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Is Jon Stewart's voice really needed in a changed media landscape?

posted 4 years ago by TMC-4 (20150)
4 replies | jump to latest

https://www.indiewire.com/video/jon-stewart-return-apple-tv-plus-tv-podcast-1234596000/

Apple TV+'s announcement earlier this week that the former Daily Show host is returning to TV as host of an “original current affairs series” comes after Stewart failed to get an HBO animated series off the ground. Stewart said goodbye to The Daily Show in August 2015 less than two months after Donald Trump took over the headlines by announcing his presidential candidacy. After 5+ years of Trump being the biggest news story, is Stewart's voice really needed? "Setting aside whether or not the series is good for Apple TV+ or bad for HBO, let us now focus on whether or not it’s good or bad for America," says Libby Hill. "Or audiences, whatever. There is no arguing that Stewart revolutionized how younger generations consumed both news and media, mastering both political theater and the skewering of journalistic failures and, maybe most importantly, cultivating a team of talent that was more than willing and able to further the craft after his retirement. Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, and John Oliver all bring different points of view to the table for their late-night news programs — so did Larry Wilmore and Wyatt Cenac before being cancelled before their time, but that’s a different rant. Stephen Colbert has now stepped into the elder statesman role formerly inhabited by Stewart, taking his talents to network television and making The Daily Show’s whole thing mainstream and easily consumable for our parents. If, and or when, Jon Stewart returns to TV he needs to bring with him a different insight into the world than he used to offer. We’ve moved on. We’ve lived through Trump (so far)(also, barely). We don’t need another older white guy named Jimmy (or John) cracking wise about how screwed up things are. We have plenty already. Because we’re now living in an age where the president tells such shameless, blatant lies on such a regular basis that regular news coverage requires chyrons that would have been right at home on the Bush-era Daily Show. This is not the same media landscape Stewart left in 2015. This is the thunderdome. Give us a narrative we haven’t been fed a thousand times before or get out of the way. (Also, this unnamed, unscheduled show sounds like, a lot, like Last Week Tonight except an hour long so maybe address that in the meantime.)"

[–] TimMC (9143) 4 years ago

He's a Liberal and he's NOT psychotic. I'm not sure that they(liberal media) want him.

[–] GingerbreadPimp (1767) 4 years ago

No. Especially now that Trump is gone there is nothing Stewart can really add to the convestation anymore that his other buddies already aren't.

[–] TearofLys (2643) 4 years ago

I don't know. The format he made his name in is dying. Of those you listed, Larry Wilmore has been cancelled and the ratings for Trevor Noah and Bee have fallen off a cliff. In its prime, TDS used to average millions of viewers. Trevor Noah averages somewhere around 600k viewers per episode and he has even dropped into the 300 thousands from time to time. Incidentally, his ratings now are lower than for Wilmore's when his show was cancelled. Finally, I don't think Stewart is going to be independent. I think he is just going to be another mouthpiece for the DNC, so he won't be a standout - but just another drone parroting the exact same talking points as everyone else in establishment media.

[–] snepts (11123) 4 years ago

My feeling is the Establishment Media is the Main Stream, the water we all drink from and don't want to be polluted.
We aren't being polluted by the Main Stream; we are polluted by the toxic run-off of malevolent sources who have an interest in toppling the US economic structure - taking it from bad to worse to profit a small faction.
It's awful and hard to get a handle on, considering we are supposed to have Free Speech.
This type of Free Speech is turning Empty Heads into Generational Revolutionary wanna-be's.
They don't know what the heck they are fighting for, but they are fighting really hard !