Opinion

'Fake News' yields more influence than actual news

By Kimi-Chaia Lindberg

February 18, 2010

We don’t read newspapers, we don’t watch the news, and the radio isn’t our fount of current events. So where does our generation get its news?

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart. So what happened to make Comedy Central the source of daily news and world events for the twenty-something generation? I mean for a show that flaunts its “fake news” angle, it has won 2 Peabody awards, and in 2005 Stewart was named one of the most influential people of the year.

I’ll tell you how this happened. The mainstream news media has failed in holding the interests of the current generation.

News media is now held in the clutches of private ownership and interest. They prattle on using loaded words and rarely shedding light on any subject, while looking pompous and arrogant in three piece suits, laughing at their own jokes.

While Jon Stewart obviously leans left towards the Democrats, he holds both parties accountable for their stupid decisions and phrases.

In a time where politics is a mud-slinging gang bang between a bunch of old men in a marble room, it’s nice to have someone speak your language, and downgrade them both. It’s nice to listen to someone hold fear tacticians accountable for the lies they use to terrorize the American public.

“Nothing says ‘I’m ashamed of you, my government’ more than ‘Stewart/Colbert ‘08,’ ‘’ Stewart told New Yorker editor David Remnick at the magazine’s fall cultural festival.

Honestly, I think our generation is sick of all that political hackery. We’re sick of religious intolerance and wars based on ideology, and we can’t stand political party rivalries. So, we reach out to those who tell it like it is. Those who make us laugh at the idiots who use relating news as a form of masturbation. And those who make us see the hypocritical antics of the political system.

Stewart also becomes a fact checker for the mainstream news rompus. More than once he has called out Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC and everyone else on their errors.

That and he can make fun of himself. Very few news anchors, in the process of taking themselves so seriously, would leave room in their spot to poke fun at number one.

Meanwhile, Jon Stewart has done entire segments making fun of how seriously people take him, or the false statements he’s made in the past.

As an audience that is generally uncomfortable with the idea that celebrities and news anchors see themselves as infallible, we like this transparency.

People on TV are human after all!

We want to see good things happen in the world, and while laughing, we learn about the world. We learn how to not take things so seriously. And even while most of the show is based off humor, there are times when the tone grows incredibly serious.

There are times to be serious and we get that. There are times to get angry, and we get that too. Jon Stewart does all that for us.

And while I may seem to be singing the Daily Show’s praises, and I am, news must be found in other places as well. In minutes you can not possibly know all there is to know about current events.

But in the end, he has our ear. While never claiming to be a journalist, he has somehow found what gets our attention; how to make us listen.

So, pay attention mainstream media! You may want to take notes from Comedy Central, because while your viewers are waning, those of the Daily Show grow in numbers. Welcome to the Jon Stewart Generation.

Chaia means life and Kimi-Chaia Lindberg tries to live it to the fullest. Writing is what she loves. Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese and English are the words she uses. Tel Aviv is where she is inspired.