Stewart’s re-mastered narrative
When you come down to it, Jon Stewart’s segment on Crossfire was actually sort of lame. He told the hosts that they’re playing into the hands of the politicians and corporations, but he didn’t tell them how. He called them hacks but didn’t explain in what sense. He said they were degrading democracy but not what an alternative might be. When people replay this segment in ten or fifty years, they’ll wonder why it mattered.
Nevertheless, I believe this was a seminal moment in the re-framing of the media. To be precise, the moment came when Stewart refused to be Tucker Carlson’s funny “monkey.” Now who’s the entertainer and who’s the seeker?
“The outing of Cross Fire is an underground hit,” as Jock Gill says. The fact that Stewart’s appearance was lame and yet so powerful is evidence of just how important his appearance was. We are so desperate to hear someone say the simple truth: The mainstream media is as unknowing about itself as a 14-year-old admiring himself in a mirror, convinced his new haircut makes him cool.
And then Jock connects this, correctly IMO, to the fate of the “master narrative.” Jock points to one important feature of the new framing that’s developing: We are beginning to view ourselves as the media. “We the Media,” as Dan Gillmor says it in the title of his book.
But Stewart’s got it even right-er. In fact, Jock puts it well in the title of his blog piece, taken from Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man“: “Something’s happening here but you don’t know what it is … [sneer] do you, Mr. Jones?” (Damn you, Jock! That’s the cliche I was going to use for the title of this piece!) The new frame that’s developing, I believe, isn’t just that we are the media. It’s that the media are the last to know.
That’s why Stewart is the perfect messenger: The media are in the business of telling us what’s going on, but it turns out they don’t have any idea what’s going on with themselves. Now that’s funny!
And so the old framing will end not with a bang but with a giggle.
(And so blog entries will end not with a thought but with a cliche.)
Does anyone have a contact at The Daily Show? If so, can you suggest that they get Jay Rosen as a guest so he can talk about master narratives? (And, yes, I know I’ve used the phrase loosely in this piece.)
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Not that Jon Stewart is one of our great political philosophers, but the “lame” aspects of his approach on Crossfire was to a great extent determined by what Tucker and Paul were gonna let him get away with. Once they realized that he was not there to be their “monkey,” they (Tucker especially) attempted to regain control over the show. At least Stewart sunk a couple of harpoons between their putdowns.
When the real news is fake then fake news becomes real.
There seems to be a game of media musical chairs being played out here where companies like Sinclair, CNN and Fox sell entertainment as news and it’s left to Comedy Central give us our nightly dose of reality.
This discussion revolves around some TV shows and TV personalities i take it? Between TiVO and the web, how many of us pay attention to these geeks anymore? Or let me ask that another way… what is “Crossfire” and who is Jon Stewart?
Frank, how about getting assuming the position for a while…you know, butt on couch, eyes forward, mouth shut, TV on. Damn Interneters!
:)
I agree with Frank. These TV commentators try to serve this up as entertainment without the need to be enlightening. Who’s interested? Now they’re out to cannibalize each other in an attempt to get the attention of the Web denizens (Webnizens?).
Next thing you know they’ll try using sock puppets.
[Would be nice to do the IRC thing during the game tonight]
Dave:
Nice piece.
A couple of thoughts though. The media don’t report what we need to know. They report what we want to know. The are really in the business of shaping our wants to match their capabilities (they call that match ‘objective’).
We the Media reports on what we know – and let other find it, if it’s relevant and interesting.
It is also worth noting that the media isn’t getting worse. It’s always been this bad. What is new is that a better alternative is emerging.
Paul
Someone on Adam Felber’s blog makes the comparison of Jon’s gradually becoming regarded as the truth-teller, with the function of the medieval court jester. And on Mexican television until a few months ago, there was Brozo the Clown, more buffoonish than Jon, but who came to occupy much the same niche, and was the means of breaking at least one national scandal.
Maybe the media have always been bad, but what’s going on now, that only jesters can speak to us directly?
Hey, David, thanks for that plug. Can I give you a list of the other shows I need to be on?
I think you nailed it when you said “the media are the last to know.” This is what came through in the Stewart segment but also in what Carlson and Begala said about it, after.
If 500,0000 people watch your show, Crossfire, but a million are aware of it and treat it as a joke, what’s going to be your reference point as a professional? The million to whom you are comedy or the 500,000 to whom you are news? Carlson and Begala were unaware of this other “audience,” and therefore unaware that Stewart, in a sense, represented them.
With Stewart, they advertised themselves, on their own air, as the last to know about this million in the anti-audience.
I seem to recall Stewart’s “alternative” being fairly straightforward. Pitched the ludicrous idea that Crossfire was a “debate” show, Stewart said that a debate show would be great, but that’s not what they are.
The above commenter is spot on when they say that Stewart simply wasn’t going to be allowed to get that deeply into it. But he did indicate the alternative: Actual debate, not simply aping the stances of screaming spinmeisters.
The Impact of Stewart’s “Crossfire” Appearance
Earlier I posted a clip of Jon Stewart’s appearance on ‘Crossfire’ where he basically told Begala and Carlson that they were, how can I say this…”partisan hacks.” And that their lack of actual, honest, fact-based debate was “hurting America.” The…