Leave it to Jon Stewart to condense Fight Night’s frustrations into a neat little nutshell. After airing the debate-specific-but-Daily Show-obligatory Montage of Media Madness last night, the faux-anchor added a bit of commentary:
The first hour of last night’s debate was a sixty-minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of national discourse…WHICH IS MY JOB. Stop doing my job! That’s what I’m here for! I’m the silly man!
Fair point. When it becomes difficult to distinguish Rigorous Political Journalism from satire, you have to wonder who, if anyone, is getting the last laugh.
Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.