Jon Stewart's triangulation

Asks the New York Times:

Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?

And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?

Maybe so. After all, we live -- nay, survive -- in a braver, newer media world, where the journalism at, say, Fox News has nothing to do with journalism, either, despite the network's protestations.

Is our parallel journalistic universe, in which Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite's investigative progeny is an expletive-spewing comedian, really so hard to accept -- coming on the heels, as it does, of having abetted the impeachment of a president for being infinitely wise in the consumption of his 10-minute coffee breaks, or of having failed to ask his unelected successor about the wisdom of igniting an unprovoked war, or which now covers and thereby promotes a hyperborean halfwit as a legitimate presidential candidate?

No, I see plenty disquieting but nothing incongruous about a Network jokester acting as an "angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times."

This phenomenon should, however, also act as a wake-up call to MSNBC, which gluts its primetime programming with the sincerest impersonators of Howard Beale (I exempt Lawrence O'Donnell, who merely radiates amusement at all that which so volubly precedes him), only to be upstaged, outclassed and overcome by the real thing -- on a comedy channel.

MSNBC labored many an evening on the hypocrisy of the 9/11 responders bill being blocked by the most politically depraved exploiters of 9/11, to absolutely no effect. Then comes "The Daily Show" and boom, the depraved spring into corrective, humiliated action.

Which tells us at least one thing: MSNBC's "factual" act as a counterweight to the propaganda organ of Fox News is perhaps a primal but impotent scream. The left was already deficient in ideological or potentially mobilized numbers, so its viewing makes little difference; the right doesn't care, for it's watching Fox or reading Going Rogue; and the politically interested middle switched channels long ago to hear its news quite literally as a joke. 

Keith Olbermann can angle his body, bend downward his chin, peer over his glasses and upraise an eyebrow all he wants, but that makes him an Edward R. Murrow not. Nor does Rachel Maddow's jackhammer sarcasm substitute for Eric Sevareid's droll sardonicism. And Ed Schultz's ravings throughout Walter Cronkite's old time slot? No comment.

I do give MSNBC credit for trying. Some alternative to Fox's factually creative spin machine is needed; it was once called straight news, but Lord knows our national addiction to entertainment has remorselessly smothered the bejesus out of that. The thing is, though, when MSNBC is trumped by the likes of an unembellished comedian in exposing the hypocrisies of our time, there's something in its noble efforts that's misfiring.

Comments

[Alexander]

I recently found your site and have bookmarked it. Thanks for the sanity!

[cat48]

I agree! Great site. If I might add to your commentary about the 3 hosts mentioned; I'm certain they were too busy attacking the president for being "weak" and "not fighting for them" during that time. It was a complete waste of airtime. Who needs 2 channels attacking the president? Lawrence seemed to be more interested in constructive criticism, if any. I appreciated that from him.