The first joke Stewart makes about the Guatemalan scandal, starts with pondering on what America could have possibly done to another country in the 1940’s. When he’s learns it was intentionally infect syphilis, he gives a sarcastic sigh of relief and says, “I thought it was that whole atomic bomb thing.” And immediately the crowd erupts in laughter. Jon Stewart opens his shows with a joke on our country’s horrific past and somehow makes America not only laugh but informed.
CNN.com had a viral piece about the scandal as well as a written article. Elizabeth Cohen, the senior medical correspondent stood in front of the camera and gave the gory details about America’s secret medical experiment in Guatemala. She had a look of obvious disgust for the situation and even got choked up when she talked about it. The camera panned to another anchor and they seemed to have what was supposed to seem like an off the cuff discussion on their disgust to the situation. While I don’t question the sincerity of their emotions I do question the reason why CNN decided to let Cohen casually talk to the anchor while they were still on screen. I think CNN wanted to make the viewer feel like the anchors (and consequently CNN) genuinely cared about what happened 40 years ago. Personally I felt slightly suspicious and uncomfortable. Not only at their show of emotions but at the way the camera panned toward the other anchor before Cohen walked toward him, making her actions seem pre-mediated and planned. Their banter which was “spontaneous” was very awkward and they even spoke over one another. Basically, it felt forced.
“While Jon Stewart is a guy in a suit pretending to be a newscaster, and he acts like a guy in a suit pretending to be a newscaster, there's a certain formality and rigidity we've come to expect from our news, so much so that when Katie Couric opens the news with 'Hi,' or now I think it's 'Hello,' this is thought of as some kind of breakdown in the proper etiquette of newscasting," says the Chicago Tribune's Rosenthal.”(Smoklin)
Comparing Stewart’s reaction and coverage of the news to Cohen’s is like comparing apples and oranges. They are two completely different people in two completely different positions. Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” is not supposed to be the same as the “real” news shows. And we trust his opinion and value it more because his viewers know and understand this. Jon Stewart has no other motive besides making us laugh when he gives us the news. The “real” news is heavily censored because it’s made possible by the government and the corporations, the very same entities that need to be monitored and reported about.
I always envisioned the media as a battered wife that has to lie to its family and friends about its deranged and abusive husband. The battered wife is the news company and anchors. The husband is the corporations that fund the news company. Coincidentally, husband has a best friend who is a police officer. The police officer would be the government. While the police officer is possibly the only person who could stop the husband, he doesn’t, because they are friends. And the family and friends are the average American audience who believes the wife’s story. We might think something doesn’t add up in the story, but what can we do about it?
Enter Jon Stewart; a member of the family who tries to get the other family members to see just how wrong and contrived the dysfunctional relationship between the media, the big corporations and the government is. Personally, I think he’s succeeding. More and more news channels are trying to be more personable, and trying to make jokes. The only problem is, they are omitting the hard truth that Jon Stewart is able to bring to his show. Why? Because the news will be beat by the corporations. When Morely Safer famously portrayed the American troops “search and destroy” mission Vietnam in a truthfully horrific light the president of CBS received a call from the president of the United States that same night. And strangely, the news has since then never showcased horrific acts done by the American government. Even the Guatemalan scandal received very little notice. 500 words stories that you have to search to find.
The news does not have an allegiance to the people; it can’t afford to have one.
“Our impatience with television’s view of politics represents, in part, a longing for an era when the news regularly achieved the depth, impartiality and civic lesson- an era that never was.”(Stephens)
Somehow people fell for the friendly faces on the TV and believed they actually had the best interests of the people in mind. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do believe the news was intended to inform the people, and still has those same good intentions. But I do believe the road to hell is paved with good intentions and CBS Camel Caravan ads.
Basically, you can’t trust the news to give you raw facts about the government or big corporations because the government wields the power of access to political affairs over the stations heads, and the corporations cuts the checks. If you want news that has no other ulterior motive other than to make you laugh, then you should be watching the “Daily Show with Jon Stewart”.
Stephens, Mitchell. “Television Transform the News” Communication in History Sixth Edition 2011
Smoklin, Rachel. 2010 “What America can learn from Jon Stewart” American Journalism Review.com Retrieved October 20, 2010. (http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4329)
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