Jon Stewart’s media critique

01 November 2010 |permalink | email article

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear rally Saturday in Washington on the National Mall and hosted by comedian Jon Stewart of Comedy Central alongside Stephen Colbert was important for two reasons. The event drew a far larger audience than the one held by Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” religious rally which the conservative Fox News host held last August.

Stewart’s final monologue was less a political message than an extended bit of media criticism. “We live in hard times, not end times. We can have animus and not be enemies,” It was a reference to 24-hour news media that needs to be feed with overstated conflict and hyper-inflated alarmist rhetoric.

“If we amplify everything we hear nothing. Americans don’t live on cable TV…The press is our immune system, Stewart said, “If it overreacts to everything, we get sicker, and maybe eczema.” He was not talking about “fake news” and never mentioned Fox News by name. But The National Journal wondered whether the event should have been called the Rally to Restore Journalism. In an ironic sense the event was notable because several hundred journalists showed up to interview rally goers in the crowd.

Read ‘em and weep

“Joe Miller – do not give up. It’s you against the machine. This is it. ‘Lost causes’ are the only ones fighting for.’” – Sarah Palin, tweeting for a tea partier favorite who’s in a free fall for the U.S. Senate race in Alaska.

“Harry Reid is the most resilient figure in Nevada political history. He should not even be here. He lost a U.S. Senate race in 1974, embarrassed himself in a mayoral race in 1975 and should have lost his re-election bid in 1998. But he found a way to win, and he will again on Tuesday. – Jon Ralston, the veteran Las Vegas Sun political columnist, reporting the atmosphere is terrible for him but countering the feeling Reid will lose, and beat Sharron Angle 47% to 45%.

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