Page 317 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| News Sat re: Comedy Central and Beyond

news consumption, leading to accolades as various as The Daily Show’s Television
Critics Association Award in 2004 for Outstanding Achievement in News and
Information, and Stewart’s nomination as Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainer of
the Year in 2004; and leading to criticism that both make a mockery of the news
and of politics.

ThE DaiLy show wiTh Jon sTEwarT

The Daily Show premiered quietly with then-host Craig Kilborn in 1996, of-
fering a playful look at the day’s news. After three years with the show, Kilborn
stepped down and was replaced by Jon Stewart. Rapidly, the nature of its news
and political satire developed, and with especially strong coverage of the 2000
and 2004 election campaigns (the former presciently named “Indecision 2000”),
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s star was in the ascendancy. Audiences are
treated to 15 minutes of play with and satiric commentary on the news before
Stewart welcomes a guest, who can range from a media figure, to a writer of a
political bestseller, to a politician. Stewart’s comic style is quite unique, mixing
funny faces and “shtick” with often astoundingly incisive and even unforgiving
interviews, in unpredictably uneven amounts. By 2004, Stewart and his show
were in the media spotlight, as people tried to work out whether this was a hard-
nosed journalist with a comedian inside him, or vice versa.
For instance, The Daily Show’s Indecision 2004 election coverage included,
amongst hours worth of other segments, an item on the Democratic prima-
ries that reported on a debate as if it was a rap “battle” or contest, a piece that
mocked special interest group attack ads on the candidates, and the parsing of
and commentary on each of the presidential debates. The rap battle played with
the alienating language and countenance of many politicians, pointing to their
inapproachability to youth, and to politics’ existence on a very upper-middle-
class Ivy League plateau. The satiric attack ads encouraged viewers to distance

stePhen ColBert addresses the Press
Colbert’s own Crossfire moment came in 2006, when invited to speak to the White House
Correspondents Association awards dinner, a yearly gathering of White House press, pol-
iticians, and the president. Colbert stayed in character, delivering, through backhanded
satire, a damning critique of the Bush White House and of the press’s own lack of effective-
ness in reporting on national and international matters. Another clip in heavy demand on
YouTube.com, before C-SPAN lay legal claim to it and themselves circulated it to thousands
of viewers, the speech was met with a cool reception by the press corps, and they did not
even discuss it publicly until a few days later when Internet buzz demanded it. As did Stew-
art’s Crossfire appearance, or Stewart’s follow-up interview on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show,
Colbert’s act of exporting his news and political satire outside of the comfortable borders
of his show into another venue underlined the degree to which the new news satire of Stew-
art and Colbert is often as much political as it is entertainment