We begin by watching Rob Corddry’s piece on how to become a new media person, on the Jon Stewart Daily Show. Some of us are dismayed that he’s taken as news, but most of us seem to think the media need to learn from it. People ask if The Daily Show is popular because it blurts out the truth, is irreverent, is passionate… (Obviously, it’s also because it’s funny.) Craig Newmark says one of his favorite quotes now is: “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh. Or else they’ll kill you.”

Anonymized comments:

Jon Stewart, someone says, is liberated from having to suck up to sources.

It’s easier for him because he only has a couple of segments.

Real journalists have to be dispassionate. E.g., if you’ve ever covered a plane crash…

All we should learn from Jon Stewart is that media literacy in this country stinks.

How do we make what we do as lively, interesting and engaging as what Stewart does, but with more content?

We shouldn’t pander to our readers by adopting Stewart’s irony.

Stewart plays the valued role of court jester, but nothing more than that.

My 25-year-old daughter would say that this discussion shows that we’re a bunch of old fogeys.

We live in an ADD culture. We don’t have enough time. We want to get news and entertainment.

This is the what the customer wants. We ought to listen.

The news industry is the only one that tries to adapt customer behavior to what it wants. (Murmurs of disagreement. It’s called “marketing.”)

Discussion of the role of passion in journalism: Is it an obstacle to fair reporting? Or is it a requirement to keep news human? Rather’s mistake was that he was unable to admit that he made a mistake.

(Me:) Stewart is a jester, but the point is that the jester is now more trusted than the king. Stewart’s object of derision is the mainstream media. If the MSM would follow a clip of, say, Cheney saying “I never said X” with the four clips where he did say X, we wouldn’t be watching Stewart.

Half the country hates Stewart. There’s still plenty of room for non-Stewart news sources.

Do the media provide a product or a service?

The media don’t really know what their customers want.

Stewart focuses narrowly — the White House press corps, primarily — and his relevance is limited.

If the media were more transparent, people would be more forgiving.

It’s not about journalists’ passion. It’s about the audience’s passion.

[Jay Rosen, star of the Daily Show segment, walks in late and gets a standing ovation. Except for a couple of people.] [Technorati tag: media]

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