Why We Watch the Daily Show
I’m a college professor who usually despises TV, yet I’m addicted to the Daily Show. I’d love to cancel my cable subscription; I’m sure there’s a better way to spend $38.04 every month, but I have to have my nightly dose of Jon Stewart. I was a bit alarmed to learn that many young people rely on Stewart as a news source, but not at all surprised when researchers found that his viewers are better informed than those who watch CNN or Fox. It could be a matter of self-selection, better-informed people choosing to watch the “Daily Show” because it addresses itself to a better-informed audience, but I think there’s a different answer.
Jon Stewart wages a daily satyagraha, an on-going nonviolent struggle in which he clings to the truth, Gandhi-style, making us laugh as he gets us to think. As a result, Stewart, on his fake news show, often does a better job revealing what’s going on in the world than the real news media. That’s why so many young people turn to his show for their daily news, and that’s why I’m glued to the boob tube every night.
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Think about the underlying truths hiding in what appear at first to be casually tossed off one-liners: “War-in many ways it’s the only remaining obstacle to peace.” Or (as a professor this one’s my personal favorite) on the Iraq Study Group report: “I’m glad they got a study group together, but the test was three years ago.” Sometimes the jokes are less subtle, but the truths no less profound, as when Stewart mockingly summarized Donald Rumsfeld’s proposal to cut off aid to Iraq for ‘bad behavior’: “You destroy a country’s infrastructure and this is the thanks you get! After all we’ve done to you!”
Read all of “Jon Stewart’s Gandhian Struggle” by Kelly Rae Kraemer here.
