Atlantic: Is Jon Stewart Our Ed Murrow? Maybe...

[steven johnson]

I think that Jon Stewart is a great American. He speaks truth to power and exposes the absurdity of politicians and popular fads alike. Just remember what happened to Socrates, the gadfly. People generally don't like gadflys.

By Eric Alterman
This article appeared in the April 13, 2009 edition of The Nation.

March 26, 2009

The Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer confrontation on The Daily Show is being widely compared to that between Edward R. Murrow and Joe McCarthy over alleged Communist subversion in the Army. The analogy is considerably less crazy than it first appears. Sure, Murrow was Murrow, but there was a shlocky side to the Great Man. On Person to Person he would visit the homes of stars and suck up to them with a cloying mien that might impress Barbara Walters. And while the celebrity-stroking aspect of Murrow's career does not comport in our minds with the brave, tough-minded reporter who covered war, famine and the like, it probably helped build much of his audience and garner the trust of those who did not follow national affairs closely.

Their "we're just comedians" protestations notwithstanding, both men appear to take this part of their job no less seriously than they do the funny parts. It cannot be mere coincidence that they are responsible for three of the most important/cathartic media moments of the past decade. Stewart pretty much ended Crossfire all by himself and retired the foolish notion that a left/right food fight leads one any closer to truth. Next, Colbert shamed and exposed the pathetic performance of the White House press corps with his brilliant after-dinner speech at the correspondents' dinner. And now Stewart, first by eviscerating the coverage of CNBC and second by forcing Jim Cramer to own up to his on-air hucksterism, has revealed the lie at the center of most business coverage (and just about all cable news).

It's a sad--almost terrifying--comment on the state of the American media that we have come to rely on these two funnymen to tell us the truth about our country in the same way we relied on Murrow in the '50s and Walter Cronkite in the '60s. But as the mainstream media keep reminding us, albeit unintentionally, the MSM's groupthink is invulnerable to reality. Like the president who remained so popular with them for so long, it literally takes a hurricane and a biblical-style flood to get them to pay attention to events that do not conform to the agreed-upon national narrative.


Is Jon Stewart Our Ed Murrow? Maybe...

[Crunchy Frog]

1. Wrong link. Can you correct it?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Here's a link to it on The Nation site:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090413/alterman

[soupkitchen]

3. More like Mark Twain

Those who dismiss Jon Stewart as being a comedian are missing the wardrobe for the label.
John Stewart happens to be a engaged citizen of the republic; an intelligent, literate, perceptive, thoughtful human being who happens to be a humorist.

He's like the Mark Twain of TV. While his humor might entertain people it's the truth he's conveying that carries the day for him. Because he has thought about the issues of the day, he is able to mine the humor inherent in the paradox that he, a lowly comedian, seems to have examined the point in question from more angles than the expert he is interviewing. Or, to put it more bluntly, he expertly squirts experts in the eyes with the grapefruit juice of their own hubris.

But the key here is, that because he is an engaged citizen of the republic: an intelligent, literate, perceptive, thoughtful human being he never does this to belittle. (Except when the power is so entrenched and ominous it needs to be belittled.)

So, in the end I think of Jon Stewart more as being a cultural leader, than a comedian. He makes us laugh, but really what he wants to do is to get us to think. And maybe, he is slowly getting America back to thinking about the issues of the day. Thinking about the issues of the day, a much more serious business, of course, than comedy.

[lame54]

4. Check out this interview Jon did with Bill Moyers...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=290410&mesg_id=290410

[steven johnson]

5. For a contrary point of view

Not everyone is that impressed.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?&entry_id=36973">If Stewart is the new Murrow, does Couric have to be Bozo the Clown?