Jon Stewart: MSNBC Now the Same as FOX

On last night's "Daily Show", Jon Stewart took aim at MSNBC for the network's continued slide toward what he sees as the same partisan cheerleading that one has witnessed over the past eight years at FOX News. Watch:



While many liberals have hailed the rise of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow as a long-overdue cable news counterweight to their ideological rivals on FOX, others, like Stewart, bemoan the further blurring of the line between news and commentary. The latter group decries the loss of objectivity in journalism. Left or right, it matters not who commits this crime. What's important is keeping the news, for lack of a better phrase, fair and balanced.

Somehow lost in this discussion is the fact that Bill O'Reilly and Olbermann are not news anchors, they are commentators. Sean Hannity and Rachael Maddow play different roles on television than do Katie Couric and Brian Williams. Really, the bloviating commentators who dominate the screen time at MSNBC and FOX, are nothing more than glorified bloggers. They have been hired to stir controversy and generate ratings. And guess what? They're popular.

For his part, when it comes to media critiques, Jon Stewart has always enjoyed having his cake while eating it, too. His show, after all, is based largely on political commentary, but with laughter, rather than angry rants, as its foundation. In fact, "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" exist on the same plane with "Hannity and Colmes" and the like, albeit at a different end of the aesthetic spectrum. When Stewart famously launched his takedown of CNN's "Crossfire," an incredulous Tucker Carlson demanded to know why he went easy on his Democratic guests (including John Kerry). His response? It's not his responsibility to play the journalist. By the same token, however, he does seem to see his role as media watchdog, and, like with the "Crossfire" ambush, he enjoys targeting the cable news talking heads most of all. Just ask Chris Matthews, who walked into what he described as "a book interview from hell" with Stewart earlier this year.

Of course, Stewart and Stephen Colbert are riotously funny, gifted writers, and masters of satire. But a sliding scale has always been in play when recounting the day's news--whether happen from a network anchor desk, on talk radio, or before a live studio audience. Those Mother Goose nursery rhymes were sly political commentary in their day, too. And while we will always need loud voices to sound the alarm each and every time that a media outlet would try to have us believe it is above the sin of biased reporting, we'd also do well not to get overly excited about commentators commentating.

All that said, Stewart is right about MSNBC. It is the FOX of the left. And after Obama is sworn in, its commentators will no doubt give him an easier time than they did the current occupant of the White House. But Stewart will, too.

Paradoxically, cable news is more fake than some would have it, and "The Daily Show's" self-proclaimed "fake news" is more real. The point? If you're watching opinion and comedy shows for hard, objective news, you might just be barking up the wrong tree.

Woof, woof.