Admittedly we’re a little behind the eight ball in posting this interview from last Thursday night’s Rachel Maddow Show, in which the MSNBC host sat down with Jon Stewart to discuss criticisms of the media launched at last month’s Rally To Restore Sanity. As many have noted, it was an interesting dance to watch. Maddow, the warmest and smartest face of a network that found itself in Stewart’s scope, came to her own defense. And an under-the-weather Stewart deflected much of the “false equivalence” criticism thrown his way after he grouped MSNBC and Fox together, and made some pretty salient points about the media and his job as a media-watcher.
It was some good TV—not in the “Are you in a trance?” gotcha sense, but in the sense of watching two extremely smart, invested people debate a high-stakes subject we care about. It was also a nice, sane change in pace for cableland. When things got testy, such as in the following exchange about MSNBC’s coverage of last summer’s town halls, they remained civil.
Stewart: Your coverage of it was to delegitimize it; that it was actually not real, it was Astroturf.
Maddow: No. Actually no… I think my approach to that was to say this is being used as a widespread political tactic by people with a lot of money and a lot of stake in the policy issues. And they’re sort of deploying direct-action activists in a way that we haven’t seen before.”
Stewart: Would you say that the general spirit of the block of coverage on MSNBC was as… dismissive of the woman who stands up and says Bush is a war criminal or the people at the Town Hall. Do you think they were viewed through the same prism?
Maddow: I think that they were viewed through an appropriately proportional prism. Because I think Code Pink is like twelve ladies and I think that literally half of Indiana says they identify with the Tea Party.
Stewart said that his problem with much of cable coverage—something that might have been misperceived by some listening to his rally speech—is that it inflates the conflicts and differences between political sides.
It’s become tribal. If you have 24-hour news channels that focus… their job is to highlight the conflict between two sides, where I don’t think that’s the main conflict in our society. That was the point of the rally…. That’s a real conflict, red-and-blue, democrat-republican. But I feel there’s a bigger difference between people with kids and people who don’t have kids than red state blue state.
The entire interview is worth a look.
If you don’t have the fifty minutes to spare, MSNBC (among others) has posted the interview in parts.
Although I like Stewart, I too thought he created a bit too much equivalence between Fox News and the other networks during the rally. They all have their negatives -- but Fox stands alone in its quest to influence rather than report.
#1 Posted by The Quackling, CJR on Tue 16 Nov 2010 at 12:16 AM
You're a typical Fox News hater who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. MSNBC has been notorious for having a one-sided liberal view, and Fox for having the complete opposite view. They both run the same type of shows. Olbermann vs. Big Bear, Maddow vs. Hannity, etc. They are the same type of networks - just with different views. What's so hard to understand? Stop smoking marijuana and being a big dirtbag hippie and realize what you're watching.
#2 Posted by Quackling needs to shutup, CJR on Tue 16 Nov 2010 at 12:44 AM
I really liked this interview. I wish there was more of this. Each side really wanted to explain what they thought was going on without resorting to yelling and screaming at each other. What a novel concept.
As for the content of the interview, I had a couple of problems with Mr. Stewart. First, he says in one breath that the issue is corruption vs non-corruption and then essentialy dismisses war crimes because they are not at the Pol Pot level of criminatlity (that is my interpretation of his comments). I essentialy heard Mr. Stewart tell us that the media should not confront politicians regarding their actions. Maybe this is why Mr. Stewart hardly, if ever, asks anything other than softball questions on his show.
I also take issue with Mr. Stewart hiding behind his comedian credentials. Polls have shown that people my age (I am 34) get a fair amount (if not most) of their "news" from the Daily Show. That suggests to me something is wrong. That suggests to me that Mr. Stewart is more than a comedian. If Mr. Stewart does not want to be seen as such, then the format and content of the Daily Show must change.
#3 Posted by Jason P, CJR on Tue 16 Nov 2010 at 10:22 AM
Once again, a commenter here proves my suspicion that the far right (as represented by Fox News viewers and "Quaackling needs to shut up") have to rely on name calling and angry shouting to make their points, rather than civil debate, which is what this whole post was about. So thanks, "Quackling needs to shut up."
I agree that MSNBC features hosts with a decidedly left point of view in some shows. But I think there is a huge difference between the way Fox systematically presents a distorted point of view, presents outright lies, and exists almost entirely to support a Republican ticket and far-right views, and MSNBC featuring a few shows that are a little more left-leaning. Olbermann and Maddow do occasionally use hyperbole to make their points, take things out of context, and distort the right's actions and statements for a story. But overall, the Fox does this on an entirely grander scale.
#4 Posted by laura k, CJR on Tue 16 Nov 2010 at 10:30 AM
Jason P, the "format and content of the Daily Show" is called satire. Satire is neither a political tactic nor a news service--it's an art form. Just because some people choose to get their daily dose of sociopolitical commentary that way doesn't mean that the show should change.
#5 Posted by DPinVA, CJR on Tue 16 Nov 2010 at 11:49 PM
Laura K.
Thank you for your comments. I agree that msnbc leans left and I'm not much a fan of any corporate media. I'm with Stewart on that. But to equate Fox News to the other networks on this issue seems out of proportion. The other networks are arguing certain points. Fox News, on the other hand, presents a narrative that paints a false picture of reality in order to further an agenda.
As an example, Fox News will often try to show that Democrats are "out of touch" with the American people. They do this by jumbling together all kinds of non-evidence such as polls of little relevance, combined with their own interpretation of election results, and other opinion blended with minimal facts. The point is that this isn't a story or news. It's Fox trying to get people to believe that Democrats are out of touch - solely for the purpose of getting voters to vote Republican. Tactics like that are not simply right-leaning on issues - it is overt distortion meant to help throw elections.
#6 Posted by The Quackling (Quacklings.com), CJR on Wed 17 Nov 2010 at 11:04 AM
Rachel is absolutely right that it's inappropriate to equate Code Pink with the tea partiers who disrupted town hall meetings last summer - not only because one is a genuine grassroots group and the other is astroturf, but more importantly because one is speaking truth to power (Bush committed war crimes) while the other is spewing lies (health care reform = death panels = nazism). One is trying to provoke discussion and the other is trying to shut it down. Jon has made some good points about the way the media contribute to false polarization, but he carries it too far and ultimately undermines his own argument when he refuses to distinguish between truth and lies, and claims that tone trumps content at all times. And he completely lost me when he admitted that Bush is a war criminal but said we shouldn't talk about it because it's a "conversation stopper."
#7 Posted by Amy, CJR on Thu 18 Nov 2010 at 10:30 AM