Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, The Onion ... and the Decline of Mainstream Media
Reader Comments
El Oh El
Wow is this post an april fool's joke?
The reason people are watching comedy news shows is because they are the only ones asking the tough questions and are the ones who are willing to call a liar a liar, a hypocrit a hypocrit, and aren't afraid to offend people with the truth.
Bad News
I can't speak for anyone else. I consider myself somewhat well informed about international events and well read in current affairs. I spent nearly a decade abroad and speak languages other than English. There may be people siting on their couches and drooling over an empty bag of chips watching this "infotainment", but for myself, I love Colbert and Stewart because they lampoon the utter garbage that passes for journalism in this country. I couldn't be more delighted to see the demise of "the news" that really does nothing but shill for the moneyed interests. Time for alternatives. Are Colbert and Stewart the solution? No, but they at least help us laugh through the pathetic situation thinking people find themselves in.
Decline? Jon and Stephen are the only ones holding it up!
News or satire, it's all Show Biz, baby. When the history is written, most of the mainstream hacks and flacks will be forgotten, but Jon and Stephen will not. So many 24 hour news stations, so little news... Now even the journalists are "blaming the messengers" like court jesters Jon and Stephen. Before the Bush nightmare years, the main point of "The Daily Show" was to mock lame, deluded, self-important, self-serving reporters, and now they get to return to that. And now all you whiners and flacks and lazy bones have your bow ties in a bunch about it. I'd love it if Jon and Stephen only had to make us laugh, not do your jobs for you too, but since most of the mainstream media hasn't stepped up, they've had to. I love and appreciate them for it!
OH PLEASE!
The media has never been unbiased and "pure". Need I point out Hearst, Pulitzer, Greeley and a dozen others? If you think TV news and opinion was once strictly professional then check out the 1950's "The Big Carnival" or "A Face in the Crowd". It's been "entertainment" for a long time.
However, with the 24 hour news cycle we are now inundated with talking heads - biased both right and left. And, we watch "sensational news' because we find "straight news" boring and we like to have our ideologies mirrored before us.
I don't know that we can bemoan the "death of pure journalism" since I am not at all certain it ever broadly existed. That said, under the current "opinion avalanche" conditions everyone should try and the seek the shelter of critical discernment with an open mind or old fashioned, not so common, "sense"...
Gerhard
The moneyed media has been chasing the changes in society over the last 50 or so years and they were largely unprepared for changes in technology. They reduced election promises to shorter and shorter sound bites, and replaced fact with opinion. Journalism schools spewed out cookie cutter talking heads and typing hands with limited ability for independent thought or action. Now we have "citizen journalists" who are even more prone to emotional or ideological reporting: it IS one big joke.
Regular news shows rarely expose contradictions in policy or proposals, they are far happier using tags like "flip-flopper" to provide a convenient image for the distracted mass. Party and industry representatives are too often paired with weak and trusting interlocutors who are completely unprepared to determine when they are being lied to. The press has been complicit is most scandals of the last 50 years, withholding information when it suited them and spinning information when they did put it out.
People have access to more information than ever but they generally lack curiosity and an interest in learning. People are happy to watch "news" that agrees with their preconceived opinions and doesn't require thinking. Providing easily digested bits of information that allow people to maintain the fiction is the role of the media today. Blogging is just as bad, forcing one to wade through the algae blooms of mediocrity to find something worthwhile.
The advent of Twitter has lowered the standard even further with the size restrictions reducing the soundbite to a scroll on the screen or parroting by the talking head. This is what passes for journalism in the 21st century. Commentators can outright lie and there is no attempt to hold them accountable: why is it that Stewart and Colbert seem to be the only people catching bold faced lies? Is the only way to reach the blob by making it funny?
You're right, Sarah
O'Reilly and Hannity, for instance, on FOX News Channel are "entertainment" outlets for the people who like to have their own belief systems reinforced with such stuff as they cover. Think gay marriage outrage, for instance.
Same with endless coverage of stories like Scott Peterson and Drew Peterson crimes. They are merely feeding someone's need to be nosy in law enforcement matters.
At least the comedians ADMIT they are mere entertainers. And, at least the comedy format offers the truth that can be found in parody and farce.
And...?
Perhaps they have come about because Mainstream Media decided to do some quality "reporting" about Hollywood gossip and taken to fits of partisan rage to fill their 17 hours of live "news." I would argue that the decline of Mainstream Media began when 24-hour news networks got their start. These satirical shows are the symptom, not the cause.
