Jon Stewart is now embracing what he once condemned.

[JamesA1102]

For many years Stewart's chief complaint against cable and broadcast news was their effort to be "fair and balanced" without regard for the truth. He condemned the notion that there were two equal sides to every issue and the practice bringing on spokespeople from each side to debate an issue without any effort to present the facts or correct either side when the facts were misrepresented.

However, Stewart is now saying that right and left are two sides of the same coin. That news outlets like MSNBC and FOX are just liberal and conservative mirrors of each other. But Stewart does not account for which side has the facts on their side. To him, the facts don't seem to matter anymore. Everyone is equally bad in his eyes whether the facts support their position or not.

[virgogal]

1. Jon's mid-life crisis?

[grasswire]

2. I don't think he said what you think he said. n/t

[BeFree]

3. hmmm

Seems as if the fox has gotten into the 'Daily Hen House' and scared the birdies?

And.... has Stewie ever heard of a fellow named Carlin?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. He sounded like CNN. nt

[fishwax]

5. that's not really what he said n/t

[rainy]

6. His point, I think, was that it is not about left or right it's about

corruption. It that regard both sides are corrupt. The cable news has made it about Democrats and Republicans and he is right. Rachel says Republicans this and Republicans that, the same with Ed and Keith. What we as progressives should be pointing out is that the whole system is messed up and the fact that we only have two sides is part of the problem. We know the democrats are just as bought and paid for or we would have seen more from them the past two years.

[eleny]

8. The difference between FoxNews and the rest is that FoxNews won the right to lie in court

An example - Beck lied about George Soros in his recent programs about Soros.

I don't recall liberals in the media lying about issues as a matter of policy.

[rainy]

9. That is the better point that Rachel was trying to make.

At least, she as a liberal, tells the truth. I think Jon was saying to expand on that and stop just saying Republicans bla bla bla. Say what is really going on with corruption and the whole process. We're in real trouble here. The media must stop just saying left, right. They need to tell the truth about all of it.

[eleny]

12. That's where Stewart lost me

She already does say what's going on with corruption and hypocrisy. She does it by getting them on her program and putting their feet to the fire.

Either he wasn't paying attention or he's out on that snapping limb, as another DUer put it, and he's refusing to acknowledge where he's put himself.

[librechik]

13. actually, Fox won the right for ALL news sources to lie

in Florida, at least...

[eleny]

18. Did MSNBC start to lie, then?

[librechik]

23. some of them do. MSNBC is a very mixed up organization

Dead Girl Scarborough in the am with the enabler Mika lies like a mink in heat. Mrs Greenspan is a cunning liar and also very influential. I trust some of the voices there, but then folks I trust inform me that even Rachel knows how to lie.(Daily Howler, for example. There's an eyeopener) I don't believe it yet, but the more I see of media (and I work in broadcasting) the more aware I become of how deeply corrupt it is. You have to practically be a saint to tell the truth nowadays, on broadcasts. Bill Moyers is an example of a saint. But trust me, even PBS fails to be truthful a lot of the time.

But they don't do it vindictively and brazenly like Fox. Fox is intentional, and they aren't playing to lose.

[eleny]

25. Intention is surely the heart of the matter

I take your point at face value about Morning Joe because I never watch the program. Here in the Mtn Time Zone it's on way to early and then I swim in the morning most weekdays. Your word on this is A+ afaic.

I was thinking of the liberals on the network and never even thought of that early morning round table discussion that leans right. Thanks for that clarity on the fair n' balance of MSNBC! :hi:

[JamesA1102]

10. But saying both sides are corrupt is a false equivalency nt

[Major Hogwash]

17. The irony is that Jon took himself serious, after soooo many years of just telling jokes.

When I was watching him last night, I kept thinking, he's going to say "no, I'm just kidding" and lean forward and crack up laughing.
Because that is always what he does on his show.

But, he never did.

So after awhile I thought he was more or less doing a skit like an Andy Kaufman routine, playing the absurd straight.
You know, being totally out-of-this-world, but never letting on about it.
Especially when he said that Bush wasn't evil, but then said how the liberals on the left liked saying that about Bush all the time.

And then I thought, well, yeah, that's all true, but Cheney actually did like it when the liberal left compared him to Darth Vader, so how far off were we when we said that Bush was evil?
Ya know.

And that war "technicality" crap was never going to fly, not with me, anyway.

So, I have to wonder now how Jon feels about Keith's "stick puppet theater".
Does Jon think Keith is intruding into his territory, of comedy.
I didn't used to like stick puppet theater, but Keith did one the other night about Beck that made me laugh until I was crying.

A lot of people that I talked to that went to the rally or saw the rally on tv said it was great, right up until the end, when he gave that speech.
But, to me, that was just Jon being more sarcastic, saying that "we do it every damn day, every damn day."

I was laughing when he said that during the rally because nothing was supposed to be serious about that rally to begin with.

[jobycom]

7. He said the exact opposite of what you are saying he said.

He's still saying that being "fair and balances" is not simply opposing one side's opinion with an equal opinion on the other side, but is rather objectively reporting facts and correcting either side when it's wrong. He's saying that putting Keith Olbermann against Bill O'Reilly isn't correcting the problem, but compounding it. Even if Olbermann is telling the truth and Bill O'reilly lies, they are still coming at it from a biased position that elevates opinion to the level of journalism, and it weakens the whole premise of objective reporting.

The way to counter O'Reilly isn't to hire an opponent to meet him on his own field, it is to hire an Edward R Murrow and to reject O'Reilly's style of commentary altogether. No one on the right is convinced by anything Olbermann says. No one changes their opinions because of Olbermann. He's just a cheerleader shouting "Liberal, liberal, that's our plan!" instead of "Yay, Conservatives!" It's nice to hear our side represented, sure, and he's got the facts straight a lot more often than the Republicans, but people still know that he's reporting the facts he is because he's a liberal talking to liberals.

The problem is that the whole concept of truth becomes a battle of opinions, and people forget that there really is an objective reality out there. We need a media that reports that reality objectively, not one that rallies the troops for each side. Stewart is saying that you can't be objective by arguing automatically from one side or the other, that an honest media, a real journalist, will argue from outside both groups, and be willing to tell either or both sides they are wrong. That could mean telling the liberals they are wrong, too--in fact, it has to mean that the media is willing to do that. He's not saying the liberals are just as wrong as the conservatives in general, he's just saying that the media has to start with the assumption that either side is equally likely to be wrong, and then they can say "On this issue, the liberals are right, the conservatives are wrong" from a neutral position. People will respect that. But the media has to be willing to say that the liberals are wrong when and if they are, or it can never be objective, and then it can never gain the trust of Americans, and therefore it can never make a difference.

It's a very different thing to say "Both sides are equally right," which is the media's idea of objectivity now, and "Either side can be wrong," which allows the media to say "In this case, the Republicans are completely wrong and the Democrats completely right." That's his point. It hasn't changed. DU just wasn't in the right mood to hear what he was saying this time.

[JamesA1102]

11. But that's not what he was saying

At least not a clearly as you said it.

[SidDithers]

14. Unrec...nt

Sid

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

15. Rec, Just 'cause you're annoying. nt

[NoPasaran]

16. Unrec, "cause you're annoyinger

[B Calm]

19. rec, just because. . .

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

24. I'm mentally unreccing your reply

'cause you're a douche.

[cynatnite]

20. Unrec. That's not what he said. n/t

[JamesA1102]

22. That is what he was saying. The truth hurts I guess nt

[jberryhill]

21. Golly gee whiz

You know, Jon Stewart is a bright guy and a talented entertainer.

I like him a lot.

Other than that, he's a normal schlub trying to make sense of the world like anyone else, and I can't understand the fixation on whether he should be installed as the world's greatest political thinker, or cast into hellfire and damnation.

I don't expect to be in thrall to anyone on TV.

Can't we just think for ourselves, consider that others also have opinions that might fire on all cylinders one day, and maybe not on some other day, without these bizarre fixations?