Sunday, September 20, 2015

Shambles of the Fourth Estate

Corporate media is a joke.  And I don't just mean Fox News, the Republican Party's main venue to spread propaganda, which has repeatedly been found to be blatantly dishonest.  CNN regularly fails to correct errors, instead choosing give "both sides" equal merit.

Having someone with an audience, who calls this out is rare thing.  Jon Stewart did so often, but he was far from the norm.  Even less common was the fact that he got results.



Crossfire was cancelled, with Stewart's appearance cited as the reason.  Tucker Carlson has been on the air almost the entire time since.

Knowing there will never again be "The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart" to call out the bullshit we're constantly inundated with creates a huge sense of loss.

This does a lot to show the massive service Stewart provided.  But it does even more to show the even bigger disservice done to us all by the rest of our popular media.  This comedian was a more trusted journalist than almost all of our so called journalists.

Trevor Noah's run as host of the Daily Show will begin next week, but by no fault of his, it could take him years to build the trust Jon Stewart built over his 16 years in the job.

It's a real shame that people doing what Jon Stewart did are so rare when that should be the bare minimum for the entirety of the Fourth Estate.  It's a real shame that one man is able to create such a void by simply claiming his well earned retirement.  Some consolation is in a few people whose work on the subject began with "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart", like Larry Wilmore, Steven Colbert, and John Oliver.

Jon Stewart will be missed because he was special.  I long for a world where such integrity wouldn't be missed because it's the norm.  Where it's on the regular news, not late night and mostly on cable like Comedy Central or HBO.