A Hastily Thrown Together Editorial by Jon Stewart
This week marks the tenth anniversary of Jon Stewart's tenure as the host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show. To commemorate, Comedy Central has posted some of the shows from that first week on their website. I don't know how I would have gotten through the last 8 years without Mr. Stewart to filter the 'news' down to it's basic elements: important world matters being treated by so-called professionals as bullet points on their resumes. When moments in the news media fell through the cracks or were overlooked, the team at the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as their face and voice, would strip away the pageantry of the media to show the public that both the emperors and their hypsters were uncomfortably naked together.
Frankly, while I enjoyed previous host Craig Kilborn, I was an admirer of Mr. Stewart and felt at the time he brought a much needed balance to the show (ie. less about the host and more about the show and news; yes, I'm saying I thought Kilborn was vain). Where as the early years just seemed to deal with the absurd news stories, the show has elegantly and masterfully evolved into a brilliant commentary on the absurdity of media, media coverage, and those media whores who are covered. And while at times, I have felt that Mr. Stewart does put on soft gloves for his guests when they do deserve tougher smacks upside the head, he's proven to be a very serious and capable interviewer as he is a comedian and satirist. He is Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, and Groucho Marx rolled into one. Kudos and congratulations and lets have 10 more years of great media coverage and laughs!
1 comments: