John Stewart is right, but we need more real argument.

[gulliver]

I listened to John Stewart with Rachel, and I found his reasoning impeccable. Like a marriage counselor, Stewart avoids designating a guilty party. He wants to unite the two parties in a "conflict with conflict itself." Stewart's enemy is the "24-hour news media." He made that very clear. It's not that Stewart doesn't deplore Fox News much more than MSNBC. Anyone who watches TDS knows that he does. Stewart just wants both sides on the same side, and he knows what a lot of us here on DU don't seem to know: Neither side is going to accept the role of culprit under any circumstances.

Stewart's prescription is to try to fight "24-hour news media" conflict mongering with both satire and sincere rhetoric. It's the best answer going so far. It's hopeless, though, in my opinion. The "conflictinator" is not going to go away just because Stewart and others ridicule it and attack it. To make the conflictinator go away, I think you need to replace high energy, indirect, fallacious "argument" with direct, face-to-face argument.

Anyone who has watched Bill Maher go head-to-head with Bill O'Reilly or Darryl Issa has seen this in action. Direct, high stakes, face-to-face debate is good for the soul. Indirect, behind-the-back "debate" is poisonous. It is this indirect argument spiral, not the media that carry it, that is the root problem, and direct argument is the cure. Instead of calling for people to simply cool down the rhetoric, we should be calling for people to do their debating face-to-face, on camera, and in real time. If we appealed to that old ethic that it is cowards and liars who talk about other people only behind their backs, we might find that the 24-hour news media suddenly has a lot less conflict available for distribution.

On edit: Added quotes around "conflict with conflict itself" for better readability.

[Aramchek]

1. Stewart is a coward, not a marriage counselor.

[Umbral]

2. You mean like the kind of debate they had on Crossfire? nt

[HopeHoops]

4. Better yet, "Point-Counterpoint" with Dan Akroid and Jane Curtain on SNL.

"Jane, you ignorant slut. Who DID you sleep with to get this job?"

Note: He only used the second part of that once to the best of my knowledge.

They were really on to something back then - what was that episode, like '79, '80? It was already that fucked up in the media. Oh what they would do with it now.

[gulliver]

7. One problem with Crossfire...

...was that they didn't have the main combatants squaring off. I thought Crossfire had great promise, but then it started to become clear that the left and right sides were not well represented. The hosts were proxies to proxies. There is a vast difference between a "good natured" debate between Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson and a "real" debate between, say, Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh. Crossfire devolved into a less exciting version of the McLaughlin Group. The hosts of the show needed to worry more about cancellation more than holding people's feet to the fire on accuracy and civility.

[HopeHoops]

3. "Shut your festering gob, ya tit. Your kind really makes me want to puke."

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is abuse. Arguments is just down the hall to the left."

:hi:

Sorry, just watched "The Meaning of Life" yesterday (again) and had Monty Python on the brain.

Still, the "abuse" portion of that skit is more in line with what is going on in the media than anything that might be construed as an "argument". He is correct there. The "ad hominem" approach used by the media doesn't do anything to advance the discussion. It is simply polarizing.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

5. It's rather like political "debates"

On The H.O.R.N., we stopped calling those candidate appearances "debates" over two years ago. Now, we call them "pageants." We do that because they aren't debates in any form recognizable to anyone who understands the concept of "debate."

I don't think, however, that the right wing will go in for the idea of true debate, at least as a general principle. They can't. If you pay much attention to it, the right-wing can't win without a slanted playing field. As such, the give-and-take, point-counterpoint nature of debate doesn't suit their own ends.

Ultimately the right wing doesn't care what kind of crazy crap they fling against the wall, as long as it sticks. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have "Birthers" and "Tenthers" and "Deathers" and all the other myriad booger-eaters who inhabit the world-behind-the-baseboards of the Wingnutosphere. The right wing deliberately obfuscates, misinforms and outright lies so as to tap into the very most base instincts of an electorate they know are already primed to hate. They need only have direction given TO that hate.

In my case, I won't allow wingnuts on The H.O.R.N. They have a THOUSAND hours of hatecasting for every hour a liberal broadcasts. As such, they can go fling poop elsewhere.

[Papa Boule]

6. I don't think people realize how surreal and bizarre this dust-up over Stewart is

and what the standing of the left is now in the marketplace of ideas.

I'm not sure how to express this. It's like everyone of influence has sided with the evil king, and the peasants have defaulted to looking to a court jester as their advocate and spokesperson. And believing that he has power and influence to do it. And they are frustrated that he's not doing a better job at it.

And they don't think it's bizarre that they're looking at a court jester that way, or how that strange state of affairs came to be. They don't even realize what they're doing. Or what they're expecting. They're not aware that they've been reduced to having only a court jester (or two) represent them in the media. They still think they are a major voice, or that they have a major voice expressing their points out there.

The left has been marginalized right under its own nose. Its "spokespeople" are broadcasting to them as a small, isolated, core group on a special interest station in a fragmented media landscape. Their "messages" aren't going outside the group. They are regarded as the fringe, the small group of nuts on the outside edge.

The right, in its most extreme form, is poised for a resurgence -- the likes of which we haven't seen. Not in this country.

[grasswire]

8. I don't think that's what he said.

Jon Stewart: The media needs to talk about corruption instead of ginning up a Red v. Blue political fight. The Red v. Blue contest deflects attention from the real problem in America which is corruption. (That was his real point.)

[gulliver]

12. True. He said it was the good against the corrupt...

... and not a Red vs. Blue thing just as you say. He is attacking the "Red vs. Blue" conflict as false and diverting us to a different conflict against the corrupt. I truly wasn't trying to say Stewart said he was engaging us in "conflict against conflict." I was saying that is what he is doing. If you think this is sophistry, I guess I wouldn't blame you. The post would have been better had I mentioned the section of the Maddow interview you are referring to, and you have a good point, imo.

[malaise]

9. I absolutely enjoyed the discussion

and while I didn't agree with everything he said, a lot of what he said made sense.

[RZM]

10. Some good points here

Real debate (and not the mere exchange of talking points, which is what our presidential debates are) is a good thing for the reasons you mentioned. I would also add that it promotes another thing that is sorely lacking on both sides, which is basic respect. Too many on both sides don't see their opponents as worthy of breathing air, let alone worthy of basic courtesy. Unfortunately, I don't think that this is all about the media, but more about human nature. People naturally divide themselves into groups based on a myriad of identities (DU is a good example). There's nothing wrong with that, but we all have to work toward bridging those gaps, no matter how painful or cringe-inducing that might be. What some of the most ideological on both sides have trouble accepting is that we ARE all in this together. Sometimes they let their dreams of cutting the opposition out of the picture get the best of them and forget the fact that no matter how passionately you hate the people or positions on the other side, they aren't going anywhere.

[stray cat]

11. Real investigative journalism that reports facts and challenges lies

beats those run by politics first and integrity not at all

[gulliver]

13. I agree. I think investigative journalism would be much better...

...in an environment of "real" debate instead of "debate by proxy" and press release. Right now, the truth is at a low premium. What is the point of investigative journalism if it is delivered through the same channels as the swill? Real, continuous debate increases the value of facts. If the debate never goes away, the facts can't be sidestepped. If there is no real debate, facts don't matter.

[grasswire]

14. okay, then.....the problem is sensationalism by broadcast media

That is what drives Jon's unease. I don't think he expressed that very well.

I think we all can agree about that as a major distortion of today's journalism. And MSNBC is as guilty of sensationalism as is FOX. So is CNN.

I wonder what a network would look like that covered corruption v. good, without sensationalism.