The Implosion Factor: John Stewart and Crossfire

By now, you are probably aware of John Stewart's (of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show") appearance on CNN's Crossfire. If not, you can download the video and transcripts. Watch it. According to the University of Pennsylvania's Annenburg School of Communication, the Daily Show makes you smarter. Or at least its audience beats out Crossfire. Here's some more redux from the Toronto Star (a gosh darn great paper). That this moment of media self-reflection is even possible represents a real turn in public conscience regarding mainstream media's handling of matters vital to our democracy. To borrow the motto of Free Press, media is the issue. To John, we're with you, brother. With his kind permission, I would like to reprint an essay of a dear friend of mine, Mike Wagner, an associate instructor in Political Science at Indiana University.

Caught in the “Crossfire”: Big Media Just Don’t Get It
Mike Wagner

My Friday giggles of glee have turned into just another day of shaking my head
at Big Media. The fallout to fake newsman John Stewart’s appearance on CNN’s
blow hard hack-fest “Crossfire” illustrates how unwilling the mainstream media
are to examine themselves critically in any meaningful way. Our republic is
worse for it.

Stewart came to face the crossfire with a mission: to beg “Crossfire” co-
hostiles Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson to stop the partisan hackery and help
the public by engaging in real political debates about issues that take the
nation’s politicians off of their Stepford-ready talking points. Carlson’s
reaction? “But, Mommy! Stewart asked softball questions to John Kerry, when he
was on Stewart’s fake news program, “The Daily Show!”

Here is where the problems begin for poor Tucker and his pals in the elite
media. What does it say about the state of the nation’s media when a comedian
is being chided for not holding a politician’s feet to the fire during an
interview? Isn’t that journalists’ job? Shouldn’t we be worried about what
actual journalists, or even bow-tied political “commentators” for that matter,
ask our nation’s leaders? Ceding journalistic news authority to a man whose
show appears on the same network as crank-calling puppets and “South Park”
seems an odd strategy for “the world’s news leader.”

Stewart rightly responded to Tucker’s whining that Stewart’s job is to be
funny, not be another Edward R. Murrow, or even another Dan Rather with a
fistful of wet-inked documents with “1971” printed on them. Carlson did take
his hands out of his diapers long enough to say that he liked Stewart better
when he was funny, though any hearing person would have noticed that the
live “Crossfire” audience laughed at every point Stewart made. Meanwhile, I am
sure I saw a tumbleweed roll across the silent screen when that unjustifiably
pompous little “rhymes with Tucker” tried to bring the funny to Mr. Stewart.

What’s worse is that in the childish post-Stewart world of “Crossfire,” Stewart
is the one taking the heat in columns across the country. The real issue is
that the mainstream media’s coverage of the last two presidential elections has
been written as if it was lifted from some desperate housewive's unfinished
novel from her college years.

In 2000, Big Media gave us Dumbo vs. Pinocchio. In 2004, it’s Flippy the
Flopping Liberal vs. Mr. Christian Wars-a-lot (now, with more Compassion!).
Where are the in-depth issue stories that might point out how when John Kerry
voted against the first Persian Gulf War, he said on the Senate floor that he
worried that the United States would remain mired in that region for years to
come? Where are the stories that - besides showing that yes, President Bush
lied when he claimed to have never said he didn’t think about Osama bin Laden
very much during the last debate - examine the percentage of U.S. forces sent
by the president to attack Al Qaeda versus the number of forces sent to oust
Saddam?

Later on during “Crossfire’s” clueless, impish grilling of a comedian’s
inability to deliver the tough interview, Paul “from the left” Begala said in
response to Stewart’s complaints about post-presidential debate “spin rooms”
that Begala felt that all the spinners were true believers and that made it
okay. Another argumentative misfire from the “Crossfire” crew. Stewart’s
point wasn’t that the spinners don’t believe in anything, it is that they will
say anything. Of course they believe their candidate is better. Stewart’s
question is what all of ours should be: can’t the media find a way to
independently cover the election in a way that forces the candidates and their
spinmeisters to provide voters with credible, useful information that allows
them to make an informed choice? Maybe we should leave it to the comedians…