Isn’t it possible for Worldwide Pants to cut their own deal with the WGA? Why doesn’t Ltterman do that, and then he can own late night for a while?
From what I’ve heard/read:
Supposedly in the works. But then what happens to the rest of the union writer’s who have bosses that cannot cut their own deals/contracts? That’s why the writer’s union is cautiously supportive of private contracts like this.
Again, from what I’ve heard/read.
And I’ve never seen Gross swallow such copious amounts of easily-refuted bullshit like Stewart did when he interviewed Robert Kennedy Jr on vaccines. When someone lies about something that Stewart already thinks he knows about, he’s a tiger. When you step outside of his comfort zone, he’s a pussycat. He’s easily handled, too, watch how overawed he is whenever he has an actual world leader on, or how easily he rolls over for John McCain or anyone able to tell a joke.
Besides, “smackdowns” are overrated. Especially if information is your goal. You want smackdowns, go watch O’Reilly.
Because, as a news source, The Daily Show simply isn’t equipped for the job. They don’t really choose their subjects, mocking whatever CNN and Fox is reporting instead of deciding something is newsworthy. They simply won’t cover something that’s newsworthy but too tragic to be funny. They don’t investigate themselves, but just parrot news as reported by traditional outlets, and then they only report enough facts to set up their joke.
And that’s the problem, really. For TDS, the facts are there to serve the joke. Any important nuance that kills the humor will be lost. It cannot really stand up as serious journalism as long as the facts aren’t reported for their own sake.
And yet viewers of The Daily Show are better informed than viewers of any other news program. Rather a conundrum, wouldn’t you say?
There also is an option to negotiate in good faith. That is fundamental and nowadays ignored.
If you don’t shut down the industry ,you have lost any leverage. If business goes on ,even in a weaker state, there is no incentive for business to address the problems.
Did you hear her interview with O’Reilly? She softballed him the whole way through and he had to make up some cockamamie bullshit about being lied to, in order for him to be able to throw a temper tantrum and storm out. And because she refuses to be in the same studio with her guests, she had no idea what’ going on, whereas Stewart would have told O’Rielly to sitdown and STFU.
He’s still tougher on his guests than 99% of the media.
O’Reilly does shoutdowns, and flings threats and insults at his “guests.” Stewart at least let’s his guests say something, even when he disagrees with them.
Actually, you’re wrong here. TDS does research things that they cover, and will point out (with regularity) when someone’s contradicted themselves on something. They’ve also sent their people out to cover news stories (and not just point-and-laughs at the nutter who thinks he’s found the cure for cancer in his toilets). True, they don’t have reporters on the ground in cities all over the world, but using clips sourced from news services all over the world (they don’t just run clips from US networks), they often provide analysis of events, rather than simple regurgitating the same thing everyone else has done for the past 24 hours (“In case you’ve been in a coma for the past 24 hours, we’ll show you the same news footage we’ve been showing for the past 24 hours, and simply describe the action on the screen.”)
And what major stories haven’t they covered? The elections? Healthcare? AIDS? I’ve seen them do pieces on all of those things.
Well, they haven’t “covered” any of them. They’ve done gags on them. There’s a difference. The fact that the gags usually make fun of people you don’t like, and sometimes flatter your own biases, does not make them insightful.
No, not really. The show is funnier if you’re better-informed.
Katrina, 9/11, the Tsunami of 2004. You know, things that aren’t funny.
Getting the news from the Daily Show is, at best, like getting someone else to read the NY Times and listen to NPR and then to summarize everything they heard in about 10 minutes. Mildly factual, but inferior to, dependent on, and never to be confused with actual journalism.
And yet viewers of The Daily Show are better informed than viewers of any other news program. Rather a conundrum, wouldn’t you say?
Did you mean to post this twice? As saoirse said, it’s because the show is only funny if you’re already well-informed. TDS’s audience is a self-selecting group of news junkies. They don’t become well informed by watching TDS.
Didn’t the same survey(s) that found TDS viewers to be better informed also find that for many of them, TDS was their only source of news? I don’t know for sure, but I seem to recall that as being the case.
Menocchio posted the same argument twice, so I posted the same response twice.
I find that hard to believe. Maybe the only source from TV, but I don’t see how you would become well informed if TDS was your only news source period.
The Daily Show is funny and can be a very good source for de-spinning the claims of politicians. Stewart is skilled at both information- and confrontation-based interviews, and not everybody can do both of those. But TDS definitely isn’t above pulling quotes and clips out of context if it makes them funnier, for one thing. [I know you’d probably like an example, but I haven’t seen an episode in so long that I can’t think of one. While Ted Stevens’ “series of tubes” quote is very funny, and so are their jokes about it, I’d say their handling of it was less than fair.]
What Menocchio is saying is that they never investigate things on their own, they just respond to what other people are doing or do wacky stuff. That’s fine, and it’s how satire works, but it diminishes their value as a source of news. That said, Tuckerfan, we’re all a little poorer for not having TDS in the weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses. At least some of us do need the show, and Colbert, as an antidote to a lot of that ridiculousness.
Really? Are you going to tell me that those things have never been discussed on the show? That, for example, Jon Stewart has never pointed out it is kind of funny that NYC which got attacked on 9/11 overwhelmingly voted for Kerry in '04? Or do you mean that they’ve not broken into CC’s regularly shceduled programming to cover events as they’re happening live? Because those are two different things entirely. If you stop and think about it, much of the “live” news coverage is actually worthless. It being little more than someone simply narrating what’s happening on screen. Rarely, do they have someone commenting on things who actually knows anything about it, or has done any research on the matter.
Which is more than many people do. Of course, it might just be that people have turned away from many news sources because they’re not really delivering the news, but fluff.
Oooh, guess they’d better give back those Peabody awards they’ve been given, so people don’t get confused, huh?
Not to insert myself in the middle of this, but he’s drawing a distinction between discussing something and investigating it. I always found the best part of TDS to be the first few minutes, and that’s always Jon talking about what’s in the news that day. The show doesn’t have reporters out there digging up news, they’re responding to what other news outlets are saying. They don’t have people combing through documents and things to find out about a candidate’s funding and that kind of thing.
What does this have to do with anything? The Peabody Awards aren’t journalistic awards. They are awards that celebrate excellence in media. Not excellence in news reporting, or excellence in TV Journalism. The Office won a Peabody, too. Is that proof of it’s journalistic background?
Anyway. I do think the Daily Show is able to do an excellent job of skewering our modern TV news services. Both by the fact that they point out their foibles, but by the simple fact that they can cover more news in 10 minutes, and make better and more interesting analysis using satire than the regular channels can. In spite of all this, I really do wish Colbert and Stewart weren’t returning. I wish they were able to remain solid with the unions and wait it out. Every 30 minutes of reruns on the network is a win for the writers. Unfortunately, I can see why they are coming back. Plenty of people rely on the pay/healthcare offered by the shows, and with the networks threatening firings (And they know they will follow through. Seeing that the networks fired people the first week of the strike and then blamed the writers.)
I am interested in seeing what they can produce without writers. The interviews will be fine, but the most interesting parts of the show for me was always the analysis of other channels covering the news. That will probably be missing altogether, or just not as good as it had been previously.
From what I read Colbert and Stewart are both members of the WGA but they are returning as performers, not as writers. Goofy distinction, but it is there. Carson Daily has faced some trouble for returning, and I think that is unfortunate. Ellen returned because of her “No Strike” contract and decided to forgo her monologue and just do interviews and whatnot. She faced a little bit of trouble from WGA East but from the stories I read WGA West regretted that she had to return, but understood it. I haven’t heard of anyone disrupting a taping of her show. And, I only heard the one story about Carson Daily. Has it been a regular thing?
pat
You’re right. And I agree with you. Unfortunately, The Daily Show doesn’t compete with actual journalism. FoxNews, MSNBC, ABC don’t either. Outside NPR/PBS if actual journalism existed in a meaningful form…
An article on the New York Times website says that they’ve done just that.
More than 3/4 of the way through my looooong trek 'cross the country. Oof. Roads were awful.
For the record – today, Worldwide Pants and the WGA came to an agreement. Letterman is going back on the air WITH his writers.
Also of note – none of the late night hosts will be allowed to use any segments that would normally be written by their WGA writers. If they are guild members themselves, they will not be allowed to write or improvise the segments that would have been written by their union writers either. This is seriously screwing up show structures, to be sure – so expect longer interviews…
For someone like Colbert, whose entire show is based on a fictional character, his entire show will have to be changed.