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Jon Stewart on Rachel Maddow Show: Just wow.

by: elwood

Thu Nov 11, 2010 at 22:18:37 PM EST
I just watched a full hour (well, a commercial TV hour) conversation between Maddow and Stewart. It was wonk heaven. He was appearing in part, he said, because he wanted to address some concerns / criticisms about the meta-rally he and Colbert held.

One of the criticisms is that Stewart practices false equivalence: carefully pairing any mention of easily-found right-wing extremism with a mention of harder-to-find left-wing extremism. He was ready for that discussion. Stewart apparently spends his free time thinking about meta and media and how it affects public perception.

(I think Maddow could have challenged him more here - not her style though, and she usually does well letting interviewees speak. Is it the nature of his show to always demonstrate skepticism of both sides? Is it structurally harder for him to say "No contest here, these guys are telling the truth and these other guys are lying?" Stewart talked about a climate problem with cable news; is there a climate problem with his style of comedy?)

Highly recommended. She'll post the full interview, longer than the broadcast, sometime tomorrow morning.
elwood :: Jon Stewart on Rachel Maddow Show: Just wow.
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Jon Stewart on Rachel Maddow Show: Just wow. | 8 comments
Also very much enjoyed. One takes a side, one is against sides. (0.00 / 0)
Of all the people with tv shows about politics, they might be the two who are most worth listening to.

One thing I wish Rachel had pushed Jon on was his assertion that he's on the outside in a way that Maddow, for example, isn't.  I get that he doesn't see himself as part of the red-blue conflict, but there's one thing he can't escape: Jon Stewart is one of the most influential people in American civic culture.  He's not in the stands; Stewart is very much a major player.

--
@DougLindner

Tempering with I didn't see the interview - (0.00 / 0)
I don't have television - I think that Stewart's power is based on being an outsider.  People trust him.  The minute you take a seat at the table, you have a vested interest in the process, limiting your opportunities for fundamental change.

So, I agree with you Douglas, that Stewart is a major player, but also understand his point about being an outsider.

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." A. Einstein

[ Parent ]
He doesn't directly pass judgment on policies in the same way, (0.00 / 0)
But his mantle, though different, is no less significant.  In fact, I'd say it's more significant.

Both in media and in the liberal movement, when Jon Stewart speaks, people take note. Even Olbermann and Maddow don't get that kind of attention.

Also, people don't pick apart everything he says all the time; they just listen to it.  Remember when the media treated President's like that, instead of politically handicapping every speech the second it ends?

--
@DougLindner

[ Parent ]
Faces from the march (0.00 / 0)

All people who could have been doing GOTV instead. . . . (0.00 / 0)
We had phone lines free in the Manchester HQ while this was going on.  Would have been a much better way to prevent the not-exactly-sane Frank Giunta from going to Congress.
[ Parent ]
Watching Now (4.00 / 2)
Linky

Whack-a-mole, anyone?
So great (4.00 / 1)
On the contrast between newspapers and cable news. If you watched cable --

"You'd have thought Juan Williams killed people."

[ Parent ]
Or that his former employer did. (4.00 / 1)

[ Parent ]
Jon Stewart on Rachel Maddow Show: Just wow. | 8 comments

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