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Making Sense of News by Making Fun of It

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

"Did I die?" That's how "The Daily Show's" host Jon Stewart opened his program on the evening after he announced that he was walking away from it after 16 years.

The "weird" coverage of his departure felt like reading his own obituary.

Enjoy it, Jon. People don't really appreciate you until they lose you.

It's no simple matter for those of us who try to make sense out of the news to assess the impact of Stewart's departure on the news that provided him and his show with rich wellsprings of material.

As Stewart departs at the top of his game and NBC anchor Brian Williams at the bottom, "fake news" never looked so good.

"Fake news" is Stewart's own self-deprecating description of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

 

It is more accurately a talk-and-interview show that offers a smartly sarcastic comedic take on real news, newsmakers and news media, including itself.

I started paying attention to Stewart's show back in 2000 when my son, then in junior high school, told me that his friends were watching it. Any program that attracted teenagers to the news, I figured, was a show that I had to watch.

The problem for TV news is that the medium of television is fundamentally geared to entertainment -- "Chewing gum for the eyes," one radio era humorist put it -- and the news must always battle against the drive to overdo the show biz.

That appears to be the quandary into which "NBC Nightly News" host Williams fell, leading to his six-month suspension without pay just before Stewart coincidentally announced his retirement.

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(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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