonymous said...

I like the Economist actually.

Skeelo said...

Don't you think part of the reason people have turned to shows like John Stewart is because the main stream media has become so damn bad?

I'm not suggesting people should be turning to Stewart, or that what he peddles is "news", but that the MSM has helped drive people to him.

Road Hammer said...

FOX seems to do OK for itself. I'd say Stewart's appeal is geared towards a sizeable demographic in North American society:

1. the stuck-up
2. the intellectually lazy, and
3. students.

Taken together, that's a lot of viewers.

Skeelo said...

What I meant is, and I didn't express it very well, is that there is a bit of a blurring between MSM and guys like Stewart.

Stewart is a comedian who likes to talk about the news where as a lot of news reporters like to fancy themselves as comedians and try to add humour to the news. I wish they'd all watch footage of Walter Kronkite and learn a thing or two.

David said...

There's no doubt that, as reporters editorialize (David Gregory), it's becoming next to impossible to obtain objective reporting.

Kevin said...

The problem is that these comments are attempting to compare and/or contrast John Stewart to the News Media. Unfortunately, the quality of today's News Media (which is neither un-biased, nor objective) is poor compared to the media of the bygone era.
I heard a joke at Drew Carey's roast that may help equate this phenomena: "Drew Carey is to comedy what Maria Carey is to comedy."

Not to rag Drew Carey... my purpose is to indicate that any comparison between Comedy Central and FoxNews or MSNBC would be a fallacy at best.