Daily Satire - I'm having withdrawal
Is it wrong? With the writers strike going on, I can’t help but miss Jon and Stephen
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Yeah, I know the Daily Show isn’t really “the Press”, but I think it falls under “the Media” so I believe it’s fair territory here. I have to come clean – I’m a big fan of both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. With the writers stike going on, both shows have been silenced for a couple weeks, and there is no indication that’ll they’ll be back in the imediate future.
And though I make it a point to watch almost every episode, I’m not one of those “Gen Xers” that supposedly get 90% of their news from the Daily Show. In fact I have a hard time believing those people exist in the large numbers I’ve heard in the past. The thing is, 2/3ds of those shows wouldn’t be very funny if you didn’t have some idea what Stewart or Colbert were talking about in the first place.
I have to admit that I don’t get a lot of my news from the printed newspaper, I read it on the internet or watch the 24 hour news channels (yes, it’s ok to hisssss right there). To me the daily satire shows fill the role that political cartoons might for people who get their news the old fashioned way. Sure, newspaper readers don’t spend an hour every Monday night reading political cartoons interspersed with adds for soda and video games. I didn’t say it was a perfect analogy.
How does you feel about these shows? Do you watch them? What impact do you think Jon Stewart (and Stephen Colbert, and Bill Mahar, etc.) has on the political discourse in the media?
In the mean time, us DS fans will have to take what we can to tide us over. bonus guest appearance at the end
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First, in reference to the video – HAHAHA!
And on a more serious note, I’m a hugh Colbert fan. We hear all about all the people getting their only news from shows like these, but I find that hard to believe. Even i thats true, I think these shows are more help than harm. At the very least they are getting people interested in what’s going on in politics who may not have been other wise.
I think these shows are great. At least they get political topics into the attention of people who might not care otherwise. Also, they attract young people to politics. They may be slanted, but most media forms are these days and at least viewers will have some familiarity with the issues.
By the way, The Daily Show’s “America: the Book” is probably the funniest thing I ever read. I always try to find ways to utilize it in my classroom but often there’s some little thing in the content that is just too vulgar.