Jon Stewart, we hardly knew ye

This week marks the passing of the torch in fake journalism as Jon Stewart steps down from his anchor desk at The Daily Show for some well-earned rest.  Doing a daily show like, um, The Daily Show would be grueling if you were just mailing it in, but under Stewart’s leadership the show set an unprecedented standard for craftsmanship.  Reports about well-known full-time comedians like Amy Shumer or Chris Rock replacing him were absurd, as hosting The Daily Show would preclude any other work these people were doing.

Of course the gig had to go to a relative unknown, Trevor Noah, just as Stewart was relatively unknown when he replaced Craig Kilborn (who? Look him up on Wikipedia).  Noah not only has to replace Stewart as the on-air face of The Daily Show, he also has to manage to staff responsible for supporting it.  Few people have the combination of skills needed to hysterically take down world leaders and also ride herd over a staff of comedy writers.

The most brilliant thing about Jon Stewart is that he can do three things at once: he can be angry, he can be smart, and he can be funny.  It is hard enough to do any TWO of those things simultaneously; people are rarely angry AND smart, or funny AND angry.  But Stewart manages all three; he can be hysterically funny while brilliantly pointing out why the Congress, or CNN, or Fox News, or Barack Obama, is really pissing him off.

My favorite of his take-downs was when he covered the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology vainly trying to punch holes in the pro-climate change arguments of White House Science Advisor John Holdren.  Holdren was a Stanford educated Ph.D. who had taught at Harvard and UC Berkeley; the Republican members of the House Committee obviously hadn’t had a science class since 6^th grade.  Yet that didn’t stop them from trying to refute his warnings about the ice caps melting and raising the sea level by pointing out that ice cubes melting in a glass of water don’t cause it to overflow.  Stewart's explanation was far less polite, and far funnier, than Holdren’s response had been.

Fox News (the word “news” should really be in quotation marks) regularly assails Stewart for being a liberal, but what Jon Stewart really hates is stupidity.  Unfortunately for the Bush administration, that usually meant that his ire was focused on Dubya.  But he has had other targets.  His status as “the most trusted newsman in America” was cemented by his appearance on the CNN show Crossfire in 2004 where he accused hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson of “hurting America” with fatuous arguments and false dichotomies.  Several months later the show was cancelled.

Many years ago a series of books came out whose titles were “Something [Seinfeld, Baseball, Woody Allen, etc.] and Philosophy.”  Philosophers had finally found a way to make money, by commenting on popular culture.  I own several of these books including “The Daily Show and Philosophy,” in which virtually every chapter asks the same question—how can a “fake news” show be the most trusted source of news in America?  I think that question is best answered by pointing out that the next election will probably be another Clinton versus another Bush, unless Bush is upset by Donald Trump.  With reality this absurd, fake news starts to look more appealing.

The real answer is that journalism has lost its way.  Journalist became convinced that to be trusted they had to be “objective” and being objective meant never pointing out when someone was telling an obvious lie. The first time I came across this truth was in the book Playing to Win by Jeff Greenfield.  Greenfield pointed out that a New York Times story would never begin with the words, “Senator Smith lied again today when he said . . . .”  So you could get away with telling a fib because it would be reported as a fact, and readers would be none the wiser.

With news organization hamstrung by their obsessive desire to appear objective, it was left to a comedian to show clips of a politician asserting something as fact, followed by several minutes of clips proving the exact opposite.  The major news outlets would never run a clip of a candidate saying, “I never said . . .” and then show numerous examples of that politician saying EXACTLY that; The Daily Show would (this is how Stewart made Mad Money’s Jim Creamer look like a bigger fool than usual).

Comedy Central is in a precarious place right now.  Stephen Colbert has already left his Emmy-winning spin-off of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, in order to take over David Letterman’s gig at The Late Show.  John Oliver wasn’t available to succeed Jon Stewart because he has his own show at HBO, Last Week Tonight (where he has proven tremendously effective; after a tirade about net neutrality the FCC received so many complaints they re-examined their position).  Key & Peele have announced their show will be ending after the current season.  Heaven knows how much longer they will be able to hold on the Amy Shumer as her movie career takes off.  That is a huge brain drain for a relatively small network.

Time will tell if Trevor Noah will be able to fill Jon Stewart’s enormous shoes.  I hope so, as America needs a beacon of light as we head into another election cycle.  After 16 years behind his anchor desk, Jon Stewart deserves a break, even if his quitting means that he, and not CNN, is hurting America.