Jon Stewart has made a career out of mocking the sensationalist, fast-paced landscape of modern news media, but in his latest podcast episode of The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, he seems to think journalism’s reached a new low.
“I’m just gonna give you some of the examples of the whiplash that people were going through,” Stewart said, focusing on the weeks of coverage between Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and him dropping out of his presidential campaign. “So the articles were ‘the Democrats who believe Biden should drop out are insane. They are walking into a death trap. These are idiots… it’s too late. It’s too late for Biden to drop out. Biden is your only chance, you are idiots.’”
“Two days later they are saying, ‘Excitement around Kamala Harris are the Democrats’ only chance, thank God they finally pulled the plug on this death trap of a candidacy that was Joseph Biden.’”
ADVERTISEMENT
And he saw the same thing happening on the other side of the political aisle: “A week before it was ‘Donald Trump is inevitable… J.D. Vance is a brilliant stroke.’ And now they’re writing ‘Trump is in trouble. He hates J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance is the worst.’”
“Do the reporters ever read their own articles?” Stewart asked.
Stewart kept up the criticism throughout the episode, name-checking The New York Times and The Atlantic as outlets that jump from one extreme prediction to another. He argued that media outlets are focusing so much on trying to guess what November will look like, when they should be informing people about each candidate and what their policies are.
“What we have now is chaos without context or perspective,” Stewart said. “Hot takes that in many ways inflame the electorate rather than illuminate the electorate. How do we take a breath?”
The host’s frustration was perhaps best summed up in the very top of the episode when he declared, “It’s been a fucking week and the whole thing is twisted on its head, none of it is really what’s happening, and we still have another three and a half months of this!”
