Someone asked why I invited Jon Stewart to be the first guest on the Journal’s premiere in 2007.
“Because Mark Twain isn’t available,” I answered.
I was serious.
Like Twain, Stewart has proven that truth is more digestible when it’s marinated in humor.
– Bill Moyers

A sad state of journalism when its top program and its most-popular individual is a fake — I’m not faking it though, when I laugh my ass off at Stewart and company’s take on the horrid events of our time.

(Illustration found here).

Moyers was on Stewart’s show last week and they discussed that 2007 interview, while concluding the current situation with US journalism is shitty at best, and near-criminal at worst.
And the bottom line, Moyers says: “a lot of news organizations no longer do much reporting.”

However, who gets the last, real laugh?

TV viewers ain’t faking it, though.
From Raw Story:

Comedy Central and “The Daily Show” both surged in the May Nielsen ratings, posting their best numbers yet. “The Daily Show” dominated its time slot across all of television, cable and broadcast, and boasted a very impressive 19 percent increase in viewership in May alone.
Meanwhile, according to Mediabistro’s TV Newser, Fox News suffered an overall decline in viewers in the highly sought-after 25-to-54-year old demographic for May, with total ratings down 10 percent.
Bill O’Reilly’s viewership dropped 9 percent, Sean Hannity’s 6 percent, with Greta Van Susteren and Glenn Beck suffering the steepest losses with Van Susteren’s “On the Record” losing 12 percent of its audience and Glenn Beck sliding a whopping 17 percent.
…
The new Nielsen numbers show that “The Daily Show” averaged 2.3 million viewers, beating every program on Fox except Bill O’Reilly’s average of 2.8 million.
“The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” beat all other cable and broadcast programming in a number of categories, including having the most affluent viewers and the most active web-sties.

The story also points out the drop in the ratings for fringe, bat-shit crazy ranters off the right wing: Some of the fall-off in Beck’s numbers may be attributable to the fact that his show is going off the air, but it has been a consistent loser in the ratings for several months. The drop in public interest is echoed in ratings for radio shows hosted by Beck and Rush Limbaugh, which have each lost a third of their listenership in the last year, according to the radio polling group Arbitron.
US peoples are apparently getting sick and tired of all the bullshit.

And what do the all those figures mean?
From tvbythenumbers: For the month of May 2011, “The Daily Show” averaged 2.3 million total viewers and a 1.2 P18-49 rating. Versus May 2010, “The Daily Show” grew an astounding +19% in total viewers, with incredible double-digit ratings growth across all key demos including P18-49 (up +21%), P18-34 (+22%), P18-24 (+21%), M18-34 (+18%) and M18-24 (+21%).
One just can’t beat that, and it is an indication not only how well the Daily Show is performing, but also how shitty every other media outlet is doing.

And Fox News not only sucks at journalism, but the organization is obviously plain, dumb-ass stupid.
In a story this weekend on Sarah Palin’s latest adventures, and to illustrate the segment, the Fox graphics department showed a photo of Tina Fey imitating the former Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008.
A news organization that’s not really a news organization using a illustration of an actress faking a display of a presidential candidate that’s really not a presidential candidate.

Well, gosh, darn, that is so not Paul Revere.
Who?

Hilarious — Horse walks into a bar, bartender asks: “Why the long face?”

Horror talk from the wing-nuttery side of our padded room won’t bring much laughter — one GOP nut wants a law to allow guns onto the floor of the US House of Representatives, while another seeks rules NOT to permit guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress.

Funny or what?

(Illustration: A young, dangerous dork found here).

Guns are as much a part of US history as the Mayflower and Ben Franklin.
Maybe the problem with the proliferation of firearms is that we have taken way too long to do anything about it and those with the biggest mouth can keep the ammunition dry and ready.
Even as the smoke clears in front of a Tucson Safeway, the big-lipped right wing are still screamng to “Take your stinking paws off my M-16, you damned dirty ape!”

And despite the Tucson horror guns-R-US: “I believe, as Americans have believed since the American founding, that firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens make communities safer, not less safe,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) in an interview. “And I understand the human impulse us to look for blame. Heartache does that. But no expressed opinion and no public policy created what happened on Saturday last.”
Creepy.

And even worse creepy…
In spite of the guns and nasty-faced hypocrisy, Townhall, the right-wing magazine, has IDed the Top 50 Most Dangerous Liberals in the U.S., starting with financier George Soros at number one.
From an e-mail sent out recently from Townhall, via Suburban Guerrilla:

Every conservative knows that liberals are working hard every day to recreate this country in their own image, tarnishing our great history and the hard-working people who live here.
While some of the faces of the Left are too clownish to be taken seriously (see Keith Olbermann) others shy away from the limelight in order to push their agenda from behind a veil.
Those people are some of the most dangerous liberals that threaten our way of life.
Not to take away from some of the more obvious liberals, like the Barack Obamas and the Barney Franks of the world, there are many who push the leftwing radical agenda.

And down at #28 on the list — Jon Stewart.
Via TPM:

Political satirist Jon Stewart’s tongue is acid-tipped.
His popular “Daily Show” program regularly slays elected officials for hypocrisy and self-importance, derides political buffoonery and skewers media excesses.
More often than not, it’s bitingly hilarious and decidedly Left-leaning: a potent combination.
…
While acting as a formidable political opinion maker, Stewart inoculates himself against serious criticism by playing the “I’m just a comedian” card.

(Illustration of grown-up
Danger Man found here).

And the reason Stewart is so popular among the young set: The MSM is not worth a shit.

And why are we not surprised?

(Illustration found here).

I was out of regular, daily journalism for nearly 20 years, and upon re-entering the field, what a difference a couple of decades — gone was any kind of media camaraderie, or the exciting, fun-filled joy of chasing a story or any kind of desire to publish something for the public to consume without choking.
The big suck was corporations’ ownership of media outlets — I watched a big company completely destroy a good, strong community newspaper in the quest to reduce deficits, all to the bad for writer and reader.
According to Politico, there’s too much politics: (Duh!)

Perhaps one of the leading factors for American distrust in the media is the high percentage who believe that reporting tilts too far in one ideological direction or the other.
Forty-eight percent believe the media is too liberal while only 15 percent of find that it tilts too conservative. Just 33 percent believe coverage is “just about right.”

Duh! Again.

From The Atlantic:

Who’s to blame?
You can start with the news, itself.
Sometimes, bad news breeds distrust, which explains why the high-water mark for media trust came in the late ’90s, and the peaks in distrust came during the most violent parts of the Iraq war and the recession. You can also blame the fragmentation of media, which is siphoning viewers off into their respective ideological corners.
Today, you can incubate in hyper-conservative medialand or the super-socialist blogosphere and ignore the middle in a way you couldn’t when there were only three TV networks and blog was not a word.
But I also blame journalists.
On the one hand, you can make the good case that we are in a golden age of journalism, where technology and innovation are enriching story-telling and creating a kind of infinite buffet that serves every interest and proclivity of the American audience.
On the other hand, mainstream media voices increasingly distinguish themselves by telling us not to trust the rest of the mainstream media.
Think about all of the mass media today that tells us how stupid mass media is.
Bill O’Reilly is the most watched person on cable news, and he regularly complains about the stranglehold of liberals on the news cycle.
Fox News and MSNBC attract a good deal of attention by identifying (or sometimes fabricating) media strawmen to slay with a quip.
Glenn Beck is the most ascendant figure in modern media, and his central message is: Don’t trust anybody. Jon Stewart is the most trusted figure in media, and his central message is: Don’t trust Glenn Beck.
The former treats media as a conspiracy.
The latter treats media as a joke.

And when a mock journalist is more trusted than a “real” journalist — WTF!
And 20-30 years ago there was no “mass media” — cable was just arriving in many US locations — and people snagged their news from “the big three” TV networks and, if you weren’t brain dead, maybe NPR, but that was most likely it for news.
Newspapers, of course, have slowly slid out of the view of news.
For major ‘for instance’ is the Washington Post, once the pinnacle of strong, reporter-working-hard journalism, but Kate Graham would most surely get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if she were alive today and could peruse the Post‘s pages.
Sad, but apparently that’s way it is.

When the best news programs on TV are phony mock-ups — WTF!

(Illustration found here).

Of course, the massive, humongous problem is how divided the US, and the overwhelming assholeness of Fox News, the worst example of any kind of news reporting in the history of the world.
And just how divided are we?
Old shits vs all the young dudes.

Viewer age makes all the difference, and the Inter-Webs.
Via Raw Story:

The newest Pew Research Center’s survey of where and how people get their news has been released, and while Fox News is still polling the oldest viewership, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are pulling the youngest. As Stewart educates his young viewers in the ways of FNC on a nightly basis, it is clear that he is the biggest long term media threat to Fox News.
“The net impact of digital platforms supplementing traditional sources is that Americans are spending more time with the news than was the case a decade ago.
As was the case in 2000, people now say they spend 57 minutes on average getting the news from TV, radio or newspapers on a given day.
But today, they also spend an additional 13 minutes getting news online, increasing the total time spent with the news to 70 minutes. This is one of the highest totals on this measure since the mid-1990s and it does not take into account time spent getting news on cell phones or other digital devices.”

And this despite Newsweek‘s dumb-ass prediction 15 years ago.
Pew Research’s news poll also found:

Speaking of television, Fox News has been able to hold its audience share because Republicans have been fleeing to the network.
In 2002, Republicans were just as likely to watch CNN as they were to watch Fox News, but eight years later, 40% of all Republicans regularly watch FNC. Twelve percent of Republicans watch CNN and 6% watch MSNBC.
Fox News does not lead the cable news ratings because there are more Republicans in the United States. They lead because they have been successful in consolidating the Republican audience.
It is no surprise than that Fox News, just like the GOP caters to an older audience.
Sixty three percent of Bill O’Reilly’s viewers are over 50 years old, and 65% of Hannity’s viewers are over 50. Only 44% of the nation as a whole are over 50 years old, so the over 50 demographic is overrepresented on Fox News.
If the younger viewers aren’t watching Fox News, then what are they watching?
The answer to this question can be found on Comedy Central Monday through Thursday from 11 pm-12 am. Colbert and Stewart’s audiences are young.
In fact, they were the youngest in the survey.
Eighty percent of Colbert’s audience is between 18-49, and 74% of Stewart’s audience falls into the 18-49 demo.
Although their audiences are double the amount of liberals in the overall population, Colbert and Stewart also appeal to Libertarians, as they make up 29% and 27% respectively of their audiences.
Interestingly 53% of Colbert’s audience and 43% of Stewart’s said that they watch these programs for entertainment.
They may come for the entertainment, but they also get a healthy dose of the news.

Dude, where’s my news?

The announcement was made Thursday on its online site.

An interview today with Greg Mitchell, E&P‘s editor since 2002, on the demise of the newspaper-trade industry/journo-icon can be found at Columbia Journalism Review.
Read a brief Wikipedia-history of E&P here — the magazine was founded in 1901 and six years later merged with a magazine most-aptly called, The Journalist.
And for reaction from the media  here.

Sad state of affairs, that it be.

Despite all kinds of media available, the exciting journalistic genre of “investigative reporting” has nearly disappeared off the mainstream radar.

Except sadly at Comedy Central.

(Illustration found here).

Jon Stewart and the The Daily Show has been all over the media this past week as a tell-tale segment of who/why/how the financial meltdown has been covered by the press, especially at CNBC, and especially that nutcase, weirdo Jim Cramer ‘Mad Money’ guy.

Read a good background note to the entire process here.

So Thursday night, Cramer visited Stewart’s show and was beat to a pulp.

The video was all over the media yesterday morning.

See clips here and here and here.

The Daily Show site has the segment posted.

Stewart said he and Cramer are both snake-oil salesman, only “The Daily Show” is labeled as such.

He claimed CNBC shirked its journalistic duty by believing corporate lies, rather than being an investigative “powerful tool of illumination.”

And he alleged CNBC was ultimately in bed with the businesses it covered — that regular people’s stocks and 401Ks were “capitalizing your adventure.”

And Cramer is indeed a financial turd.

Two years ago:

On the truth: “What’s important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view — it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction,” Cramer advises. “You can’t take any chances.”

The real, core problem is the media, which has morphed the last three decades into a kind of trade-animal with a nose ring, tethered to corporate giants and is really no longer interested in the public good.

This attitude has maybe been reflected by a major arm of media itself becoming news — newspapers are dying if not already dead.

The demise of the old-fashioned newsprint journalist, however, is really a self-inflicted fatal wound.
Ad revenues reflect what’s been happening with the rapid rise of the Internet and have been slipping away for years:

“Newspapers historically have not been on the leading edge of anything.

They tend to react to things that happen to them rather than to look ahead and figure out where they are vulnerable and try to figure out something that will prevent it,” said John Morton, president of Morton Research Inc., a media research company.

To staunch the loss of readers and advertisers, newspapers have put much of their content on the Web. But the transition hasn’t been seamless or quick. Some papers, notably The New York Times, tried to charge fees to access their sites only to pull the plug when the experiment failed. Others dithered while online news aggregators such as Google and CraigsList, the free classified ad site, became part of the landscape.

“Papers are doing a lot of good things on their Web sites now. The only problem is they started 10 years too late,” Morton said.

And journalists are after the big story, the quick, dramatic sound byte and are leaving real reporting behind.
The three biggest news stories of the last two decades — the summer prior to Sept. 11, 2001; the run-up to the Iraqi invasion; and the Wall Street meltdown — were a sham to the mainstream media, a shame to any kind of journalism even in its most basic tenets.

Helen Thomas, who has covered the White House since Kennedy, told a recent panel discussion hosted by Media Matters for America that the press corp surrendered it’s most vital weapon, “skepticism,” as the Bush White House thundered against Iraq: “Questions? There were no questions. Complicit…the press played ball, after 9/11, the press rolled over and played dead…”

When I graduated from the University of Florida’s J-school in 1974, the US press was at it’s zenith.

Watergate, Bernstein and Woodward — It was a heady time, and it also made for a kind of esprit de corps, a pride in a cigarette smoke-filled, IBM-typewriter punching newsroom where all of us felt we were in a profession that could make a difference.

The newsroom was home, the wacked, crazy people who populated it, from the copy desk to the beat reporters, my kind of folks.

I was out of the trade for nearly 20 years, but when I returned to a newsroom in the late ’90s, what a shock — no longer the pride of profession, but a deep, craven desire for a stronger bottom line, newspapers were now owned by giant media conglomerates who cut and nipped until local news and investigative reporting were all gone — just fluff pieces to keep advertisers happy.

Mainstream journalism, especially TV news, is not worth a shit.

If a person in the US is getting his/her news from TV — forget it.

One major example: the New York Times Pentagon pundit expose, a long, detailed piece how the DOD used retired military officers to push the Iraqi war effort — a major news event last year which NEVER made it to broadcast, or cable TV — except a small segment on PBS.

A very large portion of the US public has no idea how they were manipulated into giving the Iraqi war its full support.

Pure shame.

And the shame continues.

NBC — which claims to handle MSNBC and CNBC — has apparently clipped the clips on Friday of Cramer getting nailed on Stewart’s show.

MSNBC and CNBC are sister networks, and earlier in the day, Mediabistro had reported, “A TVNewser tipster tells us MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today.”
…
According to Mediabistro, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough had initially alerted fans of his show that Cramer would be putting in an exclusive appearance on Friday’s Morning Joe — but he was a no-show. NBC’s Today Show’s had also promised coverage of the encounter, which similarly failed to materialize.

And even Cramer acted the closed-mouth, teasing asshole.

On his show Friday, he wink-winked at the audience:

Cramer started promisingly enough.

“Before we get started, I want to say something about what happened yesterday,” he began soberly. “A lot of people are talking about what happened. … Although I was clearly outside of my safety zone, I have the utmost respect for this person, for the work that they do, no matter how uncomfortable it was to be on. So I want you to take a look at this clip from yesterday of Cramer vs. Stewart!”

At that point, it was revealed that the come-on had been nothing but a tease, as the clip turned out to show Cramer helping Martha Stewart — on whose program he had appeared earlier on Thursday — prepare what appeared to be a banana cream pie.

“You’re doing a very good job,” Martha said encouragingly.

As the clip ended, Cramer sneered, “Now back to business as usual.”

He never did mention Jon Stewart at all.

Yes, you prick bastard.

Journalism is back to business as usual — a fucking game.

Jon Stewart’s Daily Show is informative, and hilarious.

Mainstream news is neither.

A problem criminally shameful.