What’s More Important For Daily Show: Being Funny Or Being Accurate?

VIDEO

by Steve Krakauer | 4:37 pm, August 23rd, 2009

» 6 comments

oreilly_8-23 After Bill O’Reilly‘s fact-checking of Jon Stewart‘s Fox News smackdown, the whole exchange got the Reliable Sources treatment today.

One of the central questions raised – what is more important for a comedy/news hybrid like The Daily Show: being funny or being accurate?

Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post brought up the question:

I’m glad he has a new target besides Olbermann. There’s a new fight going on. Look, we have to be…I think all of us here are careful about how we describe the protesters and giving them credence. They operate in a different universe. And certainly, I think, Jon Stewart’s goal in all of this is to be funny first and probably accurate first-ish.

Is it okay that Stewart operates in a world where he’s only accurate-ish? We’ve raised questions with segments that were both funny and, at the very least, misleading before. And at a time when people view Stewart as such a stalwart of the news industry, taking some license with selective editing – for the sake of comedy – is not entirely fair.

Stewart’s interviews can at times be brilliant, and his media critique especially relevant. But the accurate-ish portions of The Daily Show give fodder for people like Bill O’Reilly to brush him off.

Another guest David Frum raised a separate issue: shouldn’t cable news networks be providing more comprehensive coverage? He said they should be asking, “Look, we’re a cable show, we’re the middle of the day, not a lot of people are watching anyway. Why not use this time to really explain what’s going on, dare to go into a little bit more in depth than the old network news did?”

That sounds like wishful thinking-ish to us.

Here’s the clip:

Bill O'Reilly, CNN, daily show, fox news, Howard Kurtz, Jon Stewart, Reliable Sources

Randy M

If he is doing an interview he needs to be accurate the rest of the show is comdey. Anne should worry more about the editorial page writers at the Washington Post being accurate.
Jelperman

Falafel O’Reilly has been caught in one lie after another, one racist comment after another and one patently stupid comment after another. He whines, he shouts, he sends his creepy little stalkers out to harass those who have displeased him. So the idea that Stewart’s mockery of Falafel Boy would be any different if he had included every word spoken by O’Reilly about protestors being “loons” is not only absurd, it is every but as intellectually dishonest as the Falafelmeister himself. The context does not change the fact that O’Reilly referred to protesters as “loons” and whining about context is a red herring of the most mendacious kind.

I think Mediaite needs to change its name to Concern Troll Central.
Plus15

Mediaites Politics has come roaring through. Too bad. I’ve seen Anne Kornblut quite a bit in last few weeks. She comes off as pure Washinton Post Bush era clown.
http://www.swissarmyjew.com Keeva

Umm. Hello! It is a comedy show. Stewart could not be clearer about that simple fact. Just because O’Reilly, Olbermann, Kornblut and the rest have no sense of humor and take themselves altogether too seriously is no reason to fact check a comedy show.

As I recall, Stewart – during the Jim Cramer dust up – made the point clearly that taking things out of context and mocking them is what they do at The Daily Show.

The fact that he routinely gets better and clearer interviews than actual so-called journalists is because he starts from the premise that all of it is equally mockable and not just one side.

Kornblut needs to remember that she is a journalist or recast herself as an entertainment writer. O’Reilly and Olbermann need to grow up and stop playing kindergarten sandbox thinly disguised as news. And Mediaite needs to recognize the difference between comedy/satire and the slanted news at Fox, MSNBC, CNN and the newspaper universe.

Get a sense of humor for goodness sake!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-De-Rosa/503357744 Anthony De Rosa

Well technically O’Reilly isn’t a news show either. None of these guys, O’Reilly, Hannity, Olbermann, etc are doing a public service. They’re catnip for left and right wingers. What ‘accuracy’ is O’Reilly referring to? None of these ideologues are playing it down the middle. Give me a break.
ChrisNH

After eight years of ‘Bush-bashing’ from the Left, I don’t begrudge the same sort of activity from the Right. How could the Left possibly feel offended if the fire hose they wielded is pointed the other way? You simply laugh and say, ‘Grow a set, will ya?’ The knock on the Left–the media particularly–is that they are thin-skinned and limp-wristed. The last thing I think they’d want to do is prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Happily, neither Jon Stewart nor O’Reilly will back down from each other. They’re both effective.