tagged w/ The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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On Comedy Central, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are mounting a Washington, D.C. rally that may end up being one of the biggest political stories of the season. Meanwhile, on HBO, Bill Maher is making news by resurrecting old Politically Incorrect clips featuring current Tea Party heroine Christine O'Donnell. What's going on here? Why are our politically interested comics making more sense, and news, than anyone else around right now?
Because, This TV critic fears, they may have the most credibility -- especially with younger viewers. And you know what? I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
http://www.tvworthwatching.com/blog/2010/09/why-are-tvs-court-jesters-maki.shtml#commentsOn Comedy Central, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are mounting a Washington, D.C.... more
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Last night on "The Daily Show" Jon Stewart focused on President Obama's town hall meeting on CNBC, where questions centered around Wall St. and the economy. Among those asking the questions was a woman who Stewart identified as "Obama's Kryptonite."
After fielding questions from a jilted Wall St. executive and a young lawyer who can't afford to pay his student loans, Obama was hit hardest by a middle-class, African-American woman who frankly said, "I'm exhausted of defending you."
It turns out, the woman behind this reasonable critique is not just a middle-class wife and mother, but also a chief financial officer of a veteran's organization, a powerful combination that Stewart considers an "Obama zapping machine."
"A black, lady, financial analyst veteran?" Stewart said in disbelief. "We have found Obama's Kryptonite."
Then, in true 'Daily Show' fashion, Stewart used footage of Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign to show what Americans such as the fed-up woman at the rally were promised, and followed up with clips from the last two years where he defers or denies the ability to follow through with those same promises.Last night on "The Daily Show" Jon Stewart focused on President Obama's... more
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It seemed some weeks ago that the public kerfuffle between Jezebel and "The Daily Show" -- in which the women's website reported on the fake news show's history of hiring and retaining more male writing and on-air staff and "The Daily Show" responded with a fierce open letter from its female employees -- would simply end with a lot of finger pointing and distorted interpretations of the criticisms being leveled. Jezebel reporter Irin Carmon never accused Jon Stewart of being personally sexist, but she did fail to account for correspondent Kristen Schaal (who was not listed on "The Daily Show" masthead as a correspondent), only mentioning her at the end of her original piece, in her claim that Olivia Munn was "the first new female correspondent on the show in seven years." Munn told Salon's Sarah Hepola that "no one knew what the fuck Jezebel was before that story came out," but in my forthcoming book, Samantha Bee says, "I'm always excited when something of mine ends up on Jezebel." Bee also told me, "This place ['The Daily Show'] is very interested in gender and politics ... There's a lot of vaginas around here, and we make our presence known."
The whole thing got magnified to epically feminized cat-fighting, hair-pulling, claw-bearing proportions. Like-minded people with similar political and social views were pulled into ugly public confrontation; feminists looked humorless and comedians looked sexist, images that both camps have gone to effective lengths to disprove in recent years, and in short, it all sucked and ended pretty grimly, right?
Well, maybe not. Despite its frigid refutations of Jezebel's claims, "The Daily Show" has, from the start of the tussle, given signs that at least some people there not only noticed, but were more badly stung than they liked to admit by the website's critique. Even before the open letter from the show's women, Stewart himself did a segment in which he tallied his professional stresses on-air, hilariously kvetching: "I know we're working on a book and we're exhausted, people are frazzled, we haven't had a break in months, Jezebel thinks I'm a sexist prick." This was the first indication that Stewart and his show -- a show I believe has been a huge part of the recent, long-overdue, but still delicate merge between feminism and comedy, thanks to unapologetically feminist correspondents like Bee and Schaal, as well as Stewart's own often incisive commentary on gender politics -- really did care about Jezebel's report of gender imparity.
More @ linkIt seemed some weeks ago that the public kerfuffle between Jezebel and "The Daily... more
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From Jane Hamsher and Ezra Klein to Kos and Krugman, Tunku Varadarajan counts down the most influential left-wing journalists in the country.
Given that almost four times as many American journalists identify themselves as “liberal” than as “conservative” (thanks, Pew, for that little detail), our exercise in tagging the 25 most influential journalists who sit somewhere to the left of center on the political aisle was considerably more complex than the one last week in which we identified the top 25 on the right. Classifying our journalists as being “on the left” protects us from being derailed by pesky questions of taxonomy—whether someone is “liberal,” “progressive” or “radical”—although everyone on this list could be said, plausibly, to belong to one of those categories. What unites them all, broadly, is their belief (expressed or implied) that “their side” is currently in power in Washington. The list below distills responses canvassed from about 75 academics, politicians, journalists, and denizens of corporate America. (It may interest readers to know that I edited a similar list, days after Barack Obama’s inauguration as president, for Forbes. Whereas the two lists have a good deal in common, there are significant differences, most of which reflect the fact that the left no longer sees itself as being “in opposition.”) Our definition of “journalist” is a loose one, and may not please some J-school pedants: We include anyone whose primary vocation is to supply, edit, host, or curate information, news reporting, criticism, or opinion. To keep matters from getting messy, we have excluded any writer or editor whose primary affiliation is with The Daily Beast, though a couple of contributors appear.
Here, in ascending order, is The Daily Beast’s list of America’s 25 most consequential left-of-center journalists.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-17/the-lefts-top-25-journalists/?cid=hp:excFrom Jane Hamsher and Ezra Klein to Kos and Krugman, Tunku Varadarajan counts down the... more
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Kevin Smith continues to insist he is NOT too fat to fly Southwest Air. The airline removed him from a flight Saturday after deeming him a safety risk, even though he says he was seated with the armrests down and seat belt buckled.
Smith says the airline made a mistake in trying to board him as a standby passenger then giving him the boot.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/16/kevin-smith-challenges-so_n_463886.htmlKevin Smith continues to insist he is NOT too fat to fly Southwest Air. The airline... more
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