No Laughing Matter: Political Satire and How the News Media Became a Joke
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No Laughing Matter: Political Satire and How the News Media Became a Joke by Dave Pizer A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Journalism School of Journalism and Communication Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario August 2,2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be includedBien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. i * i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract This study of satire that targets the news media is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, the news media and journalists ought to understand why their profession has become a popular target of ridicule. Satire is an expression of frustration. The fact that a growing audience watches and reads news-directed satire is confirmation of the fact that they share the satirists’ frustrations with the way the news media cover politics. Volume after volume of media criticism in academic libraries across North America has exposed and dissected the shortcomings of contemporary political reportage and many have suggested ways to reform the profession, often beginning with a re-thinking or outright abandonment of the regime of objectivity. Popular satire has taken many of those criticisms out from academia into the mainstream. The laughter and loyalty of satirical news consumers is proof that reform is needed. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements This study would never have been completed had it not been for the patience of the Carleton University School of Journalism. The author is also indebted to the media scholars whose work clearly exposes and explains the shortcomings of the way the news media cover the political realm, including James Fallows, Eric Alterman, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Michael Schudson, David Mindich and many others. The author also owes a debt of gratitude to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and other centres of excellence whose statistical studies provided considerable support to this study’s argument. Finally, thanks to Kathryn O’Hara, who oversaw this project, and whose patience, great advice, guidance, and sense of humour were essential. And of course, my parents and friends, who learned long ago to stop asking how this project was coming along. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. 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Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Who is laughing at the news media?..................................................................12 Chapter 2: Jon Stewart and The Daily Show ........................................................................56 Chapter 3: What is so funny about the news media?..........................................................66 Chapter 4: What are the consequences of laughing at the news?.....................................120 Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 151 Endnotes ..................................................................................................................................... 163 Bibliography..............................................................................................................................190 IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction “To a young generation of Americans, Jon Stewart may as well be Walter Cronkite.”(l) Reuters’ Andrew Grossman made this bold, yet accurate, observation in a story describing a recent study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The study indicated that young people are increasingly turning away from traditional news media outlets for their presidential campaign information in favour of satirical sources, such asThe Daily Show with Jon Stewart.(2) It seems an ever-growing proportion of the young adult demographic in America prefers laughing at the conventions of the mainstream news media rather than consuming their journalistic products. The principal objective of this thesis is to examine the causes and consequences of this growing trend. The prodigious emergence of political satire, which targets the mainstream news media, ought to be quite a troubling phenomenon for the practitioners of “real” journalism, who believe in the integrity and importance of their role in a liberal democratic society. This trend should be equally troubling for their corporate owners who have their eyes rigidly fixed on the bottom line. In this age of media fragmentation, particularly with the abundant possibilities and sources of information available on satellite, cable, and especially the Internet, enormous corporate mainstream news outlets no longer have a monopoly on the attention of the public. There is an abundance of choice available to anyone with access to a computer. This is even truer with regard to the educated young adult demographic, who grew up with the Internet, and are, therefore, more likely to explore its limits. Between satirical television shows and the endless possibilities of the Internet, which has an ever-increasing selection of satirical “news” 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. outlets, the young adult demographic (“by far the hardest to reach segment of the political news audience” and a favourite target of advertisers) is getting further and further out of the reach of the mainstream news media.(3) It should be noted that this study is focused primarily on American politics and American political satire. There are several reasons for this decision. While Canada has a long tradition of satirizing politics, particularly on the CBC, with shows such as This Hour has 22 Minutes, The Royal Canadian Air Farce, Double Exposure and now The Mercer Report, it is politics and Canadian politicians that have more often been the targets of satirical ridicule, rather than individual journalists and the conventions of the news media. The primary interest of this study is to explore political satire which ridicules the conventions of the news media. In this regard, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, based both on its content and popularity, is the gold standard of contemporary political satire and the most prominent source discussed in this work. Another reason for this focus on American politics is the fact that many of the dysfunctional aspects of the press politician/relationship which will be discussed herein, including the dominance and ceaseless repetition of talking points, to name the most serious example, are more pronounced in the U.S. Canadian politicians certainly resort to talking points, but the practice has not become a source of satire. Finally, American political satire resonates in Canada as well. When The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was picked up by CTV, Global’s late night comedy host Mike Bullard sank like a stone in the ratings and was quickly cancelled. CTV has since picked upDaily Show alumnus Stephen Colbert’s showThe Colbert Report. American politics 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. has an impact on this country and a growing number of Canadians are turning to political satire to find out what is happening in the