Last night's Daily Show looked at Thursday's VP debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. The first segment is here, but I'm embedding the second and third for a different reason.
In the above clip,... well, I just can't resist when Jon Stewart calls out Fox 'News.' I'd say that Fox is an embarrassment to journalists everywhere, except that they're not really journalists. They're political propagandists. They don't report the news, they slant it, deliberately, in order to help the Republican Party (and their own pocketbooks).
Nevertheless, this still shows American journalism to very bad effect, not just on Fox. It's style, rather than substance. Yeah, turn off the sound. Don't listen to what our politicians are actually saying (let alone doing).
In this manner of 'journalism,' it doesn't matter that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have been lying pretty much nonstop, over and over and over again. Hey, that's substance and no one cares about that, right? No, we only care about physical appearance and style - and how effective those lies might be in a campaign.
After all, Americans have the attention span of a gnat, right? And we're faith-based, so reality doesn't mean a thing to us. All we care about is which fantasy we prefer. At least, that's our media's assumption. Are they right?
And then there's this:
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Democalypse 2012 - V.P. Debate: Battle for the Historical Footnote - Martha Raddatz | ||||
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Every so often, I'm reminded that real journalism isn't completely dead in America. Yes, it's on life support. Yes, our most trusted 'news source' is a comedy show. But I guess there are still a few journalists out there, fighting the good fight. (As a Journalism graduate, so many years ago, I guess that's just particularly important to me.)
Meanwhile, try to pay attention to the substance of these campaigns - all political campaigns, in fact. Look to independent fact-checkers to tell you who's lying and exactly how they're doing it. Look to see who's avoiding specifics, who's trying to hide reality behind vague promises. That's not difficult, it really isn't. It just takes a very minimal amount of effort.
Is that too much to ask?
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