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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

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Jon Stewart, , and the Evolving Role and Influence of Political Satirists in

Twenty-First Century

by

Sean Hebert

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JANUARY, 2012

© Sean Hebert 2012 Library and Archives Bibliothdque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'6ditjon

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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propri6t6 du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette thdse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la th&se ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent 6tre imprimis ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conform6ment d la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie priv6e, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondares ont 6t6 enlev6s de thesis. cette th$se.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. CanadS ABSTRACT

The objective of this thesis is to provide insight into a question that is central to the study of

The Daily Show with and The Colbert Report, 's popular programs: does their willingness to engage with and political elites threaten Stewart and Colbert's ability to hold brokers of power to account? It examines data collected from television programs, interviews, and media coverage surrounding the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.' The analysis concluded that the comics preserve their satirist roles regardless of the venue they speak from, as long as they refuse the institutional legitimacy granted to journalists and politicians while adhering to the principles of satire that allow them to serve their audience. The thesis further speculates on the contribution the rally makes to the ongoing academic discussion regarding whether satirizing politics necessarily inspires cynicism and provides a disincentive for political engagement.

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is a pleasure to thank the many people who made this thesis possible.

First and foremost, it would be difficult to overstate the deep gratitude I feel towards my supervisor and professor - Dr. David Taras. His endless patience, insight, and intelligence are overshadowed only by his incredible kindness, and in twenty years of formal schooling I have never encountered an educator who approached their work with more contagious passion than he does. I thank him for his honesty and support, and more importantly, for challenging me to hold myself to a higher standard as a writer. With your guidance and trust, sir, I have produced the first document that I am proud to call my own - for that, I am indebted to you.

I would also like to extend my thanks to the staff, the professors, and my fellow graduate students in the Department of Political Science for providing me with a home- away-from-home in Calgary for two long years. To Drs. Rainer Knopff, David Stewart,

Brenda O'Neill, Anthony Sayers, and Andrew Banfield: your commitment to your students' success and eagerness to share your wisdom is inspiring, and the value of my degree is a testament to your impressive efforts both past and present. To Meredith, Colin,

Peter, Paul, Janine, Katrine, Kim, David, Tim, Tammy, Mark, Dave, Rob, Julie, and Kelly: if you are together a snapshot of the future leaders of political thought in Canada, we are in very capable hands. I was honoured to consider you peers, and now am pleased to call you

Mends. And to Judi, Ella and Bonnie: you are the oars to the department's boat, and you move us gracefully and with a smile. Thank you for all of your help!

I extend my heart-felt appreciation to my friends for their love and support through this process. To Newman: a shared home-town led us to become officemates and a shared

iii academic interest made us classmates, but openly sharing our mutually-held feelings on just about everything else made us into co-workers, travel companions, drinking buddies, and the best of friends. Without fail-videos, darts, movie nights, Korean BBQ, continental misadventures, and someone to understand the eternal plight of the Leafs Fan, I would have never made it through this program. Seriously - thanks, dude. To KJeffs, BWong, Clarke,

HPhan, Karen, Aaron, Corneman, Sarah, Defranza, HMiles, Christina, Berrill, Amy, Ben,

Jamie, Tara, Mary-Jane, Nathan, JMuir, Thida, Holly, Dillon, and Sam: I could not ask for a more encouraging and caring group of people to help guide me through the obstacles I have faced while writing this thesis. A million thanks!

Finally, I'd like to thank my family, whose fingerprints are evident throughout this thesis. From my earliest collectables bankrolled by my father - the worn-out and best-of cassettes, the complete Calvin and Hobbes library, countless issues of MAD Magazine - to the years of late-nights during which my mother let me stay up to watch , Letterman, and Conan, my interest in comedy has always been encouraged and supported by my three parents. Knowing that you continue to stand behind me inspires the confidence necessary for me to follow my own path, and watching your own growth and renewal has instilled in your children the drive to value education as a lifelong pursuit. Thank you! I thank, too, my sister Cristyne for always lending an ear and her willingness to share with me her own journey through academia; my brother Marc for his willingness to follow his heart and bring that fearless spirit into our relationship; Anna,

Caitlin, James and Maddy for grounding me and making sure I always remember where home is; and my grandmother Ella, for providing me the template of a life lived with good- humour, compassion, and honesty.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents v

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 A. Mr. Stewart Goes to 1 B. American Political Satire: A Brief History 3 C. The Central Questions 11 D. The Study 12 E. Methodology 1 15

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 20 A. Stewart and Colbert: History and Relevance 20 B. Political Satire in Theory 25 C. Power, Legitimacy, and the Spectacle of Mainstream Media 33 D. Stewart Reports The News: 'Real' Stories, Fake Journalism? 42 E. Cynicism, Knowledge, Deliberation: Effect 50 F. The Outsiders: Turning the 'Colbert Nation' Mainstream 66 G. A Look Ahead 77

CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY 79 A. Methodology II 79 B. From Announcement to Rally: A Brief Timeline 81 C. Analysis: Episodes and the Rally 90 D. Analysis: Interviews 108 E. Analysis: Media Coverage 123 F. The Central Questions: Conclusions and Impressions 128

CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSION 137 A. Stewart and the Rally: A Year Later 137 B. Engagement and Colbert's Nation: Future Considerations 139

WORKS CITED 146

APPENDIX A: Stewart's Closing Remarks at the Rally 155 APPENDIX B: List of Media Sources Used in the Study 159 APPENDIX C: Media Breakdown by Category 169 APPENDIX D: Themes Prominent in Rally Media Coverage 170

v 1

(1) INTRODUCTION

A. MR. STEWART GOES TO WASHINGTON...

In September 2010, popular American political satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen

Colbert announced on their respective television programs that they would be hosting competing rallies the following month on the National Mall in Washington. In an era of increasingly vicious partisan discourse, the ambitious event - which eventually merged under the moniker the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' - was to serve as a call to arms for the swath of civil and reasonable moderates who are so often overshadowed by both media pundits and political actors. Stewart justified the rally during his announcement speech, arguing that everyday face real problems that have real solutions, which

"seventy to eighty percent of our population could agree to try, and could ultimately live with" ("September 16, 2010"). "Unfortunately," he continued, "the conversation and process is controlled by the other fifteen to twenty percent" (Stewart "September 16,

2010"). From its inception, the rally's stated purpose hinted at its satirical underpinnings.

The very people who were targeted by the to attend were also the same people who would typically avoid a political rally in Washington, afraid of being lumped in with extremists like 'birthers', 9/11 conspiracy theorists, people who draw Hitler mustaches on 's leaders, or to again quote Stewart, "the people who believe that Obama is a secret Muslim planning a socialist takeover of America so he can force his radical black liberation Christianity down our throats" ("September 16,2010"). 2

The media reaction following the announcement was expectedly hesitant considering the location and timing of the event, with many news outlets simply not sure what to make of it. Slated for October 30th, the gathering would take place in of the Congressional building just three days prior to the midterm elections. Was this a cloaked attempt to garner media attention for a get-out-the-vote rally? Considering the demographics of Stewart and Colbert's typical television audience, was the rally just an underhanded plea for young Democrats to rush to the polls with the same enthusiasm as they had two years earlier? Further driving speculation was the long-standing rivalry between the Comedy Central tandem and their frequent target, , who had organized a similarly-titled 'Rally to Restore Honor' on August 28th of the same year.

Despite being billed as a "celebration of America's heroes and heritage," the Fox rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was hosted by the outspoken conservative personality

Glenn Beck, who was then with Fox News, and featured former Republican Vice-

Presidential nominee as a speaker (Halloran 2010). It was considered by most observers as a political event, attended in large number by Tea Party sympathizers. Were

Stewart and Colbert intending to simply ridicule the previous event, or were they attempting to rally the left in response to Fox News' appeal to the right? Like the with its close ties to the right-wing media, was this event the kick-off to a new political entity? In short, was the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' political or parody? 3

B. AMERICAN POLITICAL SATIRE: A BRIEF HISTORY

While political satire has long been a staple in the post-colonial , it is prototypical for the comics and the political elites to operate in entirely different societal spheres. The intersection of these worlds throughout history has always served as an exception rather than the rule, though the insistence of contemporary satirists like Stewart and Colbert to push these boundaries beyond any prior precedent challenges journalists and the public to discern what qualifies as legitimate political discourse in the new millennium.

In order to demonstrate just how different circumstances have become for modern satirists, it is prudent to contrast their contemporary role with the historical clashes between politicians and comics.

While the earliest traditions of satire in the United States can be traced back to

Revolutionary era "jest books" or "yellow papers" such as the New- Courant and

Poor Richard's Almanack, these brief ridicules of the Crown would inspire the influx of influential nineteenth and twentieth century political cartoon weeklies like Puck, as well as the broad-scale literary critiques of American society and government by the likes of

Ambrose Bierce, H.L Mencken, Dorothy Parker, and most famously, Mark Twain

(Robinson 2010: 20-21, 37-39; Hamm 2008: x-xi). It was not until the national impact of written satire was adopted by the tradition of spoken-word comics, however, that the realms of politics and comedy would meet face-to-face. In the early twentieth century, stage Will Rogers achieved stardom by bringing social and political critique to the mainstream, building an admiration and friendship with that granted him freedom to poke fun at the President after he had completed his term in office 4

(Robinson 2010: 57, 66). Audiences responded so enthusiastically to Rogers' political bits that in 1916 he was invited to Baltimore to perform in front of President Woodrow Wilson

- the first time a stand-up comic mocked a sitting President in their presence (Robinson

2010: 67). The media covered the performance extensively and gave it rave reviews, while

Wilson was observed laughing enthusiastically throughout the performance. When thanked for travelling from Washington, he responded: "I'd travel ten times that distance to listen to as wise a man as Will Rogers" (Robinson 201: 68).

For the next two decades, Rogers enjoyed a celebrity and influence unheard of by today's standards, writing columns on current events that were syndicated in six-hundred newspapers and read daily by nearly forty million Americans, all of which supplemented his continual work on stage, radio, and in film (Robinson 2010: 69). He maintained close relationships with political and social elites despite his satirical act, even going so far as to introduce Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Democratic National Convention in 1932 (Robinson

2010: 83). When Rogers was killed in a plane crash over Alaska in August of 1935, bells rang and flags flew at half-mast in over one-hundred American cities, while Congress was adjourned in his honour. A week later, President Roosevelt delivered a commemorative national radio address to calm a grieving nation (Robinson 2010: 96-97). While Stewart and Colbert currently share a substantial influence over American political discourse,

Rogers' national popularity and connections in Washington during the Depression era serve as a handy reminder that the embrace and elevation of satire as a form of mainstream political critique has precedent in the United States. 5

Nearly thirty years later, as the sales of full-length comedic LPs were making careers for social critics like , Bob Newhart, Dick Gregory, Vaughan Meader, and Jonathan Winters, one particularly controversial and hard-hitting comedian was at the top of his game - (Robinson 2010: 12,114-121; Hamm 2008: xi). Dubbed "Will

Rogers with fangs," Canadian-bom Sahl made a career out of vehemently attacking

Eisenhower's policies, and in 1960, followed in Rogers' footsteps by developing a close relationship with then Presidential candidate John F. (Robinson 2010: 114, 126-

130). Sahl was brought on during the campaign against Nixon to write jokes for the

Democratic candidate, which many historians cite as a difference-maker during the campaign as Kennedy's supposed wit was used as a tool to humanize the newcomer in the eyes of the electorate. The relationship between Sahl and Kennedy during this period, like that between Rogers and Roosevelt before it, demonstrates that politicians have at times sought out their own satirical critics when it could be viewed as politically beneficial to do so, and this practice only intensified as televised satire became the standard in later decades.

Written satire didn't disappear in the twentieth century thanks to the rise of prominent stand-up acts, of course. Authors like Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut deftly used humour to hold a mirror up to American society in literary classics like Catch-22 and

Cat's Cradle, and in the tradition of the great Lincoln-era editorial cartoonists Thomas Nast and Joseph Keppler, Bill Mauldin and Herbert Block worked under the pseudonym

'Herblock' to lampoon Southern segregationists, the inertia of the Eisenhower administration, and even coined the term 'McCarthyism' (Kercher 2006: 7-8; Robinson 6

2010: 39, 102). Out of the fifties and sixties also came the launch of satirical magazines like MAD, Monocle, and , which were aimed at hip high school and college students. The competition was fierce, as Playboy twice attempted and failed to expand its progressive, alternative lifestyle empire with new social and political satire publications by hiring away most of MAD's staff (Gray, Jones & Thompson 2009: 20; Kercher 2006: 3-4,

429).

The satirical magazines of this era continued a tradition that remains even today in

American politics - the fake Presidential candidacy. Will Rogers was the first comic to stage a fake campaign for President in the pages of Life in 1928, and while MAD's offering of fictional spokesmen Alfred E. Neuman as a candidate in 1956 was little more than a magazine cover gimmick, Monocle actually got their faux candidate into the Republican convention, where he delivered a nomination speech over the loud speaker before being removed by security (Robinson 2010: 79-80, 102; Kercher 2006: 429-430). The editors of

Monocle dubbed this in-your-face-style parody "action satire," and it is in this tradition that contemporary comedians like Colbert operate to blur the line between where the comedy ends and the legitimate political sphere begins (Kercher 2006: 429-430). Perhaps the most famed fake Presidential candidate came from the popular CBS comedy show The Smothers

Brothers Comedy Hour, whose writers ran the dry and dim-witted comedian Pat Paulson for office in 1968. Noted for its longevity and national popularity, the 'Paulson for

President' campaign saw the comedian passing out bumper stickers and signs to supporters while touring the country, receiving ovations in state houses and even getting his policies rebuked by legitimate candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Two weeks before the vote, CBS ran a 7 special during the normal Smothers Brothers timeslot dedicated entirely to Paulson's campaign, and though he received only 100,000 write-in ballots on Election Day, the campaign solidified the fake run for Presidency as one of comedy's sharpest approaches to parodying the nation's highest office (Robinson 2010: 175-180).

Out of the seventies came the birth of perhaps the most influential political satire vehicle of the twentieth century aside from - Saturday Night Live. Inspired by the political slant and risque approach of the controversial National Lampoon magazine, creator Lome Michaels built his cast of the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" entirely from the Compass troupes and Second City comedy teams that were popular fare for college-aged kids in that day (Robinson 2010: 115, 193-195). From its very first broadcast on NBC in 1975, SNL began paving the way for satirical news acts like Stewart and

Colbert. The segment - hosted initially by Chevy Chase, and in later years by comics like , , Norm MacDonald, , and

Tina Fey - was a straight skewering of the relevant stories of the day, delivered from a news desk in a form that parodies a traditional nightly newscast. While this often put politicians squarely in the line of fire each week, it was and continues to be the tremendously influential presidential impersonations which make the show a key source of political commentary in the United States (Robinson 2010: 195-202).

In the first years of the show, Chevy Chase's impersonation of the bumbling and stumbling resonated so deeply with Americans that it came to transform the manner by which Ford himself was seen by voters. Trying to counteract or perhaps even capitalize on this effect, the President invited Chase along with comics Dan Ackroyd and 8

John Belushi to the White House Correspondents' Dinner to perform the impersonation live, and Ford chuckled gamely as Chase tripped through the banquet hall and smacked his head on the lectern (Robinson 2010: 195-202). That same night, Ford accepted an invitation from writer A1 Franken to appear on an episode of SNL, which at the time was both unprecedented and harshly criticized by political opponents for tarnishing the image of the office of the President. On April 17, 1976, in a cameo that was reminiscent of Richard

Nixon's famed appearance on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In years earlier, a pre-taped segment featuring the President opened an episode which was hosted by his own press secretary (Robinson 2010: 181-183, 195-202). The following year, the broadcast of the faux Carter-Ford election debate, with Chase resuming his role as Ford and Ackroyd playing Carter, was so popular that it inspired NBC to add more late-night satirical programming to its line-up and sign to the post-Tonight Show spot. SNL not only solidified the place of late-night comedy on network television, but demonstrated a continued public appetite for cutting-edge political satire (Robinson 2010: 201-202).

These rich historical underpinnings continue to shape political satire as it has evolved through the last decades of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. Past literary staples like National Lampoon and MAD have been eclipsed by The Onion and other online humour sites, and the groundbreaking and influential satirical programming like Politically Correct with Bill Maher, South Park, Chappelle's Show, and of course, The

Daily Show and The Colbert Report are more likely to originate today on Comedy Central than on network television (Baumgartner and Morris 2008: xiii-xvi; Hamm 2008: x-xii;

Gray, Jones & Thompson 2009: 26-27). Presidential impersonations kept SNL culturally 9 relevant through the eighties and nineties, as exemplified most famously by Dana Carvey's perfect mimics of George H.W. Bush's favoured policy lines and 's sleazy during the Lewinsky scandal. As mentioned earlier, though, the last decade has seen political satire undergo a dramatic shift away from the periphery of mainstream discourse and into its epicentre, with Stewart and Colbert at the helm.

Take, for instance, the 2008 Presidential elections as an example of the prominent role of contemporary comedy in American politics. Following in the footsteps of Rogers and Paulson, Colbert announced on his program in October of 2007 that he was submitting his name to the Democratic Party in his home state of South Carolina to be considered as a serious nominee for President of the United States (Fowler 2008: 534). Backlash towards the campaign began just days after his announcement, when Colbert's polling numbers were coming in higher than a number of legitimate candidates like , Chris

Dodd, and . and John McCain both supported the candidacy as legitimate, citing that it may inspire much needed energy and attention to the campaign. After two weeks of campaigning, Colbert submitted his official bid for candidacy to the South Carolina Democratic executive committee, only to have them vote

13-3 to refuse his bid on the grounds that he was not a serious contender (Fowler 2008:

534). Despite the short duration of the campaign, a number of political columnists attribute

Colbert's embarrassment of serious candidate in the polls as the main reason that Brownback chose to drop out of the race (Green 2007).

Other comics, too, helped shaped the course of the election. When McCain chose to snub Letterman by cancelling an appearance on The Late Show just weeks before the vote, 10 the late-night host spent night after night skewering the Senator in segments that were posted and shared in the days following via YouTube. Perhaps even more importantly, Tina

Fey's uncanny impersonation of the gaffe-prone Republican Vice-Presidential candidate on

SNL "indelibly defined Palin" for many Americans, prompting Palin and McCain to both appear on the program to try and soften the impact of their harsh depictions and improve their public image (Robinson 2010: 222). During the election period, both Colbert and

Stewart's programs were viewed by the parties as essential campaign stops for the major candidates: The Daily Show is not only where Presidential hopeful announced his candidacy, but Stewart played host to both McCain and Obama for interviews in the run-up to Election Day.

Long-time journalist and former Lyndon Johnson aide Bill Moyers has observed that "you simply can't understand American politics in the new millennium without The

Daily Show" (Robinson 2010: 220). Much more depth will be provided in the second chapter about the circumstances surrounding the rise of Stewart and Colbert, but given this influence, it seems understandable that the mere announcement of a rally on the National

Mall by the satirists would garner them substantial media coverage. What this introductory history lesson has attempted to additionally acknowledge is that such an event is truly unique in the history of American political satire. While comics have in the past achieved broad national stardom and influence, shaped the public's image of political figures, and engaged directly with Presidents and politicians on both friendly and hostile terms, never before have they wielded said influence in the form of a mass organized spectacle that holds the potential to sway a major American election. In an interview with MSNBC's Rachael Maddow, Stewart contextualized the importance of the rally in relation to the satirical work done on his and Colbert's program nightly: "this [rally] is the ultimate expression... our doctoral thesis" (""). While politics and comedy have knocked heads numerous times before, the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or

Fear' represents a proverbial raising of the stakes - a declaration of legitimacy for political satire as an instrument of politics. For this reason, the rally serves as a worthy case study for this thesis.

C. THE CENTRAL QUESTION(S)

Having provided a brief account of the history of American political satire and situated the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' within that history, the question that lies central to this thesis relates to the shifting dynamics of power between the mainstream media and political satirists. The core question is as follows: does their willingness to engage in the mainstream threaten Stewart and Colbert's designation as 'outsiders', and by extension, their ability to hold brokers of power to account?

A second, ancillary question will be addressed in each of the following chapters in order to deal with the affective impact that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have on their viewership, and more specifically, the academic claim that Stewart and Colbert inspire cynicism and promote political disengagement through their critical and humourous reporting of American political discourse. While the design and scope of this study allows only speculation - rather than definitive results and subsequent conclusions - as to the rally's contribution to this ongoing academic discussion, the topic's centrality to the study 12 of Stewart and Colbert and its prominence in the literature merits its inclusion. As such, the second question is as follows: does satirizing politics necessarily inspire cynicism and provide a disincentive for political engagement?

D. THE STUDY

While the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' is the centrepiece of this study, three separate categories of content will be used to glean insight into the aforementioned questions: episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report leading up to, following, and including the rally itself; media interviews given by the hosts in the period surrounding the event; and media coverage from a range of print, online, and televised sources pertaining to the rally. Each will be explained here in turn.

The rally serves as an ideal text for this study, as beyond its novelty in the history of

American satire, it also represents the first occasion in which Stewart and Colbert have called upon their legion of supporters to mobilize in actual numbers by staging what could be otherwise considered as a 'political event.' The rhetoric used onstage will be deconstructed to get a better idea of how the event engages the central questions posed above. Regarding the satirists' willingness to engage the mainstream, is the rally messaging partisan in nature, serving as a get-out-the-vote campaign for a specific party? Perhaps the goal is more ambitious - are Stewart and Colbert rallying their followers to start their own political movement or political party to challenge the mainstream, or running for office themselves? On the other hand, are the comics simply using a stage and a larger audience to communicate similar messages as are shown nightly on their programs? By using the event 13 to find answers to questions like these, the rally will be used as a barometer for the extent to which satirists are penetrating the 'insider' world of politics or the traditional media.

The decision to include a thorough survey of the two programs rests on the role the hosts play in presenting the rationale to potential attendees as to the tone, feel, and core purpose of the event, be it an optimistic rallying cry for establishing reasonable political rhetoric to mainstream discourse or a plea for overlooked moderates to gather and express their frustration and anger with the political process. Since the announcement and evolution of the rally's promotion takes place on-air, episodes from each program will be analyzed starting with the week of the rally's announcement through to the days following the event.

The willingness and extent to which Colbert and Stewart challenge their role as satirists and engage the mainstream will unfold in these lead-up episodes, both in their explicit comments and in their reactions to their own media coverage.

Both the rally and the episodes of The Daily Show and Colbert Report can inform the discussion regarding cynicism and engagement, as the mood of the announcement and rally itself, its timing, its location, and its core messages to attendees and viewers speaks to the conception of political engagement presented by Colbert and Stewart. Do they use the forum to mock the political process in the days before an important election, instead celebrating their attendees for engaging in a far more meaningful form of participation by appearing at the rally? Do they verbally encourage critical engagement with media and politics and simply wish to hold public discourse to a higher standard, or perhaps go even further and explicitly instruct viewers to vote? Is the tone one of optimism or of anger 14 amongst the rally speakers? These questions will be considered as a means of gaining insight on this important debate.

Beyond the rally itself, we can investigate the rhetoric used by Stewart and Colbert to describe the event as well as their role in relation to mainstream discourse in the eleven interviews granted to the mainstream press from mid-September to mid-November of 2010.

These texts are invaluable to this study as various interviews with Stewart address this thesis' central questions directly - is his intention to announce a shift in his role to a social critic or commentator, or will he continue to deny influence and legitimacy, insisting it is all meant for a laugh? Do they view satire as a cynical medium or one that limits engagement amongst their audience, or do their intentions lie elsewhere? No single event until the rally has inspired such an enthusiastic media blitz by the two hosts, meaning that the study of these programs has never before seen such a wealth of dialogue from Colbert and Stewart in regards to their role and impact on political discourse in America.

An analysis of the media coverage leading up to and following the rally is also essential to discern Stewart's shifting role in relation to the mainstream media. Textual structures of news can be instructive as to how journalists - who traditionally serve as arbiters of truth in society - conceptualize a story, including how the subjects of the story should be portrayed. This study will uncover the reaction of mainstream media to the rally's announcement, evolution, and the event itself, focusing specifically on how the journalistic community feels about whether the rally changes Stewart and Colbert's role as satirists and the merits of the rally's attempts to promote 'sanity.' These news articles, editorials, blogs, discussions and videos will be pulled from nine different media sources, 15 focusing only on coverage from September 16th through 19th and October 24th through to

November 1st, 2010, totalling 138 pieces.

In sum, the inclusion in this study of three different types of content should provide

an appropriately detailed and multi-faceted perspective on the circumstances surrounding

the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' as it unfolded in the fall of 2010. The episodes

and the rally, the interviews, and the media coverage - or put differently, how the event

was presented, what was intended, and how it was received - collectively provide an

adequately broad sample of available texts which, considered together, will strengthen the

forthcoming conclusions.

E. METHODOLOGY I

The texts used to answer this thesis paper's central questions will be deconstructed

by way of critical discourse analysis. Emerging in the early 1990s and shaped primarily by

scholars like Teun van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Gunther Kress, Ruth Wodak, and Michael

Meyer, critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a subcategory of a broader methodology in

communications and interdisciplinary study known as discourse analysis (DA). While the

number of unique approaches to DA make finding a succinct definition quite difficult, a

number of broad tenets exist that are shared by each variant. Generally, DA is the study of

the naturally occurring language spoken by real speakers with a focus on larger units of

words, allowing the analysis to move beyond grammatical structures or isolated word

choices to understand the action and interaction implied in texts, discourses, conversations,

speech acts, or other communicative events (Wodak and Meyer 2009: 2). The primary 16 focus of DA is the contexts of language use, which can also be extended to non-verbal forms of communication like gestures, images, film, the internet, and multimedia (Wodak and Meyer 2009: 2).

For the purposes of clarity and consistency, the following quote represents what is likely the most popular and widely-used scholarly explanation of the CDA approach:

CDA sees discourse - language use in speech and writing - as a form of 'social practice'. Describing discourse as social practice implies a dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s), and social structure(s), which frame it: The discursive event is shaped by them, but it also shapes them. That is, discourse is socially constitutive as well as socially conditioned - it constitutes situations, objects of knowledge, and the social identities of and relationships between people and groups of people. It is constitutive both in the sense that it helps to sustain and reproduce the social status quo, and in the sense that it contributes to transforming it. (Fairclough and Wodak 1997: 258)

Central to this definition is not only the importance of social context in language use, but the relationship between the speaker and their subject matter and the manner by which the speaker is shaped by and shapes that subject matter through their discursive expression.

It is for this reason that some CDA scholars characterize discourse as "an institutionalized way of talking that regulates and reinforces action and thereby exerts power" (Jager and

Maier 2009: 45). Power, on account of the social consequence built into discourse, is central to CDA:

Discourses exert power because they transport knowledge on which collective and individual consciousness feeds. This knowledge is the basis for individual and collective, discursive and non-discursive action, which in turn shapes reality. (Jager and Maier 2009: 39)

Discursive practices may also have major ideological effects - that is, they can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations between (for instance) social classes, women and men, and ethnic/cultural majorities and minorities through the ways in which they represent things and position people. (Fairclough and Wodak 1997: 258)

The discourse used by those in power can sustain existing inequalities or oppose them, just as dominated groups can discursively resist, and so CDA "focuses on the ways discourse structures enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce, or challenge relations of power and dominance in society" (van Dijk 2008: 86; Wodak and Meyer 2009: 9). The importance of power in CDA's approach to studying texts makes it an ideal method to address the questions concerning the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear'. As will be addressed in the second chapter, satirists contribute to political discourse by holding the powerful to account, though not by the powerful themselves. A central tenet of satire is the comedian's resistance to speaking from a position of authority, instead coveting their 'outsider' role to critique the sources of societal power by posing questions but rarely providing answers, allowing the audience to arrive at their own critical conclusions.

Presumably, if a satirist comes to claim authority for their perspective they become a propagandist, and thus threaten their legitimacy as a comedic voice; precisely what is at stake for Stewart and Colbert by hosting the rally.

Recognizing that Stewart and Colbert are in positions of power as television hosts and rally leaders, CDA's focus on the social consequence of language allows this study to view their rhetoric in terms of the way it manages that power. By separating the intentions of the comedians from the outcomes of their actions, we can glean insight as to their own self- awareness regarding political satire and its effects, and further investigate how they use 18 language to manage expectations and influence their viewers. For instance, does the study of broad themes that run through Stewart's interviews and programs reveal underlying values and norms that can be instructive about how he shapes his satire for an audience? Do

Stewart or Colbert explicitly address how they envision an ideal reaction to viewing their program, or alternatively, that they seek to inspire viewers to get engaged? Is the tone of the rally empowering and hopeful, or cynical itself? While these sorts of questions may seem obvious or straightforward, they are often ignored in the academic coverage of these programs.

The CDA approach can also be instructive by allowing the journalistic response regarding Stewart and Colbert's role in relation to the mainstream media to be categorized based on its larger editorial perspective. Whether the media chooses to embrace or dismiss political satire can be discerned by studying their coverage of the rally, as CDA puts emphasis on the context of language use and the manner by which it reproduces social domination. Instead of focusing on specific word choices or deconstructing sentences to glean meaning, this study is free to tackle a much larger sample of media texts to uncover broader themes that run through coverage over multiple sources. Without this inclusivity, it would be difficult to draw any conclusions regarding the reaction of the mainstream media as a collective.

A further benefit of CDA's approach for this study is its flexibility in data collection and acceptance of working with existing data that is not specifically produced for the purposes of research, as is the case with each of the texts being reviewed here (Wodak and

Meyer 2009: 32). According to Wodak and Meyer, CDA does not constitute a well-defined 19 empirical methodology: "data collection is not considered to be a specific phase that must be completed before analysis begins [but instead] it is a matter of finding indicators for particular concepts, expanding concepts into categories, and, on the basis of these results, collecting further data" (2009: 27). This open approach to methodology grants the opportunity for this project to design its own method of data collection, which will be laid out in detail at the outset of the third chapter. 20

(2) LITERATURE REVIEW

A. STEWART AND COLBERT: HISTORY AND RELEVANCE

While making no attempt to disguise his smug demeanour and trademark smirk, comedian Jon Stewart peers intently into the camera and poses the debate's second question: "Mr. President, let me get specific. Why are we in ?" Without hesitation or a shade of doubt, former President George W. Bush reasserts the rhetoric that had become only too familiar to the American public during his eight years in office, stating that the

United States "will be changing the regime of Iraq for the good of the Iraqi people." Not overly surprised by the response, Stewart turns the floor over to Bush's opponent - a slightly younger Governor George W. Bush - to respond to the same question. "If we are an arrogant nation, they'll resent us" contends Bush with equal conviction; "I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way, so should you.'" The audience roars with laughter as the mediator comfortably fakes confusion over this clear contradiction. In a spectacle that could only be staged on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, footage has been cleverly aligned in Stewart's 'debate' to contrast the President's statements with remarks he made earlier in his political career while still Governor of Texas, begging the public to be wary of the apparently unwavering principles implied through the strong language spoken by politicians (Jones 2005: 111).

When Jon Stewart took over the hosting duties of The Daily Show in 1999, it didn't take him long to make an impact on the media landscape in the United States. Coverage of 21 the Bush/Gore Presidential election was deemed 'Indecision 2000' on the program, a moniker that would prove fitting after the historically tight race wound up being decided by the Supreme Court and controversy swirled around 'hanging chads' in . That year,

The Daily Show won the prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in television journalism, with the award panel noting that "out of the convoluted sameness of media coverage of the last presidential election sprang the irreverent and inventive" criticism on behalf of Stewart and his team (Hamm 2008: 162). This was a fitting rationale, as the program found the largest segment of its audience when it acted as a vehement opponent of the Bush administration and the Iraq War, primarily at a time after 2001 when a wave of patriotism fuelled the war effort and the mainstream media was hesitant to criticize the

President (Hamm 2008: 166).

After The Daily Show won its second Peabody Award for its coverage of the 2004

Presidential election, the traditional media began to pay attention to the program as a legitimate player in political news. In addition to the sixteen The Daily Show has garnered since 2001, Stewart has hosted the Academy Awards twice, was named

'Entertainer of the Year' in 2004 by , was listed as one of the one- hundred most influential people of the year in 2005 by Time Magazine, and has been referred to by The Times as the "Most Trusted Man in America" (Kakutani

2008). The program has also been targeted by politicians who want to appeal to the young and educated audience the show attracts nightly, as Stewart has welcomed an impressive slate of influential political actors as guests including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary

Clinton, John McCain, , and A1 Gore. Vice-Presidential candidate and two-time 22

Presidential hopeful John Edwards even chose to announce his candidacy on the program in both 2004 and 2008.

The show itself is a departure from the traditional talk show format of late-night comedy, instead using two-thirds of each program to provide anchor-centred 'fake news' coverage that parodies the daily reporting of television news on nightly broadcasts (Jones

2007: 133). Stewart uses real video clips and stories from news coverage the day prior to illustrate his perspective, and correspondents who are often 'on location' to criticize politicians and the traditional media while uncovering truths about the tactics they employ.

Under the guise of comedy, the program dissects the news cycle with the intent to expose and ridicule the political process and its media coverage (Jones 2007: 145).

In 2006, the success and popularity of The Daily Show spawned a spin-off: a nightly program hosted by Stewart's top political correspondent that parodies right-wing political pundits like Bill O'Reilly, , or (Fowler 2008: 533). While Stewart shares the goal of satirizing the news media with The Colbert Report, it is apparent that host Stephen Colbert takes a markedly different approach than his predecessor. By creating a Actional persona that matches the grandeur, self-importance, and blind partisanship of the pundits he is parodying, Colbert has no need to hide behind the tongue-in-cheek, outsider focus of The Daily Show, instead opting for a much more free-wheeling and blunt comedic style that puts his character at the centre of the action. Tasked with making the same distinction between the styles of the two programs, made this observation:

"where The Daily Show carves its humour with the precision of a paring knife, the Report whacks at its topics with the blunt end of a briefcase" (Peyser 2006). 23

Colbert is over-the-top and overbearing as his loud conservative character, who he describes as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" (Peyser 2006). The format of his program lends itself to his self-aggrandizing personality, as every segment is focused solely on Colbert himself. This even includes guest interviews, which are set up in such a manner so as to have the guest already seated in another section of the studio to allow for the host to prance across the stage to applause, taking time to intermittently bow and wave to the crowd while the featured guest waits in the wings. During the interviews themselves, the focus remains on Colbert, as he makes it the goal of the segment to stump the guest and make them look foolish by utilizing rhetorical devices and logical fallacies as counter arguments.

It undoubtedly makes for great television, but it is also a much more involved criticism of the mainstream media's seemingly illegitimate interference in the political process. Colbert exaggerates the negative qualities of media personalities and extracts a deeply rooted belief that journalists "are insulated and elite, being more committed to the values of the powerful politicians they cover than to the interests of the audience they supposedly serve" (Boler 2006: 3, Fallows 1996: 5). The effect, it appears, has been just as impactful as Stewart's on the American public, and in the years since the program's debut,

Colbert's influence has spread beyond the confines of his television studio as he and his staff have proven continually adept at mobilizing viewership online and garnering media coverage for a range of self-serving promotional initiatives.

With this brief overview providing some background on the evolution of these programs from fringe cable fare to central sources of political criticism in the United States, 24 this chapter aims to gauge the causes and effects of this rise to prominence. In a review of pertinent literature, we focus primarily on the academic coverage of The Daily Show and its host Jon Stewart, with the final two sections pulling The Colbert Report into the discussion.

This is due to the much greater coverage which is given to Stewart thanks to his longer tenure as a satirical host, and also, thanks to Stewart's role as the prime spokesperson for the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.'

This chapter is split into six sections. Before delving into a discussion of the programs themselves, the second section outlines the theoretical underpinnings of satire as a critical form and considers its value as a contributor to democratic discourse. The third section focuses on the current legitimacy crisis facing the mainstream news media, and supplements it with a theoretical and historical account of the manner by which the modern media claimed their traditional role as arbiters of truth in society. The fourth section probes the extent to which The Daily Show has filled a critical void left by traditional journalists, and addresses the theory behind the intersection of society's discursive spheres: specifically, the merger of entertainment and news and of popular culture and politics. The fifth section explores the existing academic coverage of The Daily Show, focusing on the effects the programs have on levels of audience cynicism, political knowledge, and political engagement. This section aims to distinguish the quantitative and qualitative accounts of the program, and squares each with what is already known from the earlier section on satirical theory. Finally, this chapter concludes with a discussion of Stewart and Colbert's role as 'outsiders' in the realm of political and media elite, and speculates on the impact that their ventures away from their television studios and into mainstream discourse have 25 on their ability to hold brokers of power to account. Central to this section is a focus on the participatory culture of the Colbert Nation, which can perhaps be instructive as to the effects of political satire's confrontation with the society at large.

B. POLITICAL SATIRE IN THEORY

The formulation of a succinct definition for satire has troubled academics through the twentieth century, as the "staggering diversity of forms, tones, and materials" preclude a clean and all-encompassing explanation (Caufield 2008: 7). Despite the difficulty, this thesis includes two of the finer modern attempts, which together integrate the core values behind the art form but leave space for further exploration:

Satire is often defined as a moralistic mode of address that critiques the missteps and hypocrisies of those who wield cultural and political authority. It is a tactic of resistance for those who sit outside the circles of power and its success depends on the complicity of an audience of cultural insiders who are privy to the codes needed to "get the joke." Consequently, satire as a discursive form speaks specifically to issues of social cohesion and division rooted within the particular experiences of places and communities. (Tinic 2009: 168)

One particularly useful definition posits satire as "verbal aggression in which some aspect of historical reality is exposed to ridicule. It is a mode of aesthetic expression that relates to a historical reality, involves at least implied norms against which a target can be exposed as ridiculous, and demands the pre-existence or creation of shared comprehension and evaluation between satirist and audience." As a form of political discourse, two of the most important components of this definition are the verbal attack that in some way passes judgment on the object of that attack, thereby enunciating a perceived breach in societal norms or values. (Gray et al 2009: 12)

While there are quite a few elements to digest in those rather dense accounts of satire's form, we can begin with the final statement regarding two essential components of political satire. The concepts of attack and judgment commonly appear alongside a few 26 additional characteristics that are historically considered necessary for a work to be considered satire, with the others being play, laughter, and audience knowledge (Caufield

2008: 7). Although other forms of critique or political humour may contain one or many of these tenets, satire requires that all be present simultaneously.

Beginning with attack, it is important to recognize that at the heart of all satire is the critique of perceived wrongs or ills in society. The target of that attack, as noted in the definitions above, is necessarily the powerful within that society, be they people, institutions, processes, or norms (Jones 2010: 238). While satire is squarely rooted in the realm of humour, there must be a degree of hostility. As Rachel Caufield aptly notes, "by using satire to diminish or discredit an individual, an idea, an argument, an institution, or any other target, the satirist is assuming a position of superiority and the satire itself is intended as a form of aggression to expose the problems" (2008: 7). The purpose of exposing these problems, of course, is to encourage the audience to question or scrutinize traditional sources of authority, and in doing so, satire inevitably serves as a check on power (Jones 2010: 20). By infusing humour into this critique, the audience may potentially experience a transformative effect known as defamiliarization, which is the process whereby something familiar is made anew by its presentation from a fresh perspective

(Grey et al. 2009: 9). The attack can cause an issue or problem to be seen in a new light.

The second tenet of satire - judgment - refers to the content of the critique made by satirists towards their targets. To apply judgment towards another through attack is to presuppose that a form of wrong has been committed that violates the attacker's moralistic code, and so an essential assumption behind all satire is that the audience and satirist will 27 together And humour in the attack because they share and together intend to uphold a common ethical standard - a means through which satire builds a community with which the comic and audience reside together (Caufield 2008: 8). The wrong must also be identified in the attack in a way that lends itself to that problem's correction, as satire is not mere complaint. According to Caufield; "all satirists are, to a greater or lesser degree, optimists, seeking to fix society's broken pieces" (2008: 8). Each of these elements of judgment will be addressed in turn.

To satire theorist Joanne Morreale, laughter becomes a "discourse a community uses to reveal itself to itself' (2009: 108). By sharing the joke, a sense of camaraderie is established between the satirist and the audience and amongst the audience members as an identified group, providing comfort through the realization that no individual is alone in thinking critically about society's problems (Gray et al 2009: 16). Sigmund Freud viewed humour as an unconscious release of tension aimed towards institutions that wield societal control. Accordingly, the exercise of laughing together, to quote Jones, "offers a means of re-establishing commonsense truths to counter the spectacle, ritual, pageantry, artifice, and verbosity that often cloak the powerful" (2007: 145). Morreale expands on the manner by which political satire appeals to common values, arguing that through collective laughter those values are strengthened in the audience member to the extent that said person is granted the disposition to act on those values in the future (2009: 106). In a sense, by laughing together we find our moral supporter and become more confident about the reasons for laughing, making us not only more critically aware of the problems facing the 28 society but, as Gray and his colleagues phrase it, "shak[ing] us out of our sense of apathy or indifference" (Gray et al 2009:16).

Mikhail Bakhtin, one of humour's great theorists, agrees that the communitarian elements of political satire incite viewers to act: "by comically playing with the political, one can gain a greater sense of ownership over it and, in turn, feel more empowered to engage in it" (Gray et al 2009: 11). Ownership is the operative word here, as Bakhtin's sentiments are echoed by a number of other theorists who claim that satire's intersection with politics - and by extension, its presentation of the political within the frame of popular culture - has led to a transformation in the way citizens conceptualize political discourse.

The idea of 'ownership' or belonging is central to developing a sense of expertise regarding a certain subject matter, and the world of popular culture is designed to foster that feeling of inclusivity in a manner that is not easily replicated in the political sphere. Walter

Benjamin illustrates this effect with a simple truism: "people [feel] more authorized to offer judgment on sports teams or Hollywood movies than on artworks cloistered in museums"

(Jenkins 2006: 223). The explanation for this fact is simple: engagement in popular culture is expressed through fandom, which is a cultural forum that encourages peer feedback, debate, review, critique, and the resultant increase in confidence and expertise that comes with that discourse. Sources of high culture - like visual arts, dance, literature, or classical music - do not share these same qualities, as their cultural status in society is elevated to an extent that an expression of expertise brings with it a declaration of authority, perhaps of a certain class or education level. Likewise politics, with its intricate history and systemic complexities and controversies, does little to encourage the confidence of casual followers to an extent that they feel comfortable claiming the authority to argue their positions amongst peers in public (Dahlgren 2008: 139-141). This lack of the confidence which tends to lend itself to expertise serves as a barrier to political engagement, which leads theorist Henry Jenkins to ask: "does making politics into a kind of popular culture allow consumers to apply fan expertise to their civic responsibilities?" (Jenkins 2006: 223). There is evidence to suggest the affirmative; that allowing citizens to engage in politics through the logic of popular culture can remove the exclusive "aura" surrounding political discourse, which only serves to further support Morreale's claim that satire can arouse a disposition to act amongst viewers (Jenkins 2006: 223; Dahlgren 2008: 141-142). Careful not to oversell the point,

Jonathan Gray and his colleagues argue that the intersection of humour and politics "tells us of how satire can energize civic culture[:] engaging citizen-audiences[...], inspiring public political discussion, and drawing citizens enthusiastically into the realm of the political with deft and dazzling ease" (2009: 4).

The second element of judgment is the satirist's implied optimism, which ties into the third characteristic necessary for satire - play. While positivity may at first glance appear to be incompatible with the tone of attacking and judging a target, the dichotomy can best be explained by contrasting the content of satire with its effect, as American humour expert Charles Shutz does here:

American political humour is basically negative. It is anti-political and anti-partisan; it ridicules and derides government and officialdom; and, last, political humour even completes the circle by attacking the people themselves. Yet, true to the genius 30

of comedy, the negative serves the positive. Negative political humour supports politics and democracy, and the existence of the former is a sure sign of the health of the latter. (1977: 247)

The beneficial impact on democracy is but one of satire's positive outcomes, with the other being the manner by which satire can produce contempt or indictments through, in the words of Gray and his colleagues, "playful means and, in the process, transform the aggressive act of ridicule into the more socially acceptable act of rendering something ridiculous" (2009: 12-13). Play requires the satirists to express themselves in clever, witty, silly, exaggerated or otherwise engaging ways, making the attack humourous for the audience. Their typical feelings of anger, shame, or disgust are released by the social rebuke of communal laughter: in essence, the audience avoids committing a moral judgment on the target of attack directly as the satirist speaks on their behalf (Gray et al

2009: 12-13; Caufield 2008: 8). While playfulness gives social critique a positive spin, we cannot go so far as to say that it completely overpowers the negativity embedded in the subject matter. In fact, many academics point to satire's potential to alienate controversy- averse mainstream audiences as the reason that satirical television is rarely found on prime- time network television, instead residing in the fringes of late-night or cable programming

(Gray et al 2009: 14). While the marriage of play and judgment strengthen satire's message and impact, it can also weaken its mass appeal.

The fourth essential characteristic of satire is arguably its most important: laughter.

Without it, a satirist is no different from a newspaper editorialist or cable news pundit, as it is the playfulness and resultant chuckle that makes their critique more acceptable and 31 accessible to the audience. It is through laughter that a satirist can inspire positive change both in his audience and in his target. According to Caufield:

Satirists have long accepted that laughter has been an agent of change for the better of those who have shared the laughter. The laughter of ridicule or the truth coated with laughter shames the fool into changing his ways. Such a concept is at the heart of the belief in satire's ability to reform those who have fallen into vice or folly... the laughter evoked by satire is rarely simple, sometimes strained, occasionally strange, capable of cutting both ways. (2008: 9)

Laughter and its inherent tensions differentiate political satire from traditional news coverage, encouraging viewers to think more critically to discern just where the laughs are intended to originate. For instance, The Daily Show will often play a clip of a politician speaking at a press conference or on the floor of Congress that - without a prompt from

Stewart - causes the audience to burst out laughing from the disingenuous tone or inherent contradictions used by the speaker. This alone illustrates the influence that satire's form has on the audience. The politician in the clip had no intention of being funny while speaking, nor would the same audience members have laughed if they had seen an identical clip during a normal nightly newscast, but within the context of a satirical program the audience is primed to be critical of artifice and search for underlying meanings. Their laughter at the end of the clip signifies the difference between the two formats - straight news is monologic, presenting a closed and authoritative voice while satire is dialogic, playing multiple voices against each other simultaneously (Day 2009: 95). When the politician is viewed in the context of Stewart's show, the audience engages in a dialogue with themselves and with their host, deconstructing content internally and producing their own 32 playful judgment. As Gray, Jones and Thompson argue, "to satirize is to scrutinize and therefore to encourage one's audience to scrutinize as well" (Gray et al 2009: 11).

The fifth and final characteristic of satire is audience knowledge, and without it, the impact of a satirist's message is greatly diminished. As a dialogic medium, satire can be instructive but is never authoritative, steering away from the closed certainty of a mainstream news anchor and instead leaving the audience with the burden of arriving at the intended conclusions themselves. The cleverness and wit used to package comedic attacks require a certain level of familiarity with the content for a viewer to be in on the joke, and this requirement is at satire's core - if stories end with an explicit lesson or jokes are delivered too literally, the comic fails to be a satirist altogether (Caufield 2008: 9). Inquiry and provocation, not proselytizing, maximize the efficacy of satire. To quote Morreale, "by conducting open-ended speculative inquiry, by provoking and challenging comfortable and received ideas, by unsettling our convictions and occasionally shattering our illusions, by asking questions and raising doubts but not providing answers, satire ultimately has political consequences [emphasis added]" (Morreale 2009: 107).

Due to its tendency to encourage people to play with and test politics rather than simply accept authoritative truths, some theorists refer to satire as 'work' (Gray et al 2009:

11, 15). It challenges the viewer to engage the material in a way that squares with their own experiences and understandings of the world, rarely providing "clear cut or easily digestible meanings" that are commonplace on network television (Gray et al 2009: 15). Satire, according to Shutz, requires a level of sophistication: "the best humour is always something of a puzzle in its camouflaged criticism, implicit standards, and negativism. Its appreciation 33 requires mental participation by the audience, and its lessons are not hortatory, but self- learned" (Gray et al 2009: 15). As mentioned in the definitions earlier, satire is also by nature non-partisan and politically moderate, as the very thrust of strict left-right perspectives contradicts the aim of allowing knowledgeable audiences to reach their own conclusions. In Shutz's words, it is for this reason that satire is well situated to "counteract the ideological fanaticism of contemporary politics," as its appeal to a broad audience's morality brings a viewing community together rather than polarizing it, which is the effect that extreme or blind partisanship has on audiences (Shutz 1977: 322; Gray et al 2009: 16).

The satirist, in a sense, is an educator; dealing with communal values and acting as a spokesperson for a community while letting his followers uncover their own truths.

Spokesperson, though, is not to be confused with a propagandist, who advocates controversial positions and seeks to alter the attitudes of his audience directly (Morreale

2009: 117). The extent to which the comic allows audiences to 'work' through material and remain moderate can gauge whether quality satire is present, or whether a speaker is simply using humour as a tool to forward their own agenda.

C. POWER, LEGITIMACY, AND THE SPECTACLE OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA

The rise of satire's relevance in American political discourse coincides with the declining state of the mainstream news media, which has led some academic observers to suggest that comedians are often saying what the press is too timid to say, making programs like The Daily Show a more effective mouthpiece for the public's displeasure and a more critical interrogator of those in power than traditional journalists (Gray et al 2009: 34

4). News, as this section will discuss, provides but one narrative of public life, and the extent to which that narrative is meaningful to a populace depends on how effectively the media services the needs of that society.

In light of falling voter turnout rates and a declining interest in politics among young citizens in Western democracies, academics have focused their attention on the relationship between the media and civic engagement (O'Neill 2009: 105). Research suggests that since the advent of the new century, a growing number of citizens are turning to non-traditional news sources to become engaged in the political process. Local news broadcasts, cable news networks, and newspapers are seeing their primary audience move online and to news sources that blur the lines between information and entertainment

(Dahlgren 2008: 45). One explanation for this shift is the apparent "struggle for credibility" that is affecting mainstream American journalism - an institutional state of affairs that some academics argue has reached a state of near crisis (Jones 2010: 181, Riegert 2007: 6-

8).

To provide context for this shift in the role of the news media in society, it is appropriate to understand what role the public plays in legitimizing the authority of the media to begin with. According to philosopher Michel Foucault, every society possesses a

"regime of truth" that is composed of "the types of discourse it harbours and causes to function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true from false statements, the way in which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures which are valorized for obtaining truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true" (Morris and Patton 1979:46). In the United States through to the end of the 35 twentieth century, the regime of truth was championed by the news industry, which was responsible for producing the discourse of objectively reported and factually-accurate stories from an ideologically impartial perspective (Jones 2010: 63). This traditional conception of the media's role is often referred to as the "high modern" or "classical" paradigm of journalism, whereby the news' contribution to the public agenda is based in large part on "traditional liberal ideals of democracy and citizenship" (Dahlgren 2008: 41).

This discourse is what the society, in turn, chooses to privilege with the label of 'fact' or

'truth,' as Foucault reminds us that 'truth' itself "is a type of discourse that societies accept and make function as true [emphasis added]" (1980: 132). The special status granted to the news industry as the primary arbiters of truth in public life - as the holders of a "mirror to the world" - is not an authority held independent from the society at large but as a result of it, sustained by a long and storied history which celebrates, in Jones' words, their

"institutional-based legitimacy, access to power, and the means of production and distribution" (Jones 2010: 63,182).

To conceptualize the role of the news media this way is to understand that what is taken as 'truth' or an authority over presenting reality are mere constructs, but ones which have a lasting impact on a society which shapes and defines them. For theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes, these constructs are better understood by considering the cultural "mythologies" they produce: the meanings implicit in imagery or discourse that go beyond their literal form (2001: 109, 114, 129-130; Kellner 2006: 28). For instance, a police officer's vehicle and uniform or the grandeur of courthouses and legislative buildings come to represent the power held by these institutions for the public, and the 36 continued exposure to these constructs only serves to reinforce their effect. For the news media, the means of news delivery - the well-groomed anchorman behind a desk, the dispassionate tone of voice used for reporting, or even the measured language used in a press clipping - come to symbolize the industry's authority as an arbiter of truth just as effectively as the evidence a rational individual may seek out to discern that what they are hearing or seeing is actually true. The construct, then, becomes just as important as the content.

According to media theorist Peter Dahlgren, the popular conceptions held in western society about the role of news media still derive their expectations from the original tenets of classical journalism, despite the fact that journalism has perhaps never quite lived up to those expectations (2008: 41). While audiences expect media to uphold its traditional core values - objectivity, impartiality, truth-seeking, and the basic requirement that stories depict a realistic version of the world - we have also come to expect that journalism speaks to a heterogeneous and integrated citizenry that uses news as a resource for political and cultural participation and as a forum for popular debate (Jones 2010: 63,

182; Dahlgren 2008:41). These myths, while powerful, are also quite tenuous in the face of changing circumstance, and while the news media gladly embraces them to maintain legitimacy, they serve as an easily delivered criticism in the midst of an industry-wide struggle for credibility.

In academic accounts of the media's contemporary decline, a few themes emerge that prove helpful in explaining why the public is perhaps turning their back on traditional sources of news. Most central to the discussion is the level of influence granted to the 37 economic and political elite in dictating journalistic coverage, and whether or not the interests of society's most powerful members has diluted or even high-jacked the duty of the news media to keep the citizenry objectively informed. It is worth acknowledging that managing the relative influence of societal stakeholders is not new to the craft of journalism, as the very decision of whose actions are defined as news or whose version of the truth is accepted instils a natural bias into news coverage (van Dijk 2008: 10).

Journalists are trained to give preferential treatment to certain types of sources as a means to increase the reliability of their stories, primarily because audiences tend to "accept beliefs, knowledge, and opinions[...] through discourse from what they see as authoritative, trustworthy, or sources, such as scholars, experts, professionals, or reliable media"

(van Dijk 2008: 92). The elite of society, thus, are granted what is termed as symbolic power - "preferential access to, or control over, public discourse" (van Dijk 2008: 14).

Theorist Teun van Dijk warns that this control over discourse brings with it a certain level of awareness and restraint on behalf of those privy to its exercise, as the control also extends "to the minds of those who are being controlled, that is, their knowledge, opinions, attitudes, ideologies, as well as other personal or social representations" (1988: 9). When shaping the content of news becomes equated with shaping public opinion, then the naturally unequal influence given to societal elites over journalistic coverage can be corrupted and used to further self-interest rather than to simply aid in ensuring the reliability of news coverage. This interest can be pursued implicitly as a means for elites to reinforce existing social arrangements: as van Dijk reminds us,

"fundamental norms, values, and power arrangements are seldom explicitly challenged in 38 the dominant news media" (2008: 56). What is perhaps most troubling is the evidence of how deeply rooted this elite influence is in the mechanisms of modern journalism:

Through selective source use, news beat routines, and story topic selection, the news media decide which news actors are being publicly represented, what is being said about them, and, especially, how it is said. Much recent work on news production has shown that these processes are not arbitrary and not simply determined by intuitive, journalistic notions of interestingness. Journalists learn how to portray the power of others and at the same time learn how to contribute to the power of their own organization, for example, by making it independent of other organizations, (van Dijk 2008: 55)

To state the problem simply, when interest injects itself into the news cycle,

'reality' begins to serve an agenda, most commonly one decided upon by elites rather than the public at large. For media theorist Douglas Kellner, this injection of outside interests is merely a symptom of a much larger movement that has been underway for the last half- century - the espousal of the "society of the spectacle" (2003: 2). Adopting and updating a premise that originated from philosopher Guy Debord in the , Kellner's theory of a spectacle-based society conceptualizes the increasing commercialization of our collective experience, as previously non-colonized sectors of human existence become products to be sold. A media spectacle is at the heart of this society, defined as any event or phenomenon that embodies a society's basic values or way of life - images, commodities, or staged events. Commercial enterprises have to be profitable, and to prosper in the society of the spectacle they must entertain to compete, bringing about what Kellner refers to as "the

'entertainmentization' of the economy" (2003: 2-3).

There are countless examples of this elevation of the spectacle from all sectors of society: high-budget blockbusters trumping art cinema as the centrepiece of Hollywood 39 film; sports enterprises transforming their highest-stake games into national events with increasingly ambitious and more extravagant presentations for games like the Superbowl or even the Olympics; large corporations building a 'culture' around their product use to build brand loyalty, such as the legion of Apple fans who for years eagerly awaited product announcements via webcast from the former CEO and de-facto group leader Steve Jobs; restaurants like 'Rainforest Cafe' or 'Planet Hollywood' offering theme park style

'experience dining' to attract customers; and many other analogous anecdotes from the worlds of fashion, music, architecture, art, the internet, and of course, even war and global governance. Across all platforms, the principle appears to be the same - everything bigger, everything better (Kellner 2003: 2-11).

The news is no different. To Kellner, the term '' refers to the synergy of the information and entertainment sectors in the modern media, resulting in a

"spectacularization of politics, of culture, and of consciousness," whereby every story is sensationalized and the prominence of capitalist calculations has brought about the necessity of news organizations that are competing for audiences around the clock (2003:

12-15). It is this shift of focus towards popularization - from a mandate to provide quality reporting for an engaged citizenry, to a business model built around drawing bigger audiences and increasing profit - that injects the troubling elite interference into journalism that van Dijk referred to earlier.

It would be inappropriate to claim that popularization alone is causing the decline in traditional news, as packaging content in more enjoyable formats still has the effect of delivering important civic information to citizens that allow them to engage society in 40 different and perhaps novel ways (Dahlgren 2008: 46). Dahlgren argues, instead, that a greater threat to news are the side-effects found in the news industry as a result of entertainmentization and popularization: the introduction of bias into news; the tendency to focus on scandals, celebrity, and sports rather than society, politics, and economics; and again, the troubling symbiotic relationships between journalists and the political and economic elite, which can lead to a lack of nerve when the media shapes the topics of discussion (2008: 41-51). These side effects, which can be referred to as the tabloidization of news, are what cause the quality of coverage to suffer (2008: 45-47).

It is the strict adherence to two diametrically opposed tenets of reporting - objectivity and subjectivity - that reveal the manner by which tabloidization is hollowing out news content in the United States. Traditionally, the standards of journalistic integrity expect that news will be delivered to an audience with dispassionate objectivity so as to remove any bias on behalf of the reporter, but the media has too often used this requirement as justification to serve as a mouthpiece for the talking points of the opposing political parties, regurgitating without questioning the validity of the content itself (Day 2009: 95;

Jones 2007: 135-136). Politicians will often trade access to journalists in exchange for favourable coverage, an agreement which benefits both groups but violates the public trust

(Dahlgren 2008: 51-52). Instead of interrogating the powerful on behalf of the citizenry, the news industry simply presents competing versions of the truth, shirking its responsibility to assist the public in piecing together an impartial understanding of reality. Alternatively, a relatively new rise of subjective news-casting has also served to undermine the media's legitimacy in serving the public discourse. Twenty-four-hour cable news networks such as 41

Fox News and MSNBC adhere to strict partisan lines in their news coverage, constructing their own realities through the skewed retelling of events while rarely being explicit about that slant (Jones 2007: 145-146). In both cases, to steal a phrase from Jeffrey Jones: "news media are part of the political spectacle" (2010: 182).

To conclude this theoretical summary of the current state of the news media, we reflect back to a musing from Guy Debord that appears to foresee the manner by which the society of the spectacle will shape the profession of journalism in the twenty-first century:

There is no place left where people can discuss the realities which concern them, because they can never lastingly free themselves from the crushing presence of media discourse and of the various forces organised to relay it. Nothing remains of the relatively independent judgement of those who once made up the world of learning; of those, for example, who used to base their self-respect on their ability to verify, to come close to an impartial history of facts, or at least to believe that such a history deserved to be known. (1990: 19-20)

A survey of the academic literature covering The Daily Show would suggest that perhaps Stewart may have found a fan in Guy Debord. Stewart himself contends that "there are - should be - you know, truths, actual truths, and someone should be the forum for that" (Day 2009: 95). On the topic of cable news reporting, he continues: "they've so destroyed the fine credibility or the fibre that was the trust between the people and what they're hearing on the air" (Jones 2010: 74). Democracies depend on a reliable public institution that serves as a check on power, and in the mainstream American media landscape that appears increasingly hesitant to perform the role that has been traditionally theirs, forms of 'fake news' like The Daily Show have filled a void (Baym 2009: 126-127). 42

D. STEWART REPORTS THE NEWS: 'REAL' STORIES, FAKE JOURNALISM?

While explaining the popularly of The Daily Show in the United States, theorists commonly cite the contrast between the deteriorating standards of mainstream broadcast journalism and Stewart's approach to news as a means to uncover objective truth (Baym

2005: 269; Jones 2005: 108-109). As mentioned, the format of Stewart's program is a direct parody of a cable news broadcast, with the comedian-as-anchorman alone at a desk on a television set, speaking directly into the camera with a 'window to the world' that displays video, images or text over his right shoulder. He also uses grand orchestral theme music, flashy graphics to display the title of each segment, and correspondents who report stories and reactions 'on location' (Gray et al 2009: 17). Content-wise, though, the program differs drastically from traditional news. Through the use of comedy, Stewart dodges the journalistic standard of objectivity and instead connects with audiences using a 'common sense' approach to news; presenting the facts of a story through the same mediums that would be used by mainstream news coverage while making observations and value judgements that are often passed over by the media.

The 'debate' mentioned at the outset of this chapter - in which Stewart contrasted

Bush's statements as President with contradictory statements he made as Governor years earlier - is an example of a popular satirical tactic employed by the program called a visual paradox, whereby clips of a political actor's changing views over time are juxtaposed for the viewer's amusement (Morreale 2009: 110). The result is both simple and effective. The editing trick will often be used to form a montage of politicians or media pundits repeatedly using the same turns of phrase to illustrate a point, which serves to reveal the scriptedness 43 and artifice of what passes as political discourse in mainstream news. In the lead-up to the

2004 election, after showing a lengthy package of clips where pundits declare that John

Kerry is "way outside the mainstream" and "out of touch with the mainstream," Stewart quips - "talking points: they're true because they're said a lot" (Day 2009: 89). Even more effective are the juxtapositions that catch a political actor or media personality in an outright lie, simply revealing an underlying truth with textual evidence rather than through editorializing (Morreale 2009: 110-111). It is in these moments that Stewart reveals his approach to journalism - not just covering the news, but also uncovering what may have been missed by his mainstream counterparts.

The traditional media has actually celebrated The Daily Show's unique coverage of news events and diligence in fact-checking. In 2006, Stewart was invited to the offices of

The New York Times and asked how his staff had been so successful at "digging up clips of the President and other officials contradicting themselves" (Jones 2010: 115). His reply: "a clerk and a video machine" (Jones 2010: 115). It is interesting to note here that Stewart is summoned to remind professional reporters working for a respected newspaper about one of the cornerstones of reporting - basic research (Jones 2010: 115). In an interview with

National Public Radio's Terry Gross in 2010, Stewart was asked a similar question, to which he elaborated when pressed:

GROSS: You do that all the time with politicians, and the videos go back a long way. How do the people on your staff find those old videos?

STEWART: Well, you can search on NexisLexis if you have an idea of what you want... It's all about just making connections, and then looking into it and using search words. It's learning... 44

GROSS: It's journalism. It's called journalism.

STEWART: I don't think so... I think it's called Googling. I think we . We tend to Google.

GROSS: No, but I often feel like - how come I had to find out about this on your show, on a comedy show?

STEWART: That's funny because we often feel that way as well. But it's not - the reason why I don't think it's journalism, the reason why I think it's analysis, is we don't do anything but make the connections. We're just going off our own instinct of what are the connections to this [news story] that might make sense. And this really is true: we don't fact-check and we don't look at context because of any journalistic criterion that we feel has to be met. We do that because jokes don't work when they're lies. So we fact-check so that when we tell a joke, it hits you at sort of a guttural level... it's not because we have a journalistic integrity. Hopefully, we have a comedic integrity that we don't want to violate. ("Fresh Air")

While Stewart adamantly insists in interviews like this one that his program is entertainment rather than news or journalism, there is no question that the oft-used phrase

'fake news' can be misleading. The term itself wrongly implies that the information communicated by the program is in some way fictionalized, when in actuality, its pursuit of objective truth is central to the satirical approach. The show uses real news clips, real personalities, and talks about real stories (Young 2008: 241). The irony is that the program often serves to demonstrate the 'fakeness' within the clips and stories it covers - the feigned partisan performances hosted by cable news programs purporting to be political debate, the deceitful and over-choreographed presentations of talking points by party and government actors, and the sensationalism of news coverage to attract viewership (Day

2009: 86). In short, Stewart challenges the traditional myths perpetuated by political and media establishments. In many ways, the 'fake news' has begun to look more genuine and 45 honest than the news sources it mocks, which may be a contributing factor to the oft-cited

2009 Time Magazine online poll which declared Jon Stewart to be "America's most trusted newscaster" (Time 2010).

While reflecting back on Foucault's musings about the value of 'real' news being associated with its traditional role as arbiter of truth in society, Jones challenges this 'fake' distinction further by arguing that The Daily Show "is fake only in that it refuses to make claims to authenticity" (2010: 182). Regardless of how well his program is able to cover the stories of the day, Stewart's value as a satirist is that he operates outside the legitimate sphere of news and politics, enabling him to identify the spectacle that takes place within those spheres while still standing in for the viewer as the sober and honest everyman (Day

2009: 96). A crucial element of this critique is to always question that authoritative voice used by merchants of power - especially the - and to encourage citizens to pull back the veil and think critically about what they read, hear and see as opposed to accepting the news at face value. "What we try to do," Stewart asserts, "is point out the artifice of things, that there's a guy behind the curtain pulling levers" (Jones 2010: 75). For Stewart, there is no value in being mainstream. To claim authority for his own program would be to undermine this critique, so while the phrase 'fake news' does not do the form justice, perhaps considering Stewart's approach as 'alternative journalism' is a more suitable label

(Baym 2009: 126).

This designation of political comedy as a form of journalism is perhaps a controversial one - academics and 'straight' journalists alike have traditionally tried to maintain a hard distinction between entertainment and the realm of politics and news. This 46 binary composition has not only served to separate programming into these categories but their audiences as well, reinforcing a long-standing judgment about the genre as a format that was good for leisure and consumerism but insufficient for fostering citizenship (Jones

2010: 208-209). The origins of this distinction stem from the seventeenth-century project of modernity, which theorist Geoffrey Baym defines as "a set of ideas about how society should be organized and as the particular social institutions and practices that developed as a result" (2008: 23). Jurgen Habermas argued that modernity was really a project of "social rationalization," in which social and cultural activity was divided into "autonomous spheres, each entrusted with advancing a particular aspect of the human condition" (Baym

2008: 24). Each sphere has its own established boundaries and is expected to contain the clearly demarcated types of people, institutions, practices, activities, and places within it while excluding the concerns of the other spheres (Baym 2008: 24).

Habermas defined three societal spheres - the moral-practical, the cognitive- instrumental, and the aesthetic-expressive - within which there developed different sets of

"discursive formations;" a term coined by Foucault that refers to the specific languages ascribed to the different forms of cultural practice (Baym 2008: 24). Politics was deemed the domain of the moral-practical, which is the arena fit to deal with questions of social justice and the public good, and thanks to the earliest traditions of the news media and its expectation to serve the citizenry by holding the powerful to account, journalism was authorized to function and speak within the same sphere. The aesthetic-expressive sphere, on the other hand, is the domain of the "beautiful, the poetic, and the pleasurable," thus containing the traditional worlds of art, theatre, literature and the more popular incarnations 47 of comedy, movies, music, and television (Baym 2008: 24-25). As is true of Barthes' societal mythologies, these discursive formations are mere constructs built to help define the ways in which different objects or actions can be recognized or discussed. Whether real or imagined, the traditional division of these spheres persists, as Dahlgren observes that the

"view from both public sphere theory and political communication has been to maintain a strict boundary between the rational and the affective, and, by extension, between serious current affairs information and entertainment" (2008: 135).

Televised news and comedy remain in separate spheres largely because that was the way the networks designed it from its earliest days, when producers worried that audiences would be confused if news were to borrow production techniques from the entertainment division. News broadcast schedules became routinized and the reports were serious and dispassionate, thus narrowing the boundaries of not only what feel news broadcasts could have, but also of "who was authorized to speak, how they could speak, and what they were allowed to talk about" (Baym 2008: 25-26). While this arrangement served new television audiences a half-century ago, some experts believe that these binary distinctions between entertainment and politics or news and comedy no longer adequately serve our modern reality (Jones 2010: 13; Baym 2008: 22,27-28; Dahlgren 2008: 135).

For Dahlgren, politics and popular culture coexist within the same discursive sphere in contemporary society, as he argues that the values we develop and manner by which we engage in the public sphere are mediated and moulded by our exposure to popular culture.

While popular culture can be an effective source of amusement, distraction, or spectacle, it also has great relevance for "identity construction, ideology, and norms, aiding us to work 48 through important contemporary ideas and issues" (Dahlgren 2008: 141). Jones expands on this assessment in a survey of academic peers who concur with the manner by which popular culture's societal value has been overlooked:

Popular culture is, as John Street, Lawrence Grossberg, and Simon Frith have all argued, the primary location of our affective commitments in public life, the means through which we articulate our emotions to the wider world. Popular culture is where we link our interests and our pleasures to our identities, where we tell stories that are accessible and emotionally meaningful. Popular culture is proximate. It humanizes, simplifies, and embodies complex issues, concepts and ideas. And to paraphrase Bruner's points about narrative, popular culture (and its narratives) is well fit for reiterating social norms without being didactic, persuading without being confrontational, and teaching without being polemical. (Jones 2010: 38)

Studies regarding the way in which citizens use media appear to affirm this blurring of the traditional rational-affective divide, showing that audiences rarely observe the artificial boundaries established by academics and journalists. Popular culture is often used to contextualize political information, and the intersection of the two allows viewers to

'brush up' against politics through a wide array of media choices in their lives (Jones 2010:

212). Most citizens engage in their society not through a single news source but rather by accumulating a "media ensemble" throughout their day, often incorporated into daily routines such as listening to the radio while driving or skimming a newspaper on a transit commute (Jones 2010: 26). Whether actively or passively compiling this information, one fails to process it into meaningful and memorable facts or opinions through its mere digestion: as Dahlgren reminds us, "information alone is insufficient. It only becomes knowledge when it intersects with our emotions and feelings from outside life" (2000:

323). 49

In William Gamson's groundbreaking book Talking Politics, he demonstrates this claim by conducting a case study on the manner by which citizens come to understand and discuss politics. By engaging participants in conversations about controversial issues ranging from nuclear power to affirmative action to conflict in the , he found that experiential knowledge and popular wisdom was often integrated with media discourse to generate defences for political opinions (Gamson 1992: 179). Despite being provided with information pertinent to their discussions beforehand, those studied still tended to

"round out and evaluate news in light of past learning and determine how well it squares with the reality that they have experienced directly or vicariously" (Gamson 1992: 179).

Gamson's findings suggest that our personal lives and public lives cannot exist independently of one another, and also that our experiences both in our personal lives and through media are integral to strengthen our confidence and ability to express views in the public sphere.

Whether it be called hybridization, discursive integration, or convergence, the tenets of this merger between media, politics, and entertainment are becoming more broadly accepted by both academics and the industries themselves (Baym 2008: 27-28). The sharp increase in late-night television appearances by political candidates demonstrates the willingness of politicians to embrace this new disciplinary intersection (Jones 2010: 13-

15). As Jones reminds us, politics is not so different from entertainment - it "is naturally interesting, dramatic, strange, unpredictable, frustrating, outrageous, and downright hilarious in ways that far exceed the reductive formulations of politics as horse races, policy manoeuvres, and palace court intrigue that journalistic and 'insider' presentations of 50 politics tend to emphasize" (Jones 2010: 15). Stewart himself has commented on this merger in an interview with George magazine: "the longer I'm doing this, I'm coming to learn that entertainment, politics, and the media are really juggling the same balls. We're all going for ratings, so we function by the same rules. What's a political poll except a focus group for a television show?" (Morreale 2009: 104).

While there is agreement on the merger between news and entertainment, or politics and comedy in the case of Stewart and Colbert, there is no consensus on whether this is good for American democracy. Programs that appear as 'infotainment' have been criticized by academics for replacing legitimate news sources, implying that the form is inferior as a means to properly prepare a viewer with the tools necessary for political engagement.

These suggestions run counter-intuitive to the discussions presented in this chapter thus far, which suggest that the theoretical functions of political satire and the merging of popular culture with political discourse may have potentially beneficial effects on democratic engagement: a debate that is explored in the next section within the context of The Daily

Show.

E. CYNICISM, KNOWLEDGE, DELIBERATION: THE DAILY SHOW EFFECT

A central question concerning this thesis is whether or not satirical news programs have a positive or negative impact on viewers, meaning more specifically; do they inspire cynicism and promote political disengagement? Satire, in theory, uses negativity through attack and judgment to bring about a positive result, but it is necessary to now test that 51 theory against the quantitative and qualitative findings from academic literature regarding

The Daily Show.

While Jon Stewart's work as host of The Daily Show began receiving critical praise following the 2000 Presidential elections, substantive academic coverage of the program did not appear in journals until 2005, when communication theorists Jeffrey Jones and

Geoffrey Baym published breakdowns of Stewart's content and style with distinctions drawn between it and the approach taken by the traditional news media. These initial studies embraced rather than dismissed the program, with Baym claiming that The Daily

Show was "reinventing political journalism" by using the mainstream media frame to reveal inconsistencies and logical flaws in the arguments put forth by political actors (2005: 1).

This perspective - one that has been increasingly accepted by media experts over the past few years - was an outlier at the time, overshadowed by a number of critical studies which took aim at political comedy for lowering journalistic standards, promoting public apathy and ignorance, and spreading cynicism about the political process. The impetus that sparked interest in the topic of twenty-first century satire was arguably the release of two notable surveys by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press, which biannually tracks media consumption in the United States.

In the summer of 2000, Pew surveyors asked American respondents whether or not they were "informed at least occasionally" by comedy shows, specifically referring to

Saturday Night Live and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maker (Jones 2007: 131). While it has never been made entirely clear as to what "being informed" entailed, 47 percent of respondents under the age of thirty claimed that these programs provided them with 52 information about candidates and campaigns (Jones 2007: 131). In a 2004 follow-up survey preceding that year's Presidential elections, pollsters replaced Politically Incorrect with

The Daily Show, and asked whether respondents "learned something" from comedy programs, implying that the knowledge obtained by watching the programs will be considered relevant if it is valuable and novel to the viewer (Jones 2007: 131). The findings state that "one out of every two young people (50%) say they at least sometimes learn about the campaign from comedy shows, nearly twice the rate among people age thirty to forty-nine (27%) and four times the rate among people fifty and older" (Jones 2007: 131,

Hamm 2008: 170). Additionally, the study found that "for Americans under thirty, these comedy shows are now mentioned as frequently as newspapers and evening news programs as regular sources of election news" (Jones 2007: 131, Hamm 2008: 170). These statistics were widely reported by the mainstream news media as an indication of a troubling lack of political interest and knowledge (Hamm 2008: 175).

When Jones and Baym challenged this media reaction with claims about the importance of political satire for increasing civic engagement, other theorists countered that late-night comedy "cannot impart important news or information about public affairs and thus, by definition, only traffics in the trivial, inane, and absurd" (Jones 2007: 130).

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, Jonathan Morris and Jody Baumgartner, for example, argue that the repeated exposure of otherwise uninformed citizens to political comedy leads to greater cynicism towards both politics and the mainstream media (Baumgartner and Morris

2006: 361). They claim that the repeated mockery of the political process and the traditional media by Stewart causes a viewer of The Daily Show to regard politics and 53 media more negatively than someone who watches mainstream news, which would arguably make them more likely to disengage (Baumgartner and Morris 2006: 361). Survey data would follow that appears to support the first half of this hypothesis.

In a 2006 focus group study on the political attitudes of voters after watching The

Daily Show's 2004 election coverage, Baumgartner and Morris found that Stewart's ridicule caused viewers to report lower levels of support for both Presidential candidates, and lower levels of trust in government and the traditional media than those in control groups (2006: 357). Interestingly, they also found that viewers of The Daily Show report higher levels of internal efficacy - "the confidence to successfully deal with politics" - than the control group (Compton 2008: 45). Assuming that with internal efficacy comes a desire to meaningfully engage in politics, these results seem to confirm that cynicism rises when one watches The Daily Show, while at the same time not giving credence to the suggestion that participation levels would fall as a result.

These contradictory conclusions led to further surveys. The parameters for the discussion, too, had been set. Academics wanted to know how and to what extent viewers were being informed by political comedy, and how the exposure to these programs was shaping their view of political engagement and the mainstream media. While it is notable that viewers of comedy programming admit to learning something about politics or current events, it is an admittedly subjective observation. We could just as easily say that someone learns something from a billboard or radio commercial or book cover, but that information may not be useful or help contribute to increasing the level of engagement a viewer has with their political system. More relevant to the discussion would be an understanding of 54 what exactly is being learned from The Daily Show, and how this knowledge compares with the information acquired from other news sources. Thankfully, some academics have pursued this information in recent years.

The 2004 Pew study found that those relying heavily on comedy programs for political news were "poorly informed about campaign developments" and had a high number of incorrect answers in trivia questions about candidates (Hamm 2008: 170). This result seemed counter-intuitive to scholars like Caufield, who had previously argued that

Stewart's brand of humour and satire demanded a high level of knowledge in order for viewers to understand the content (Caufield 2008: 15). For these reasons, a number of theorists concluded that considering The Daily Show under the larger umbrella of 'late- night comedy' was insufficient for measuring the specific appeal of the program (Compton

2008: 47). They instead sought out survey data that would isolate viewers of Stewart's program from those who regularly enjoyed other forms of late-night comedy.

The University of 's National Annenberg Election Survey did just that in 2004, and by isolating The Daily Show viewers from those watching or The Late Show with David Letterman, found results that contradict those published by the Pew Research Centre. The Annenberg survey reported that "viewers of late-night comedy programs, especially The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, are more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not watch late night comedy" and also found that Stewart's viewers "have higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers" (Jones

2007: 132). The survey also shows that a majority of Daily Show viewers admit to 55 following politics "all the time," and takes a logical step further to clarify that the "findings do not show that The Daily Show is itself responsible for the higher knowledge among its viewers" (Jones 2007: 133, Hamm 2008: 170). Taken together, these survey results suggest that regular watchers of The Daily Show are using the program to supplement the use of other forms of traditional news, and in many cases are demonstrating a higher level of knowledge than those using exclusively mainstream news sources.

It is worth noting that these findings suggest a curious dichotomy between The

Daily Show and other forms of late-night comedy. For instance, while both the 2000 and

2004 Pew surveys found that "respondents who said that they regularly learned about the campaign from late night television scored worse than average on political knowledge," the

Annenberg survey showed that Stewart's viewers in particular demonstrated a markedly higher campaign knowledge than viewers of The Tonight Show and The Late Show (Brewer and Cao 2008: 273). These results aren't simply limited to the study of political knowledge.

In 2008, Baumgartner and Morris examined the 2004 Pew data to conclude that while viewing The Daily Show leads to higher levels of cynicism towards the media amongst young respondents, viewing The Tonight Show or The Late Show was negatively associated with cynicism (Morris and Baumgartner 2008: 327). This means that when compared to a control group, Leno and Letterman viewers are more likely to approve of the mainstream media's political coverage while young Daily Show viewers are likely to see it as harmful to the public discourse (Morris and Baumgartner 2008: 327). The statistics beg for further inquiry: primarily, what about the form and content of these programs produces such different effects on viewership, and why do they attract these different audiences? 56

The academic rationale for distinguishing between late-night programming has commonly been attributed to how each one is formatted. An episode of The Daily Show always begins with a satirical news update delivered at a desk by Stewart himself, closely resembling the format of a news broadcast and intentionally distinct from the traditional opening monologue that is commonplace for late-night comics. The Letterman or Leno style monologue, historically, is designed as a series of one-liner jokes offered in rapid-fire succession, commonly moving from brief references to punch-lines and focusing primarily on the personality or flaws of a specific political actor (Niven 2003: 127). This technique is commonly referred to as a 'now-this' format of recounting news, whereby "no topic is placed in a wider context of received elaboration" and the host has free reign to "jump from story to story, often placing back-to-back stories of wildly different content" (Baym 2005:

263). The effect is to make news trivial, concentrating on facts rather than issues, and very seldom is there an attempt to penetrate the details any further than is necessary to deliver the laugh.

The Daily Show takes a markedly different approach to news coverage, concentrating on a specific topic for up to ten minutes at a time and supplementing it with video clips, sound bites, and news clippings to give context and background to the issue at hand (Baym 2005: 264). Stewart will routinely pick apart logical flaws or reveal inconsistencies that demand an understanding of events that came before the current-day news cycle, and the correspondents on the program lampoon the style and sensationalism of traditional television journalists, which suggests that their bits are best appreciated by a 57 viewer who holds a tacit understanding of the format of a television news program

(Caufield 2008: 15).

These contrasts are a mere symptom of a much broader distinction between The

Daily Show and other forms of late-night comedy: Stewart is a satirist, while Leno and

Letterman are not. To group these programs together in a survey to measure their effects betrays the substantially different approaches each takes to covering political issues of the day. Despite the great length that academics have gone to explain why these programs exhibit different effects on audiences, a reflection back to the earlier section on satirical theory demonstrates a considerable rationale for the aforementioned survey results. While

Leno may ridicule a politician and may do so in the form of a judgmental attack that inspires laughter, he fails to meet the other standards required for the joke to qualify as satire: the strengthening of common values, the questioning of norms with the onus on the viewer to draw conclusions, and the opportunity for the joke's presentation to offer a larger critique on society's truths in general. Caufield explains:

Most political humor is aimed to entertain the audience by poking fun at outsiders - political candidates, government officials, or public figures. In contrast, satire's target is broader - it is meant to attack political institutions, society's foibles, or public vices. Put simply, conventional political humor is often geared at making the audience laugh at others, while satire is designed to make the audience laugh at itself as well as others, therefore allowing the audience to realize a larger set of systemic faults. (2008: 10)

As 'artful' political critique, The Daily Show is more than just a collection of jokes designed to make the audience laugh. Rather, it is a sweeping commentary on the state of contemporary news media and politics (Caufield 2008: 10). A qualitative examination of 58

The Daily Show's coverage and an acknowledgement of the program's adherence to the principles of satire can assist in explaining why viewers seem to have higher levels of cynicism, greater efficacy and more political knowledge.

We begin first by exploring the positive correlation between watching The Daily

Show and a demonstrably high level of political knowledge. Despite the temptation to argue that simply viewing the program causes a higher rate of political knowledge, the much more probable explanation would take into consideration the other media consumption habits of Stewart's audience. Caufield speculates on the two possible explanations for this relationship: "first, viewers self-select, and those who have the knowledge to be 'in on the joke' opt to watch The Daily Show; and second, the satirical elements of the show demand that viewers be more engaged in the experience of learning about politics" (2008: 15). In other words, there is a compelling reason to believe that individuals who already follow politics choose to supplement their existing news consumption by watching Stewart, or in this same vein, The Daily Show may act as a "gateway to other news" (Rottinghaus et al

2008: 288).

Whether watching the program leads to increased news consumption or vice versa,

Stewart's content and the format with which it is presented appeals to this type of viewer.

As opposed to simply examining the stories of the day in a vacuum as a journalist or reporter, Stewart primes the viewer to consider the news in a broader context, providing a meta-analysis of coverage from a number of print and television media to inform his own critique. Beyond that, The Daily Show rarely limits itself to recent press in the coverage of a story, often reflecting back on information that viewers may have heard before to provide 59 the historical context for the day's discussion. As mentioned earlier, it is in this spirit that

Stewart digs up an older clip of a public figure speaking or previously verified fact to demonstrate contradictions in principle or plain dishonesty, thus stitching together a narrative that provides greater context to the story but also implicitly reviews the merits of the story and the subsequent media coverage of it (Jones 2007: 142). The message behind this satirical news coverage is that knowledge is power: Stewart is only able to skewer the illegitimate claims of reporters or politicians because he has the facts and footage to back up his own perspective, though as we know to be true about satire, the onus is often on the audience to discern those conclusions for themselves.

This satirical approach is explained clearly by Jones in his book Entertaining

Politics, stating that the writers of the show are "less inclined to care if the viewer doesn't get the reference, for [it provides] the type of cliquish knowledge that cable generally trades in. If the audience is too slow, dumb, or ill-informed to get it, then that is their loss and the joke is on them" (Jones 2005: 60). This aligns comfortably with satirical theory - recall that five characteristics were outlined as necessary for a critique to be deemed satire, with the fifth being audience knowledge. Stewart has himself supported this notion that supplementary media consumption is necessary to fully appreciate his wit, asserting that "if you don't inform yourself, or have some sense of what's going on, our show won't even make sense to you" (Jones 2005: 60). Viewed exclusively, The Daily Show can leave an audience wanting, providing a critical perspective without all of the necessary facts to fully understand it. Alongside a healthy appetite for news, Stewart provides distinct and potentially valuable coverage that - in the opinion of one academic - may in fact be of a 60 superior quality than that provided by the mainstream news. In a case study published in

2007, Jones compared the content of the 2004 Presidential election coverage provided by

The Daily Show and CNN, finding that on issues covered by Stewart, the satirical coverage not only matched the cable network in terms of analysis but did so by providing six times as much raw footage from the campaign itself (2007: 140-143). While a twenty minute program is admittedly no match for the quantity of news that can be covered by an around- the-clock channel, Jones argues that by doing much more than simply highlighting what candidates and party officials release and by providing a broader context to the daily issues, the quality of analysis and coverage provided by Stewart transcends the analogous content on CNN (2007: 140-143). Taken altogether, these academic studies confirm Stewart's adherence to satirical theory and help shed light on the relationship between The Daily

Show viewership and above-average levels of political knowledge.

The parallels between satirical theory and The Daily Show permeate other aspects of the program's approach, too. Consider, for example, the following quote from an interview with Stewart regarding the ideological thrust of his comedy:

My comedy is not the comedy of the neurotic. It comes from the center. But it comes from feeling displaced from society because you're in the center. We're the group of fairness, common sense, and moderation. (2010: 239)

This aligns with the claims of theorists like Shutz, who assert that non-partisanship and moderation are central to the satirical approach: "the critical realism of political humour balances the political regime toward the mean and away from excesses of right and left" (1977: 299). Amber Day argues that "the desire to overcome entrenched partisanship" 61 is one of The Daily Show's central themes, which is often overlooked by critics because

Stewart's own political views would be considered more sympathetic to the Democrats than the Republicans and his audience exhibits a similar ideological slant (2009: 91). The

2004 Pew survey found that when the program's viewers were asked to identify their own political ideology, 43 percent responded liberal, 38 percent considered themselves moderate, and 18 percent claimed to be conservative (Hamm 2008: 171). This statistic can be partially attributed to the age of Stewart's fan base, as Americans between the ages of eighteen to twenty-four years old make up the largest percentage of viewers and the young classically exhibit more liberal sensibilities than their older counterparts. Thanks in part to the demographic realities of the show's followers, the conception of The Daily Show as a left-leaning news program persists. For instance, following the electoral victories posted in

2006 and 2008 by the Democrats, the oft-asked question from media was whether the show could remain funny and relevant with the Republicans weakened and Obama in the White

House. In response, Stewart pointedly noted: "the point of view of this show is we're passionately opposed to bullshit. Is that liberal or conservative?" (Jones 2010: 111).

The perception of Stewart as a liberal comic misrepresents the purpose of satire, which again, is to question truths and interrogate breaches of social norms on behalf of the powerful. To that end, Jones argues that The Daily Show is not about politics at all, but rather, "the show is about honesty in public life," which pertains equally to all points on the political spectrum (2010: 111). On the topic of ideology, Stewart has argued publicly that conflict over left-right divides that dominates pundit debate programs is a narrative created by media for their own sake, and that it does little to represent the views of mainstream 62

Americans. "Liberals and conservatives," he states, "are two gangs who have intimidated rational, normal thinking beings into not having a voice on television or in the culture.

Liberals and conservatives are paradigms that mean nothing to anyone other than the media" (2010: 114-115). To this end, it seems counterintuitive to focus on the ideology of political satirists rather than the critical perspective they provide, though if Stewart is correct and that focusing on partisan divide fits the media's frame for political coverage, then he perhaps it is naive to suggest a change in the existing discourse regarding The Daily

Show.

If we can now claim support for the assertion that Stewart demands a higher level of audience knowledge and aligns his satire with a non-partisan and moderate approach, then it would be prudent to consider how effectively The Daily Show inspires critical thinking by questioning societal norms and truths, and furthermore, to what extent he relies on the audience to reach their own critical conclusions. For Jenkins, no program better exemplifies these characteristics than Stewart's, and he considers the manner by which the show mocks conventional news as its strongest asset:

Clips from other newscasts and interviews with newsmakers coexist with comic reenactments and parodies of common news practices. From the start, The Daily Show challenges viewers to look for signs of fabrication, and it consistently spoofs the conventions of traditional journalism and the corporate control of media. Such shows pose questions rather than offering answers. In such spaces, news is something to be discovered through active hashing through of competing accounts rather than something to be digested from authoritative sources. (Jenkins 2006: 227)

By inspiring critical thought and questioning norms and truths, some academics credit The Daily Show with providing an admirable model for how media could be covering i 63 the news differently. Dahlgren, Jenkins, Jones and Morreale all argue that Stewart contributes to "media literacy;" distancing himself from spectacle-driven displays and instead elevating deliberation as the centrepiece of debate and discussion on the program

(2008: 135; 2006: 227-235; 2010: 122; 2009: 112). In recent years, the emergence of deliberation - "the active 'weighing' of evidence and argument" - in discussions on how to i re-establish a healthy democracy have sparked the creation of institutions like the Centre for Deliberative Democracy at , where researchers have held experiments that bring together participants from diverse political backgrounds to learn about and then discuss controversial issues, to see if educated discourse can lead to consensus-building (Jenkins 2006: 235). The results have been positive.

In the context of The Daily Show, the model for deliberative democracy is best exemplified during each episode's final segment: the guest interview. What initially began in the early days of Stewart's tenure as a publicity forum for a celebrity guest or author, the show's producers broke away from other late-night comedy programs in 2005, replacing the typical interview couch with a business-like chair and signifying a shift towards a more serious forum for debate and discussion (Jones 2010: 128-129). In the years since this shift, book publishers have come to praise The Daily Show for being one of the few programs that regularly host non-fiction authors and drive book sales, further crediting Stewart for

"helping elucidate the book's primary points and arguments" in the interview and engaging the guest in a serious conversation about their work (Jones 2010: 129). In his interviews, according to Baym, Stewart aims to achieve "civility of exchange, complexity of argument, i and the goal of mutual understanding. Lying just beneath or perhaps imbricated within the

i 64

laughter is a quite serious demand for fact, accountability, and reason in political discourse"

(2005: 273). Jones adds that the host "is resolutely polite, and like other great media

interviewers[...] seems particularly focused on holding a conversation, not just conducting

an interview" (2010: 129).

This shift towards a more deliberative aim can often lead to confrontation between

Stewart and his guests, as he challenges the typical role of an interviewer as not someone

who should act as a publicity agent for the product being promoted, but instead, someone

who can debate, challenge, criticize or enlighten the points made in a discussion. A

particularly heated appearance by MSNBC's Chris Matthews in 2007 highlights this

deliberative dimension and its inherent unpredictability, as Stewart's guest was caught off-

guard by criticism of the book he had come on the show to promote:

Stewart quickly noted that he found [Matthews'] thesis "fundamentally wrong," and that the book seemed like a "recipe for sadness." After a brief debate, Matthews objected, accusing Stewart of "trashing my book," to which Stewart replied, "I'm trashing your philosophy of life." Completely frustrated that Stewart was challenging him, Matthews then exclaimed, "You are unbelievable. This is a book interview from hell. This is the worst interview I have ever had in my life." In other words, how dare Stewart not play by the rules of the publicity culture? (Jones 2010: 132-133)

The rigorous nature of the interview typically filters out guests like Matthews who

are unprepared or unwilling to be challenged to a debate on the merits of their theories or

policies. The resultant shift is that the segment that was once the least influential aspect of

The Daily Show is now often the most compelling (Morreale 2009: 119-120). The Daily

Show has even expanded the interview segment of the program to capitalize on the

appearance of controversial guests. In these circumstances, the edited televised interview is 65 preceded by Stewart instructing viewers to log onto the show's website, where they can view the fully uncensored and uncut interview. While these longer exchanges can become explosive and the deliberative aim of building common ground can at times break down,

Stewart and his guests often lead by example and demonstrate through polite discussion that "deliberation is not a means to an end but an end in itself' (Morreale 2009: 121).

For instance, on April 6, 2011, Stewart welcomed likely Republican Presidential candidate on the program, where they engaged in an informed historical discussion about the intent of the founding fathers to include a recognition of Christianity in the American Constitution, and whether the recognition of those who write on the political teachings of the as historians - such as theologian - is a step towards undermining the divide of church and state. In this discussion, neither Stewart nor

Huckabee raised their voice or spoke over one another, despite the fact that they disagree vehemently with each other on the role religion should play in American political discourse. They challenged each other back and forth for over twenty-six minutes without a moderator, each crediting the other any time an argument or evidence was presented that could be mutually agreed upon, constantly striving for a common understanding of the issue despite their very different approaches. When the interview finally finished, this was the exchange between the two men before they shook hands:

STEWART: Can I tell you something though?

HUCKABEE: Tell me something.

STEWART: Ilove you...

HUCKABEE: [laughs] Well, thank you. 66

STEWART: ...because you challenge beliefs that I have, and you challenge easy beliefs that I have, and you force me to reconsider them in the context of other issues and I really do appreciate you being able to do that with such good humour. And I know when you leave here, obviously, you'll go back to, you know, David Barton and the church. And I appreciate that, [laughter] No, but I really do appreciate you doing that.

HUCKABEE: Well, I appreciate you, because you always have a civil conversation with me, and you don't belittle the fact that I have very clear Christian beliefs and I appreciate that very much. (Stewart "April 6,2011")

It is no exaggeration to say that such a discussion is remarkable given the current state of political discourse in the United States. The level of respect that the two men are able to show for one another, and the length of time they are willing to sit together in front of a national audience to engage in an informed and unscripted discussion, signifies the way The Daily Show continues to use the satirical frame to demonstrate an alternative format for covering the important issues of the day. To return again to Morreale:

"discussion, dialogue, provocation, and questioning are valued for their own sake - not because they lead to truth but because they foster a community able to discern untruth"

(2009: 121). By training viewers to identify fabrication in news coverage, by downplaying and undercutting his own authority, and by using the interview segment of the program to model how deliberation could better serve political discourse, Stewart adheres to the principles of satire and inspires critical thought amongst his audience.

F. THE OUTSIDERS - TURNING THE 'COLBERT NATION* MAINSTREAM

While it is true that more Americans are turning to The Daily Show for news 67 coverage, analysis, and at times humourous punditry, the host has never once made a claim for credibility on par with the mainstream news media. This fact alone leaves his program open for attack, as it appears hypocritical for Stewart to be celebrated for criticizing the media when he is able to take liberties that ordinary journalists cannot, saying and doing what he pleases with immunity because it falls under 'comedy' and not 'news.' This is a fair argument, but according to some academics, the very efficacy of The Daily Show and

The Colbert Report is based on their ability to strike a very careful balance between the mainstream and the fringe, whereby they still wield mainstream influence but also keep a fair distance from legitimacy. On principle, the satirist cannot merely replicate that which he criticizes, and so it is through Stewart's body language and self-deprecating humour - the means by which he constantly reminds his audience that he is not a straight-faced newscaster - that he relinquishes authority and self-importance (Morreale 2009: 116).

Amber Day summarizes this purpose of this balancing act nicely:

What detractors don't understand is that The Daily Show would have very little appeal if it were simply a slightly hipper version of the straight news. The program is not attempting to become another incarnation of the existing real but to hold the real up for scrutiny, an operation that requires that audience members remain aware of its deliberate use of artifice. In fact, if Stewart and his cast are to maintain legitimacy as satiric newscasters, it is important that they continue to appear to be obviously playing a role. Stewart, in particular, must retain the aura of a cheeky journalistic outsider throwing stones rather than seeming like part of the political establishment he critiques. His unique status stems from his ability to embody the authority of a pundit or newscaster while still being several steps removed from the profession. [...] He will maintain his status as long as the audience knows that he is both not a newscaster and not not a newscaster, [sic] (2009:100-101)

Within the confines of his Comedy Central studio, Stewart is protected by this satirical form and he is able to control his image as a voice originating from outside the 68 political and media establishment, just as Colbert's commitment to his fictional character while on-air guards him from being mistaken for the pundits he parodies. It is this very necessity for the comics to be protected by their satirical formats which has made it all the more compelling for audiences when they have chosen to betray this comfort and address the mainstream media directly. "Stop hurting America" was the very serious plea made by

Stewart during a landmark 2004 appearance on CNN's political punditry program

Crossfire, during which he famously refused to tell jokes after being invited to discuss his book on-air, instead berating the hosts for playing into the strategies of politicians rather than serving the public (Boler 2006: 2). The interview was notable in that the discussion staged about journalistic integrity was anything but collegial, with Stewart reminding his hosts that "you're doing theatre when you should be doing debate [...]. You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably" (Boler 2006: 2). He proceeded to refer to Crossfire's format as "partisan hackery," and when Stewart himself was accused of being too uncritical of his own political guests on The Daily Show he quipped: "it's interesting you talk about my responsibility [...] I didn't realize that - and maybe this explains quite a bit - that news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity" (Boler 2006: 3).

Video of the appearance became an internet phenomenon, being posted and passed in record numbers through blogs and e-mail servers at such a rapid rate that the thirteen- minute clip has been occasionally credited with single-handedly sparking what is now known as the 'YouTube Generation' (Boler 2006: 1). As a Times reporter wrote shortly afterwards, the online buzz about the confrontation "universally hailed 69

Stewart as a refreshing and clear-eyed critic of an increasingly trivial television news media and skyrocketed him to a new rank in his comic career - from wry commentator to serious provocateur" (Day 2009: 98). The overwhelming popularity of the clip prompted CNN chief executive Jonathan Klein to cancel Crossfire altogether after twenty-three years on the air, citing the need for a new direction to be undertaken for the network's political programs that would be more consistent with the values laid out by Stewart during his appearance (Jones 2010: 76). In a head-on battle with the mainstream, Stewart triumphed as the keeper of the moral standard.

Two years later, it was Colbert's turn to take his critical message directly to those in power. Premised by the successful launch of The Colbert Report months earlier, he was invited to the White House to speak at the annual While House Correspondents'

Association Dinner before an audience filled with political elites, celebrities, the White

House Press Corps, and President Bush himself. Standing just yards from the Commander- in-Chief and speaking directly to him, Colbert adopted his right-wing alter ego to mock the

President relentlessly in a watershed twenty-minute performance, satirically praising

Bush's policies, personality, intellect, and declining public popularity. A couple of choice excerpts illustrate the tone of the speech:

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers, and rubble, and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound - with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what 70

happened on Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will. (Colbert 2007: 222-224)

With a clearly irritated Bush looking on, Colbert saved some of his harshest comments for the journalists in the audience, mock chastising them for their newly aggressive stance towards the government's conduct and policies:

Let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you've got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction! (2007: 222-224)

A significant number of mainstream news outlets outright ignored coverage of the appearance, while those who did cover the speech were harshly critical of it, including a

Washington Post columnist that declared Colbert "a bully," claiming that he was "not just a failure as a comedian but rude" (Cohen 2006; Jones 2010: 82). Despite the expectedly cold reception the speech received within the room, Colbert's performance lit up the blogosphere and became a viral video sensation overnight, with an audio version also becoming a top seller on iTunes and Colbert's ratings immediately increasing by thirty- seven percent in the week following the appearance. The performance was eventually dubbed by Time Magazine as "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006" and credited by as the "defining moment" of that year's midterm elections

(Poniewozik 2006; Rich 2006). 71

For Jones, the Crossfire and Correspondents' Dinner appearances represent a

"maturation of the genre" (2010: xi). The incredible popularity of the clips and the near- heroic status granted to the comics as a result has motivated an increased willingness for them to venture out beyond the confines of their own shows and confront the mainstream media and the political process, as is the intention of organizing a rally in Washington.

Colbert has even made these crossovers into the public sphere a central satirical tool on The

Colbert Report. The tactic can perhaps be credited for his impressive rise to fame: in the five years since his program debuted on Comedy Central, Colbert has become nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. His diverse accomplishments speak volumes about the strength of his impact - he was officially knighted by Queen Noor of Jordan, awarded an honorary doctorate from Knox College, invented a word that is now included in the official Merriam-

Webster dictionary, had his first book premiere at the top of The New York Times bestseller list, had Time Magazine name him one of the year's 100 most influential people in 2006, won a Grammy Award in 2010 for an album he and Stewart both sang and produced called

A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All, and raised 300,000 dollars in just three weeks as the official sponsor of the American Olympic speed skating team for the

Vancouver Olympics (Boesel 2007: 4; Stembergh 2006; Bramham 2009). In June 2009,

Colbert also became the only entertainer invited by the USO to perform in front of the

American troops in Iraq, as the show was broadcast for a week from a studio in built inside one of 's former palaces. Colbert has seen an odd list of items named after him, too, including a newly discovered species of spider, the mascot for the 72

OHL hockey franchise the Saginaw Spirit, a bald eagle at the San Francisco Zoo, and a flavour of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

The explanation for Colbert's expansive influence extends far beyond his role as host of The Colbert Report. It is instead the result of his role as a "leader in Web-TV integration," a strategy which is being considered by both academics and journalists as

"freaking brilliant" (Sklar 2009). Fans of the television program are de facto members of the 'Colbert Nation', which is described by The Huffington Post as both "a website and a movement" in the way that it seamlessly connects the on-screen and online experience for the audience (Sklar 2009). Colbert continually encourages his viewers - referred to as

'heroes' on the program - to log on to ColbertNation.com and participate in online campaigns, which range from the creation of fan-generated content for use on the program to legitimate populist exercises like letter-writing, fundraising, petitioning, or collective assaults on forms of web voting.

The impact of Colbert Nation is both powerful and unprecedented. In 2006, the

Ministry of Transport in Hungary launched a website which allowed the public to choose the name of a bridge being built just north of Budapest. On August 9th of that year, Colbert informed his viewers of the contest and encouraged them to visit the government site and vote for him, which led to a news report from Hungary two weeks later announcing that

'The Stephen Colbert Bridge' had won the first round of ballots with a ridiculous 17 million votes - 7 million more votes than there are people in Hungary (Burwell 2007: 8). A similar situation occurred in 2009, when NASA chose to let website visitors decide on the name of a new node in the International Space Station. Colbert Nation was encouraged to 73 go online and vote, and after a month the name 'Colbert' had garnered 230,000 votes and had beaten runner-up 'Serenity' by 40,000 supporters. NASA wound up naming the node

'Tranquility', but not without installing the 'Combined Operational Load Bearing External

Resistance Treadmill' for astronauts to run on - 'C.O.L.B.E.R.T.' for short (Coyle 2009).

The ability for Colbert to mobilize his viewership across a variety of mediums is a result of a twenty-first century revolution that Jenkins has termed "convergence culture;" a paradigm shift that represents "a move from medium-specific content toward content that flows across multiple media channels, toward the increased interdependence of communications systems, toward multiple ways of accessing media content, and toward ever more complex relations between top-down corporate media and bottom-up participatory culture" (2006: 243).

For the producers of The Colbert Report, embracing the internet as a means to covet a participatory convergence culture is the centrepiece of the program's strategy to build a fan-base, and it is an arguably ingenious one for a number of reasons, which Jenkins outlines: "because [it exploits] the advantages of media conglomeration; because convergence creates multiple ways of selling content to consumers; [and] because convergence cements consumer loyalty at a time when the fragmentation of the marketplace and the rise of file-sharing threaten old ways of doing business" (2006: 243).

The most obvious and straight-forward tactic employed by Comedy Central is to allow fans to visit the show's official website to watch the program itself. The network not only posts the most recent episodes online to be viewed for free, but also the entire archive of every episode in existence. Fans can sift through thousands of hours of clips, and even 74 post playlists of their favourite Colbert moments in discussion forums on the site, continually encouraging viewers to return to catch any new gem that may have been posted.

The same is true for The Daily Show, which has taken a step further to bring its audience online by allowing extended and uncut interviews to be viewed exclusively on the show's site, as mentioned earlier.

The examples provided of Colbert-led initiatives represent the top-down processes of mobilizing a participatory fan culture, but the Colbert Nation has also demonstrated itself to be incredibly adept at creating its own bottom-up mass movements. The lead-up to the televised announcement of the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' is one such example of the manner by which a fan-base can use "grassroots media to mobilize and mainstream media to publicize" (Jenkins 2006: 220). In this case, the grassroots media used was the social news site Reddit, wherein users can submit links to internet content or generate their own posts on the site's front page to then be voted up to prominence or down to oblivion by fellow 'redditors.' In September of 2010, a Reddit user started a campaign to pressure Colbert to hold a rally on the National Mall, and the idea resonated so well within the online community that ideas began to circulate on how to best attract the host's attention and inspire him to consider organizing the event. A call was made by a Reddit user for supporters to donate money in the rally's name - the 'Restoring Truthiness Rally' as it was dubbed by the Colbert Nation - to a charity called DonorsChoose.org, at which

Colbert sits on the Board of Directors. Within twenty-four hours, a staggering $100,000 was raised, and in the days following, that number jumped to $250,000, all as a result of a community-based online campaign that went unmentioned on the program itself. Colbert 75 broke his silence shortly thereafter, praising his followers for their generosity and also proudly proclaiming that 'Colbert Rally' was the top-searched item on Google world-wide on a single day leading up to the announcement. The Colbert Nation got their way in the end, of course, with the two hosts using their television programs to organize and promote the event, but the speed and numbers with which this group was able to mobilize support for what was a mere grassroots idea begs for further inquiry. Who are these people?

To answer this question, we can again return to Jenkins, who differentiates between a traditional conception of consumers and the modern consumers who now embrace this participatory convergence culture. While old consumers were assumed to be passive, predictable, cloistered, and typically invisible in relation to the media they were consuming, new consumers are active, migratory, socially connected, disloyal to a single media entity, and both noisy and public (Jenkins 2006: 18-19). Each of these characteristics is attributable to the Colbert Nation, and while their ability to influence online polls, assault

Wikipedia with misinformation, or fimdraise out of self-interest is well-documented, it also appears that their ability to translate these skills into an exertion of real-world economic or political power truly contextualizes how these fan cultures can impact democracy.

Following the 2006 Congressional elections, for example, Colbert coined a term to describe his own overwhelming political and commercial influence: "the Colbert Bump". "For those of you unfamiliar with the concept," asserts the host while in character, "the Colbert

Bump is the curious phenomenon whereby anyone who appears on this program gets a huge boost in popularity" (Fowler 2008: 533). The claim is that by simply interviewing someone on his show, Colbert was able to "turn losers into winners... immediately vaulting 76 the guest to stardom, fortune, and fame" (Fowler 2008: 533). While a tongue-in-cheek

Colbert was citing anecdotal evidence in regards to a number of political candidates who had emerged victorious after appearing on his program, academics began to test his hypothesis with surprising results. Not only did candidates win more often after appearing on The Colbert Report, but they also saw a forty percent rise in campaign donations in the thirty days following their appearance (Fowler 2008: 539). Considering the relatively small viewership for the program on Comedy Central, these facts have become notable because

"Colbert appears to exert disproportionate real world influence" (Fowler 2008: 534).

The same appeared true for the promotion of books on The Colbert Report, as sales were almost immediately boosted after interviews with authors, which did not go unnoticed amongst a number of publishing houses which responded by designing non-fiction launches around the program. The explanation for this has less to do with an expansive viewership like that of an Oprah and more to do with the elite demographics of the Colbert Nation. To quote one publisher: "you have a very savvy, interested audience who are book buyers, people who go into bookstores, people who are actually interested in books" (Bosman

2007). This same effect appears to occur online as well, as the Mozilla Foundation observed a significant hike in download rates of their browser Firefox when it was mentioned on the program.

What this suggests is that The Colbert Report attracts a small but desirable audience for politicians and cultural elites who are looking to promote themselves. According to the

2008 Pew survey which links media use habits with demographic information, the Colbert

Nation is comprised of disproportionately young, highly educated, tech-sawy and 77 politically knowledgeable Americans who are on the cusp of new media and participate critically in the public sphere (Pew Research Centre 2008). These are people who have the motivation and the tools to carry out large-scale online movements in response to viewing the program, but again, this begs a question: for what reason are they willing to commit so much of their time and even money to a community built around a television program? Has

Colbert's appeal to these 'new consumers' inherited him a fan-base searching for an outlet for their existing interest in engaging the society at large, or is the Nation a misguided reaction to the teachings of Colbert's satire? In short, is the Colbert Nation good for democracy or not?

This brings the discussion full circle back to the focus of this thesis paper - the

'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.' Mixing the increased willingness for Stewart and

Colbert to take their political satire to the mainstream with the increasingly heightened stakes of the Nation's collaborative campaigns, the event in Washington at once threatens the influential territory held by the comedian hosts while simultaneously holding the potential to propel themselves and their followers to the forefront of American politics.

G. A LOOK AHEAD

The subsequent chapters of this thesis will deal with these unanswered questions regarding taking satire mainstream, as each one cuts to the core of this project's two central queries: first, does the willingness to engage in the mainstream threaten Stewart and

Colbert's ability to hold brokers of power to account; and second, for the purposes of 78 discussion, does satirizing politics necessarily inspire cynicism and provide a disincentive for political engagement? 79

(3) THE STUDY

A. METHODOLOGY H

In the first chapter, a detailed overview of critical discourse analysis (CDA) was outlined alongside an explanation of the three texts central to this study: episodes of The

Daily Show and The Colbert Report including the broadcast of the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear'; interviews with the comedians conducted in the period surrounding the event; and for the purposes of gauging reaction, media coverage provided by nine outlets following the initial announcement, leading up to the rally, and two days afterwards.

Analysis for each of these three portions of the study will be covered sequentially in their own sections of this chapter, and will be written with a focus on highlighting and synthesizing meaning within the original texts without drawing conclusions. As such, transcripts of interviews, episodes and the rally will be excerpted heavily so as to maximize the discursive context through which the conclusions will later be drawn.

As outlined in the first section on methodology, CDA allows for a much closer investigation of Stewart and Colbert's satirical intentions and anticipated effects by examining a breadth of their discourse both on their programs and in interviews. While the literature review provided expansive insight on how they are perceived and received by media and academics, this rally serves as a unique opportunity to understand how the satirists themselves view their own evolving role and the impact of their programs on viewers. By categorizing these texts, satire can be understood more fully from the perspective of its source, with focus placed on the consistency with which the comics state 80 and adhere to a set of principles about how to most effectively critique American political discourse.

For this reason, the sections regarding the episodes, rally, and interviews will weigh more heavily on the final conclusions, while hand-picked excerpts from media texts will be relied on less. In regards to the media section, the large survey of articles, blogs, editorials, discussions, and videos was included to justify a more generalized categorization of media reaction to the event. This does not, it should be noted, undercut the accuracy of the journalistic overview, though its inclusion is merited more for the context that it provides to the first two sections than for its own relevance to answering the core questions concerning this thesis.

Each of the three analytical sections will begin with a detailed outline of which texts were studied, and will make reference to the corresponding appendices that have been included for this project's posterity. Following the analyses will be a concluding section, dedicated to the collected conclusions or impressions regarding the core and ancillary questions posed at the outset of this thesis.

As was the case in the literature review, this chapter will focus primarily on

Stewart, with Colbert being tied in more substantively in the concluding sections and in the discussion chapter to follow. This choice was not intentional, but rather, was necessary thanks to the much more prominent role taken by the host of The Daily Show throughout the announcement, evolution, promotion, and execution of the rally. In short, the 'Rally to

Restore Sanity and/or Fear' is Stewart's tour de force and the media was attuned to that fact throughout their coverage, leaving Colbert with a supporting role. 81

The texts studied in this thesis cover a two month span in the fall months of 2010, and thanks in large part to the sophisticated multi-platform promotion on behalf of Stewart and Colbert and their influence on American media, some background on the evolution of their rally is needed to provide context to the sections that follow. Accordingly, a descriptive timeline is provided below to properly outline the curious and entertaining task of organizing the first ever satirical rally on the National Mall in Washington.

B. FROM ANNOUNCEMENT TO RALLY: A BRIEF TIMELINE

The official announcement of the October 30th 'Rally to Restore Sanity' took place on the September 16th episode of The Daily Show, followed immediately by Colbert's retaliatory declaration that he was hosting his own 'March to Keep Fear Alive' on the

National Mall at the same date and time. As part of the announcement, Stewart broke news to his audience that part of the rationale for holding the event on Halloween weekend was that The Daily Show would be taped in Washington from October 25th to 28th - the week immediately leading up to the Congressional midterm elections.

The launch of two separate rallies coincided with the unveiling of dual feeds, separate Facebook event pages, and two official websites - rallytorestoresanity.com and keepfearalive.com - through which the hosts competed over traffic, followers, and

'confirmed' responses from attendees. On the September 20th episode of The Colbert

Report, Colbert slammed the mainstream media for granting too much prominence to

Stewart's rally rather than his own march in their coverage of the announcement, and warned his viewers that if they visit Stewart's website, they'll "download a virus... and 1 82 mean herpes" ("September 20, 2010"). Of course, the fictional dispute between the two hosts served as a clever, ongoing excuse to continue to encourage their fans on-air to make plans to attend, though given the very apt timing of the announcement, there were no shortages of opportunities for Stewart and Colbert to speak about their event to the public.

On the September 21st episode of The Daily Show, Stewart announced the release of the textbook parody penned by him and his staff entitled " (The Book): A Visitor's

Guide to the Human Race"; a sequel to the 2004 award-winning bestseller "America (The

Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction" ("September 21 2010"). The new publication received continued mention on episodes of The Daily Show throughout

September and October, spent four weeks as at number one on The New York Times bestseller list for hardcover fiction, and served as a convenient excuse for Stewart to make a number of promotional media appearances. Within a week of the book's release, Stewart appeared as a guest on Oprah, The O'Reilly Factor, and The Late Show with David

Letterman, and on each he spoke not only about the new book but also about the upcoming rally.

Not to be outdone by The Daily Show's promotional tour, Colbert chose September

22nd to air the first of two segments wherein he volunteered to work as a farm labourer as part of a United Farm Workers of America (UFW) program entitled 'Take Our Jobs.' These segments require a brief backstory. On August 7, 2010, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez appeared on The Colbert Report to promote the new program, which challenges unemployed Americans in tough economic times to take the thousands of available jobs on farms that are opening up as a result of state crack-downs on . 83

According to the Labour Department, more than half of farm workers in the United States are illegal immigrants, and the UFW argues that Americans aren't taking the jobs because the work is too difficult (USA Today 2010). In the interview, Rodriguez explained that since the program's creation, only three Americans had come forward to take jobs in the fields, to which Colbert enthusiastically responded: "make that four" ("August 7,2010").

The broadcast of Colbert's two UFW segments coincided with a scheduled appearance before Congress in Washington, where he was invited to speak in front of a

House Judiciary subcommittee about his experiences working as a migrant labourer. On

September 23rd, Colbert appeared on to discuss his upcoming

Congressional appearance as well as the rally, and the following morning, he travelled to the nation's capital with a substantial media following to speak before the subcommittee.

The appearance earned both praise and scorn from the media and politicians alike, with many Democrats and left-leaning commentators praising Colbert for using his celebrity to bring attention to a very important issue, while others - including many Republicans - attacked the comedian for wasting taxpayer dollars and Congress' time, and for showing disrespect for the proceedings by delivering his remarks while in character (Madison 2010).

On the September 28th episode of The Daily Show, Huffington Post creator Arianna

Huffington appeared as a guest and declared her passionate support for Stewart's event, pledging that she would pay for busses to transport attendees from to

Washington on the morning of the rally ("September 28, 2010"). Surprised by the offer,

Stewart inquired as to how many busses would be provided, to which Huffington responded that she has "as many busses as there are people to fill them" ("September 28, 84

2010"). Two days later, President Obama mentioned that he was "amused" to hear of

Stewart's rally while at a speaking event, which the host then turned around as an opportunity to ridicule Colbert's less publicized march (Stewart "September 30, 2010").

While both of these shows of support received media coverage, they paled in comparison to the attention given to Stewart after the very public firing of CNN personality and frequent

Daily Show ridicule victim Rick Sanchez on September 29th - a result of his suggestion on a radio program that Stewart was a "bigot" and that fellow Jewish-Americans were running the media (Stewart "October 4, 2010"). In just two weeks since the event's announcement, both hosts had intentionally or unintentionally found ways to attract substantial journalistic attention, with the result being an influx of publicity surrounding their competing rallies.

At the outset of October, neither host showed any signs of slowing their promotional momentum. Stewart agreed to host Comedy Central's annual Night of Too

Many Stars benefit for child autism research on October 2nd, and later in the month, granted two lengthy interviews regarding the rally and his show's rise to prominence in American political discourse - one to NPR's Terry Gross and the other to CNN's . Colbert, too, made rare out-of-character appearances on both The Late Show with David Letterman and The View, discussing the event and joking gamely with the talk show hosts. They coupled these out-of-studio visits with continued announcements on their own programs, with Stewart and Colbert each taking time to promote two charities: The Yellow Ribbon

Fund, to which proceeds would be donated from the sale of rally merchandise; and the

Trust for the National Mall, a group that raises money to maintain and provide upkeep for the space upon which the event would be held (Stewart "October 6, 2010"; Colbert 85

"October 12, 2010"). It was also announced on the October 12th episode of The Daily Show that C-SPAN and Comedy Central would televise the entire rally live on their networks for those unable to attend in person, with an additional feed simulcast on Comedy's website

("October 12,2010").

With just three weeks remaining before the event, Stewart and Colbert were still faux-competing on-air over which of their two events would be larger, and fighting back- and-forth over the loyalty of potential attendees. The first sign of 'trouble' from the Colbert camp came on the October 7th episode of the Report, wherein the host reacted to Stewart's unveiling of the official permit for the 'Rally to Restore Sanity' with the realization that his own event had no such permit (Colbert "October 7, 2010"; Stewart "October 7, 2010"). On

October 11th, Colbert asked if any of his viewers living in Washington would be willing to host the 'March to Keep Fear Alive' at their homes, and after a few consecutive episodes of worry and speculation, Colbert appeared on The Daily Show set on October 14th and tearfully begged Stewart to add his name to the existing permit (Colbert "October 11,

2010"; Stewart "October 14, 2010"). When an agreement was made that the event's name would be changed to the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,' Oprah Winfrey made a surprise appearance via satellite and announced that she would pay to fly Stewart's audience to Washington and provide them with accommodation for the event, agreeing that

"we need a little more sanity in the world" ("October 14, 2010"). Not to be outdone,

Colbert offered his Report audience this same kind gesture later that evening, announcing that they too would be attending the rally in Washington on his dime ("October 14,2010"). 86

As the newly conjoined rally was taking shape, the event created a minor media controversy when an internal memo from NPR was leaked online. The memo, dated

October 13th, made clear that no NPR staff would be allowed to attend the Stewart and

Colbert rally unless they were specifically assigned to cover the event, citing an ethics policy which prohibits journalists from attending political events in their spare time on the grounds that their political reporting could be perceived as biased. Shortly thereafter, similar memos were distributed to staff at , ABC News, CBS News,

Associated Press, , and The New York Times, all prohibiting journalists to attend

(Huffington 2010). This created the newest rally-related debate within the political media - was the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' a political event, or was it just for fun? Is sanity partisan?

Following the leak, NPR's Dana Davis Rehm followed-up on the controversy by blogging a written clarification, from which the following is excerpted:

Some people are asking why staff shouldn't attend, since these events are just good fun? How serious could rallies led by comedians be? They are asking whether we sent a similar memo to staff about the Beck's Restoring Honor rally or any other recent rallies on the mall in Washington, D.C., such as the One Nation rally. We didn't get questions from staff about the Restoring Honor and One Nation rallies, because it was obvious to everyone that these were overtly political events. It's different with the Colbert and Stewart rallies; they are ambiguous. But their rallies will be perceived as political by many, whatever we think. As such, they are off limits except for those covering the events. (Rehm 2010)

This decision by a number of media outlets to shun the rally was shelled by Arianna

Huffington in an October 14th editorial posted on her site, in which she accused her 87 journalistic peers as being "agnostic on sanity" (2010). In response to Rehm's post from a day earlier, she wrote:

Clearly if someone is going to perceive something NPR does as "political," it's best not to do it - even if it's not actually political. Better to let what's acceptable be defined by the most extreme elements than be perceived as "political" - and to keep a pristine reputation by not taking a stand on sanity and reasonableness. [...] We've seen it again and again: In the name of "objectivity," the media pretend that every issue has two sides, and that both deserve equal weight. For the Pontius Pilate press, washing its hands of responsibility, the best route is to stand on the sidelines - leaving the question of "what is true" to the public. It should go without saying: not taking a stand is, in fact, taking a stand. (Huffington 2010)

The issue of whether or not the rally is political in nature or whether its true intent is to simply promote 'sanity' is one that is central to this thesis, so it will be addressed in the subsequent sections of this chapter. Still, it is clear that even the proposal of a rally in

Washington by two political satirists was enough to create a rift within the mainstream media, displaying a vast difference in philosophy on their responsibility in judging the nature and intent of a news event.

During a week-long hiatus for both programs in the week prior to The Daily Show's taping in Washington, Stewart made headlines once again. It was announced that on

October 19th, the White House would take advantage of the comedian's visit to the nation's capital by scheduling President Obama's final television interview prior to the midterm elections to take place on Comedy Central (Adams 2010). While this would not be

Obama's first visit to Stewart's program, the announcement was significant as it would be the first time The Daily Show would host a sitting President. Given the crucial timing of the interview and the snubbing of more mainstream forums, this signified yet another maturing 88 of satire's role in American politics, adding further shades of grey to the debate over

Stewart's classification as a comedian or hard journalist.

When the Report returned to air on October 25th, its host revealed that not only did the Reddit-led fundraising campaign in September to convince Colbert to host a rally crash the DonorsChoose.org website with the tremendous influx of donations, but that in just under two months, the Nation had raised $470,000 for nationwide schools ("October 25,

2010"; "October 27, 2010"). Coupled with the $110,000 donated between October 6th and

29th to the Trust for the National Mall, it was clear that Colbert and Stewart were ensuring that their event would make a positive contribution regardless of how it was received by their audience and the media (NationalMall.org 2010).

On October 27th, the entire extended-length episode of The Daily Show was committed to a twenty-six minute one-on-one conversation between President Obama and

Stewart, conducted in front of a studio audience in Washington. In the interview, Stewart challenged his guest to defend his record as President against the ambitious rhetoric used as a candidate in the campaign, and criticized him for not following through with his promise to change the corrupt political culture in Washington and for being weak in his concessions to Republicans during the 2009 debates ("October 27, 2010"). The enthusiastic debate led to a couple of embarrassing sound-bites on behalf of the Obama, which were given substantial media coverage the following day. One such moment was when Stewart accidentally caught the President amending his now-famed campaign slogan by interrupting him mid-sentence: 89

OBAMA: You know, there are folks, I'm sure, who don't think that we've achieved the ideal. And so, I guess, on all these issues, my attitude is, if we're makin' progress, step by step, inch by inch, day by day, that we are being true to the spirit of that campaign.

STEWART: You wouldn't say you'd run this time as a pragmatist - it wouldn't be, "Yes, we can - given certain conditions..."?

OBAMA: No, I think what I would say is, "Yes, we can, but - [Obama pauses to collect his thoughts, during which Stewart and the audience erupt in laughter] - but it is not gonna happen overnight." ("October 27,2010")

While this miscue amused a few journalists, the second moment of note during the interview was one that opened the comedian up to criticism. The discussion in progress was in regards to the hiring of former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers as the director of the White House National Economic Council:

STEWART: You expressed some frustration with those on the left who are still feeling dissatisfied. Do you think in any way the expectation was something that maybe even you and your campaign created? [...] I remember very clearly you said, "We can't expect different results with the same people." [...] And I remember when you hired Larry Summers [laughter] - I remember thinking, "Well, that seems like the exact same person." [...] In some respects, I get your frustration with this idea that, "Well, geez, are you never satisfied?" But again, the expectation, I think, was audacity: going in there and really rooting out a corrupt system. And so the sense is, has reality of what hit you in the face when you first stepped in, caused you to back down from some of the more visionary - like bringing in a guy like Larry Summers, like -

OBAMA: First of all, if you look at how we have handled this financial crisis [...] Larry Summers did a heckuva job trying to figure out how to -

STEWART: You don't want to use that phrase, dude, [laughs]

OBAMA: Pun intended, [emphasis added] (Stewart "October 27,2010") 90

The 'heckuva job' reference pointed out by Stewart here was to former President

Bush's identically worded praise of former FEMA director Michael Brown's leadership in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts - a job that was widely considered mismanaged

(Carnevale 2010). While the unintended turn-of-phrase could be considered a gaffe by

Obama, most media attention focused on Stewart's aggressive attacks on the President in what many commentators had predicted would be friendly territory, and a number of journalists took exception with the use of the word 'dude' when speaking with the

President (Kurutz 2010). Stewart would later admit in the post-rally press conference that he regretting using a term to refer to the Commander in Chief that most deemed too casual or even disrespectful (Ward 2010).

After six weeks of consistent media coverage and non-stop promotion on behalf of

Colbert and Stewart on their programs, through interview appearances, as well as through the web, the three-hour 'Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear' was held in Washington on

October 30th in front of an estimated crowd of 215,000 people (Montopoli 2010).

C. ANALYSIS: EPISODES AND THE RALLY i. Methods

The range of episodes covered in this study date from September 13, 2010 to

November 1,2010 - the days leading up to the rally's announcement through to the episode following the event, totalling twenty-five episodes from each program. One additional episode of The Daily Show was included from November 8, 2010, wherein Stewart 91 addressed the response and media criticisms from the rally, pushing the total studied programs to fifty-one.

Notes were made while viewing the episodes that put special emphasis on segments that directly addressed the rally, or fell within the parameters of the two questions concerning this thesis. The relevant segments were then broken down and categorized based on the insight they provided to eight different questions; five which address the core thesis question regarding the potential shift from an 'outsider' role as a satirist, and three which address the ancillary question regarding cynicism and engagement.

The five questions which address the thesis' core question are as follows: Does the rally change Stewart's role as a satirist; Is Stewart a political figure; Is Stewart akin to a pundit; Is the rally a political event (or intended to be); and finally, is the rally partisan (or intended to be)? The three questions which address the thesis' ancillary question are as follows; Does the rally promote 'sanity'; Is the rally cynical; and of course, does the rally promote disengagement? These same questions are used to categorize the interview section, and will be used as subheadings either individually or in groupings depending on the manner by which texts address them. As already mentioned, the use of Stewart's name here rather than Colbert's does not exclude Colbert from this discussion, but rather, it is simply a response to the prominence given to Stewart in dictating the terms of the event and his willingness to be outspoken regarding its conception.

The final subheading covers the entirety of the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' broadcast, which was viewed with the same aforementioned eight questions in mind when categorizing the events taking place on stage. 92

«. Is Stewart a political figure? /Is Stewart akin to a pundit?

Stewart coupled his unveiling of the rally on the September 16th episode of The

Daily Show with a brief explanation for its inception, arguing that the national conversation is dominated by fifteen to twenty percent of the population who garner media attention or work in media as a result of their more extreme partisan or ideological political views and rhetoric. Immediately following this description, a forty-second montage of clips was displayed to exemplify this minority faction, featuring ugly language from not only political pundits, politicians, and over-zealous rally hecklers, but also a clip of Stewart himself singing and dancing while shouting 'go fuck yourself; an excerpt from the April

20, 2010 episode of The Daily Show wherein he criticized Fox News. These individuals,

Stewart argues, dominate the political discussion in the United States at the expense of the other eighty to eight-five percent, who would prefer a more civilized discourse and would like to see more compromise occur in order to solve national problems, but are too busy leading their everyday lives to try and change the political tone ("September 16,2010").

Stewart's inclusion of himself in the montage of those he intends to criticize is noteworthy, as it speaks to the central question facing this thesis regarding what Stewart's role is in relation to the mainstream media - are we to assume that he views himself in the same light as politicians and pundits? In the previous chapter, it was made clear that

Stewart has maintained very close ties to his background as a stand-up comic over the past decade, refusing the title of journalist in favour of the label 'comedian.' On the November

8th episode of The Daily Show - in which he addressed a number of critiques regarding his 93 rally from left-wing commentators - Stewart put forth a new title for himself, stating plainly that he "can understand how political pundits/comedians aren't always going to understand comedians/political pundits, like me, and Bill Maher" ("November 8, 2010").

While at no point throughout the episodes of The Daily Show studied does Stewart ever explicitly admit that he likens himself to pundits, this was his first clear admission on his program that he straddles a fine line between commentator and comic. Given that he accepts this half-and-half role, it is understandable that Stewart may at times find himself guilty of the same mistakes made by media commentators that he satirizes, thus including himself in the montage of the eighty to eighty-five percent. This leads to further questions - how do other media and political elite view Stewart's role, and does Stewart himself feel that his own program contributes to a more combative discourse in America?

On the September 27th episode of The Daily Show, the matter of Stewart's role in contributing to the national discourse was addressed directly in an interview with Fox

News' Bill O'Reilly, who discussed their mutually held belief that corruption is rampant in the political system because politicians rely too much on funds from outside interests:

O'REILLY: [Politicians] spend so much time raising money and kissing butt that they don't even think about problem solving. But it cuts both ways. I mean, the liberal pinheads are just as bad as the right-wing pinheads.

STEWART: Nobody is suggesting that pinheads of any stripe are really pleasant.

O'REILLY: But that's what, unfortunately, seizes power in most countries, because the good people, number one, don't want to put themselves through the exercise because they get ripped up by pinheads like you...

STEWART: Not at all. You know what? I think we should have a rally for those people. 94

O'REILLY: The good people who won't come out?"

STEWART: To restore sanity. Will you come to the Rally to Restore Sanity? [cheering and applause] Come to the rally! Come to the rally! ("September 27, 2010")

O'Reilly makes an apt point here, arguing that a barrier to engaging meaningfully in the political sphere is ridicule at the hands of commentators like Stewart, and in turn,

Stewart neither agrees nor disagrees with this classification. Instead, he asks O'Reilly to join him at the rally intended to give a voice and a venue to those who might be otherwise discouraged to attend political rallies of any sort. This reaction informs this discussion by displaying three important elements of Stewart's perspective on O'Reilly's position: first, that he doesn't deny that left-leaning commentators are just as guilty as right-wing commentators in sullying the political discourse and perhaps creating a disincentive for engagement; second, that he doesn't deny that his own program may contribute to those sentiments for some Americans; and third, that he challenges O'Reilly to join him in trying to rise above that rhetoric and encourage regular, moderate Americans to participate and rally behind that very cause. This again puts Stewart in a curious middle-ground between satirist and the people he satirizes. While he intends to challenge pundits to change their approach, is he also presenting this challenge to himself? Furthermore, would the political and media elite consider him a hypocrite if he didn't otherwise lump himself in this guilty group?

The episodes of The Daily Show and the Report studied present an interesting portrait of how Stewart and Colbert are perceived by politicians and pundits alike. On the 95

October 13th episode of The Daily Show, former Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza

Rice engaged Stewart in a discussion on extremism regarding Islam in America:

RICE: I sometimes think, Jon, that there's a [...] turning up the volume of a few extreme voices on this issue. I don't believe that most Americans are in any sense Islamaphobic. First of all, many Americans have friends who are professing Islam. This is the most tolerant country in the world when it comes to other religions, but I do think that when you give a voice to very extreme people, it gives a sense that the United States is a country that it is not meant to be...

STEWART: Like if they had their own channel, [laughter and applause}

RICE: Or maybe their own rallies, [laughs] ("October 13,2010")

This is an opinion not just limited to a right-wing personalities, as the following exchange occurred as an aside to Stewart's discussion about health care reform during his

October 27th interview with President Obama:

OBAMA: And this is - Jon, I love your show, but...

STEWART: Very kind of you!

OBAMA: ...but this is something where, you know, I have a profound disagreement with you and -1 don't want to lump you in with a lot of other pundits but...

STEWART: You may.

OBAMA: ...but this notion that healthcare was 'timid': you've got thirty million people who are going to get as a consequence of this. ("October 27,2010")

For politicians, then, these two examples suggest that despite being on Comedy

Central rather than on a news network, Stewart's program is simply another source of criticism that can also serve as a platform to reach the electorate if they are willing to appear as guests. To Rice, there is no difference between Stewart and the extreme voices on

Fox News, and for Obama, the comic's questions are not unlike those he has fielded from left-wing commentators. Whether this critique is delivered for laughs or as part of a twenty- four-hour news telecast is irrelevant; it could prove potentially devastating to a candidate, party, policy, or individual approval rating and should be accepted with the same potential for consequence.

While drawing this conclusion appears to suggest that little difference exists between Stewart, Colbert, and the pundits and journalists they satirize, few in politics or the media would be comfortable making such a claim in an absolute sense. Just as Stewart and

Colbert have been criticized for acting like journalists but then hiding behind their satirist labels when challenged to uphold their journalistic responsibility, they can be just as easily upheld as legitimate and in the next breath outright dismissed by politicians and pundits when the classification is convenient. On the September 27th episode of The Daily Show, for instance, Stewart covered the reaction regarding Colbert's appearance before Congress to discuss the UFW's migrant farm labourer program, pointing out that his fellow comic made a number of fair points about the plight of immigrant workers in America and even quoted scripture in his testimony. Still, a montage of clips was displayed showing right- wing personalities like Fox News host and Republican House Leader John

Boehner claiming that the Democrats wasted taxpayer dollars and Congress' time by calling a 'comedian' to testify. He then showed a clip of former Crossfire pundit Tucker

Carlson appearing on Fox News' Hannity, claiming that "any comic who says 'I'm here to 97 speak for people who have no voice' is no longer a comic but a pompous jerk" (Stewart

"October 27,2010").

These two contrasting examples demonstrate that by straddling the line between comics and pundits, Stewart and Colbert take the form of journalistic chameleons. Just as

NPR was aware in their release that their organization possessed no ability to control how legitimately political the rally would be perceived, it appears that the hosts' potential to put forth damaging critiques on par with serious journalists makes them at times pundits in the eyes of those being attacked, though they can just as easily be unmasked as outsider satirists if the classification serves those using it. For the purposes of our discussion, the episodes have revealed little in the way of answers regarding how the comedians perceive their own role and how those in the media and politics perceive them. Prior to the rally, it appears that only one thing is certain - the place they hold in relation to the mainstream media is at all times ambiguous. iii. Does the rally change Stewart's role as a satirist?/Is the rally a political event? / Is the rally partisan?

The discussion moves from Stewart and Colbert's role as outsiders to whether the rally is intended to change those roles in any substantive way. Viewing the episodes leading up to the event, it becomes clear that many in politics and the media suspect an underlying political motive. On the September 21st episode of The Colbert Report, the host replays a clip from Glenn Beck's radio show, wherein he claims that Stewart and Colbert's intent for holding the rally is "to activate the youth and try to get them to vote" - to which Colbert cheekily responds, "who told him about the youth activation?" ("September 21, 2010"). A 98 week later on the same program, former Crossfire host and left-leaning pundit Paul Begala makes a similar suggestion about the potential outcome of holding such an event before the midterms in Washington:

COLBERT: You're talking about the Tea Partiers, who are maybe the more extreme version of the Republican Party right now. Why don't the Democrats have one of those? Why in the next thirty days - I hope they don't - but why in the next thirty days can't they motivate people to come out and chant in the streets?

BEGALA: I think they can, and should. I'm looking forward to your rally, or Jon Stewart's -

COLBERT: If invited, will you come to the March to Keep Fear Alive? (Colbert "September 28,2010")

From Beck's view on the right of the political spectrum, the rally could be an underhanded way for the hosts to inspire their traditionally Democratic young audience to become engaged in politics just days before the midterms, while Begala makes an even more ambitious prediction: that Colbert and Stewart might try to lead a new movement or party on the left that will be unveiled in Washington on the rally stage. In neither instance does Colbert's fictionalized character deny either suggestion that the event would double as either comic's coming-out party into the political sphere, but Stewart was far more adamant in his position on the matter.

The rally's announcement on The Daily Show coincided with two consecutive high- profile political guests: former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and on

September 16th and September 20th, respectively. During his conversation with Stewart,

Carter swung the topic towards the news media's contribution to the polarization of discourse in America: 99

CARTER: Things have gone downhill, I think, in the last few years with the polarization of our country, with the evolution of a new kind of politics, with the birth of Fox News that now distorts everything instead of telling the truth, and I think [applause and cheering]. You want me to tell the truth right?

STEWART: Someone should do a rally about this.

CARTER: I heard about a rally. So you're getting involved in politics?

STEWART: No. But it's going to be pretty funny.

CARTER: I know, I know.

STEWART: It's going to be a good skit. ("September 20,2010")

Stewart could not be clearer here in denying that the rally in any way signifies an entry into politics or a moment to influence the upcoming elections. He asserts that its core concern is entertainment value, though his rationale for raising the topic with the former

President remains consistent with the announcement: it was a natural segue from a discussion on polarized and partisan discourse in politics. This denial of the rally's classification as politically significant was not only consistent with Stewart's announcement of the event, but beyond that, he went to great lengths throughout the rally's evolution to downplay its grandeur and potential importance. The following is an excerpt from the September 16th episode of The Daily Show, wherein the host defends the choice of the rally's date:

We will gather on the National Mall in Washington D.C. A Million Moderate March, where we take to the streets to send a message to our leaders and our national media that says 'We are here! We are only here, though, until 6 because we have a sitter!' A clarion call for rationality! This will take place on Saturday, October 30th, 2010. Now you're probably saying to yourself: 'October 30th 2010. That rings a bell. That rings a bell. The 36th anniversary of George Foreman and Muhammed Ali's rumble in the jungle in Zaire.' Yes. But that's not why the date is 100

significant. I'll tell you the significance of October 30th. [long pause, change camera] You see, The Daily Show is actually already going to be in Washington doing shows from Monday the 25th to Thursday the 28 and we all thought that if we did it Friday we were still going to be really tired from doing the shows, so we thought we could use a day to just, like, you know, [ruffles his own hair] and then we were thinking, like, well, what about Sunday, you know? But that's Halloween, and a lot of us have kids, and we'd like to see them trick-or-treat, you know, because it just goes so fast. And, uh, so October 30th, we thought "well jeez, that just makes the most sense." Anyway, [emphasis added] ("September 16,2010")

Stewart reinforced this same approach on the October 6th episode of The Daily

Show, as an official permit for the rally had been granted and he was able to announce the confirmed location of the event on the Mall:

We believe we finally found a space on the National Mall that seems useful, accessible and at the same time synonymous with nothing else that's ever been done down there. It's not the Lincoln Memorial, where the historic Martin Luther King spoke, or the hysteric Glenn Beck spoke, or where Forrest found Jenny. [...] It's not the steps of the Capitol building, where the Million Man March was held, or the Washington Monument, where giant Bizarro and giant Superman once duelled for supremacy. We will rally here, right here, [a map is displayed on-screen] The east end of the National Mall between Third Street and Seventh Street. As you can see, there's the Washington Monument, there's the reflecting pool, there's the Lincoln Memorial - we're in the back of all that. As far as we know, no huge, iconic event has ever taken place there. ("October 6,2010")

From the very announcement of the rally, Stewart purposefully positions the event in such a manner so as to minimize criticism or backlash on two different fronts. First,

Stewart makes clear that his rally will not be a reclaiming of a space once used to create great social change - thus, the date and location are to be perceived by commentators as choices of convenience, rather than ones intended to contribute to the historical significance of the event. His explicitly stated reasoning for choosing the National Mall on October 30th is a clear response to the reaction Glenn Beck received by holding his 'Restoring Honor' 101 rally not only on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream Speech," but from the very spot that the original speech was given in 1963 (Halloran 2010). Second, the host very openly resists being compared to or placed on par with any great social or political leaders who have marched on the Mall previously. By including himself in the montage with other pundits, Stewart distances himself from a position of leadership, ensuring that he is not accused of portraying himself as a beacon of hope to lead his otherwise sane and politically moderate followers. Instead, he presents himself as someone who is at times part of the problem, which is telling about how the comic conceptualizes his role in this rally. From the episodes viewed in this study, there is little to suggest that

Stewart or Colbert seek a change in their current role as satirists, which is a discussion that will be picked back up in the next section regarding the content of the rally itself. iv. Does the rally promote 'sanity'? /Is the rally cynical? / Does the rally promote disengagement?

The final question covered while watching the lead-up to the rally is whether or not the rally will actually intend to promote sanity - specifically, by communicating a positive message rather than promoting cynicism or disengagement. Returning momentarily to

Stewart's September 27th conversation with Bill O'Reilly, the comic alluded to the fact that one goal for the event is drawing people out who might typically find themselves repelled by such events. This suggestion is consistent with the rally's initial announcement, wherein it appears that attracting individuals to the rally who would otherwise shy away from political events - or, by extension, disengage in politics altogether - is a central tenet of

'restoring sanity': 102

You may be asking yourself right now, sitting at home, 'but am I the right type of person to go to this rally?' The fact that you would even stop to ask yourself that question, as opposed to just, let's say, jumping up, grabbing the nearest stack of burnable holy books, strapping on a diaper and just pointing your car towards D.C., that means I think you just might be right for it! (Stewart "September 16,2010")

By contrasting his intended attendees with Americans who are typically identified as extremists or over-the-top in their approach to political discourse, the comic consciously aims to make the event as inclusive as possible for those viewers who may be disenfranchised by the negativity in politics. In this way, he appears to be fighting disengagement rather than promoting it, albeit engagement in a cause that he proposed rather than one on behalf of a political party or candidate. He followed up these comments by holding up a few examples of the types of signs his fans should bring to the National

Mall on the 30th: 'I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler'; '9/11 was an outside job'; and 'I'm Not Afraid of Muslims, Tea Partiers, Socialists, Immigrants, Gun

Owners, Gays... but I am scared of Spiders' (Stewart "September 16, 2010"). Cynicism, it would appear, is to be mocked at the rally rather than celebrated.

Perhaps the clearest indicator of the rally's intended message took place in the week leading up to the event. On The Daily Show, Stewart's team of correspondents were featured in a four-part series wherein they assembled a group of six ideologically different

Americans from different ethnic backgrounds and regions of the United States and bussed them across country to Washington. While comics , Jason Jones and Wyatt

Cenac continually pressed the group to shout at each other over their political differences -

"agree to disagree doesn't make for good TV," quips Oliver - the everyday Americans 103 preferred deliberation and polite compromise to extreme positions, staunch partisanship, or disagreement for the sake of disagreement (Stewart "October 25, 2010"). As their trip came to a close, Jones assembled the group in front of the Washington Monument and gave them

"one last chance to redeem themselves with a vitriolic rant in front of the cameras," wherein the citizens made passionate appeals for the country to rebuild by looking towards its similarities rather than differences (Stewart "October 28,2010"). "We all want a little bit different things," said one participant, "but we all love our country." Another added that

Americans "shouldn't mistake moderation for weakness" (Stewart "October 28, 2010").

Despite the counter-event proposed by Colbert that would celebrate fear-based politics and the posturing on behalf of the correspondents, Stewart and his team continually set the tone of the event throughout the episodes as one that was intended to be non-partisan, non- ideological, moderate, and above all else, positive. v. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

Observing the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,' it is critical to point out that the event would be more appropriately called a concert. With a very large stage erected and video screens with speakers hung across the Mall, attendees in no way marched, chanted, or rallied but instead watched the performance led on-stage. The overarching theme of the three-hour show was pitting fear against sanity and reason, with Colbert's fictionalized personae representing one perspective and Stewart representing the other. While the majority of the time was filled by musical acts and other entertaining special guests like the

Mythbusters and Father Guido Sarduchi, the hosts used their time to distribute alternating 104

'Medals of Fear' and 'Medals of Reasonableness' to citizens - not politicians, as is typical on their programs - who had been in the news recently.

The mainstream media was on the receiving end of ridicule for much of the afternoon. "An incredible gathering here on the Mall today," declared Stewart proudly, "but as we all know, it doesn't matter what we do or say here today... it matters what is reported about what we said or did here today" (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally"). Since the only two options for reporting on a rally are from the standpoint of a tremendous success or horrendous failure, joked Stewart, he employed correspondents and Jason

Jones to give real-time faux news coverage from the same event from the competing perspectives. Stewart also called upon correspondents Samantha Bee and to

'count-off the crowd, asking each attendee to give a sequential number and provide a demographic profile so as to avoid media criticism about the rally on the grounds of size, age, or ethnicity of the crowd (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally"). They would get to six before calling it quits. During the second half of the event, Colbert offered a 'Medal of

Fear' to NPR and every other media organization that barred their employees from attending the event, poking fun at the aforementioned internal memo scandal from a couple of weeks earlier. Nearing the end of the rally, Colbert and Stewart engaged in a comedic debate over the merits of fear versus reason in national discourse, and it was determined that fear triumphs only when the media gets the opportunity to control the discussion.

Stewart's solution was to fight the fear with a weapon we all have at our disposal: a remote control. By turning off the television or changing the channel, we can bring back a little bit of sanity (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally"). 105

With just fifteen minutes remaining, the stage cleared and Stewart asked the crowd if they would indulge him for a brief moment of "sincerity" (Stewart and Colbert "The

Rally"). For ten minutes, The Daily Show host stepped out of his role as "comedian / pundit

/ talker guy" to speak from the heart about what the true purpose was for the 'Rally to

Restore Sanity and/or Fear,' stating: "I can't control what people think this was, I can only tell you my intentions" (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally"). A copy of his remarks in their entirety is included in this thesis as Appendix A for this project's posterity, though the most relevant excerpts will be included below in summation.

To address the central question of this thesis first, Stewart made absolutely no indication throughout the rally or in his closing remarks that he intended to see his role as a satirist change. There was no mention of a new political class or movement, or of a new willingness to embrace the mainstream or change his approach to covering politics on his program. Despite having the Capitol building as his backdrop just days before an election, he never once singled out a particular party or even encouraged his audience to get out and vote on Tuesday. Instead, the rally stuck very closely to the narrative that had been pitched in episodes of The Daily Show leading up to the event: that Stewart was interested in seeing less extremism, less partisanship, less negativity, more restraint, more reason, and more compromise on behalf of the politicians in Washington and the journalists who cover politics (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally"). In regards to the political media that he so often criticizes, Stewart made these remarks during his speech:

The country's 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating 106

issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous flaming ants epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. There are terrorists, and racists, and Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned! You must have the resume! [...] The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker, [emphasis added] ("The Rally")

While Stewart's challenge to the media to elevate the level of national discourse was prominent in his closing remarks, it wasn't the core purpose of his speech. "We live now in hard times, not end times" he remarked, adding that "we can have animus, and not be enemies" (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally"). To Stewart, there is a gap between the

America that is portrayed by the media and that which exists in the real world:

We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don't is here [in Congress] or on cable TV! But Americans don't live here, or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done; not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do! But they do it. Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make. ("The Rally")

Stewart speaks out against vociferous political discourse not only because it prevents compromise and problem solving in Washington, but also because it misrepresents the country itself. If Congress and journalists serve as the voice of Americans, then they should recognize that the country's citizens work to find compromise and solve problems in their own lives, often times in the face of disagreement or ideological difference as well. Is it too much to ask that the nation's leaders do that which its citizens do every day? While 107 his remarks were critical of political discourse and those who control it, the prevalent feeling behind his words was of optimism rather than cynicism. He assembled hundreds of thousands of reasonable Americans on the premise of promoting sanity, stayed true to that theme, and finished by shedding his comedic voice momentarily to reassure them that the country they live in and love is not nearly as hopeless and divided as their politics would suggest. The message, in sum, is one of hope rather than fear:

We know, instinctively, as a people, that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. And the truth is there will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land. [...] But we do it anyways, together. If you want to know why I'm here, and what I want from you, I can only assure you this. You have already given it to me. Your presence was what 1 wanted. Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today, and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you. (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally").

In his final thoughts, Stewart touches on the question of engagement. While there was no explicit message to vote or to get involved with the political process - again, the hosts kept the event non-political and especially non-partisan - the event was a demonstration of a very large group of Americans travelling a distance to rally together around an issue that they believed in. Rather than suggesting that his cause was better than any others to assemble around, he reminded the crowd that perhaps the most deserving cause is best left to "the eye of the beholder," a hint that independent thought is preferred over staunch ideology, partisanship, or dogma.

All in all, the three-hour rally proved to be little of what it was speculated to be and mostly what it was promised to be. Stewart and Colbert made no challenge to their existing roles in relation to the media, continuing to criticize and distance themselves from what 108 passes for discourse, and the event remained a non-political, non-partisan affair, not once commenting on the upcoming elections or even voting. The tone of the event was positive and celebratory throughout, came coupled with a positive message about the country that few could disagree with, and finished by reinforcement that simply being there was in and of itself an important step towards helping the country.

D. ANALYSIS: INTERVIEWS

/. Methods

From September through November of 2010, Colbert and Stewart granted eleven interviews to a range of media sources, each of which is covered in this section. These interviews, listed here chronologically, are as follows: Stewart's interview with New York

Magazine for their issue released September 12th; Stewart's appearance on the September

21st episode of Oprah; Stewart's September 22nd interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox

News' O'Reilly Factor, Colbert's September 23rd interview with on Good Morning America; Stewart's appearance on the September 28th episode of The

Late Show with David Letterman; Stewart's October 4th interview with Terry Gross from

NPR's Fresh Air, Colbert's appearance on the October 7th episode of The Late Show with

David Lettermaw, Colbert's visit to The View and Stewart's appearance on CNN's Larry

King Live, both on October 20th; the post-rally press conference with both comics on

October 30th; and finally, Stewart's November 11th interview with MSNBC's Rachel

Maddow on The Rachel Maddow Show. 109

As mentioned in the previous section, eight questions were considered while categorizing the content of the interviews, with special attention paid to the lengthier and more seriously toned interviews - Fresh Air, Larry King Live, and The Rachel Maddow

Show - rather than the ones done for entertainment value, such as Letterman and The View.

The same questions used in the previous section will be used as subheadings here, grouped either individually or together depending on the manner by which texts address them. ii. Does the rally change Stewart's role as a satirist?

Despite making no indication of intending to change his satirical approach to politics during the rally as well as throughout its lead-up, Stewart was asked in the post- rally press conference about his plans going forward. "Are you going to plan more rallies," he was asked, to which he deferred the response to Colbert:

We have a show on Monday, and we gotta go write that, and then we have a live show Tuesday. Normally that would be the hardest thing we do this year, so we gotta go hump for two days. We have a Wednesday show too, and a then a Thursday show, and then we have to keep doing them 'til Thanksgiving. ("National Press Club")

The overarching message communicated here was that the post-rally approach for both programs would be business as usual as opposed to taking on a new challenge or role as a result of the event. A similar question was posed to Stewart in his NPR interview with

Terry Gross, in which she asked how his roles and responsibilities change as a result of organizing the rally. His response was consistent with the one given by Colbert, in that nothing changes at all: 110

We're not provocateurs, we're not activists; we are reacting for our own catharsis. There is a line into demagoguery, and we try very hard to express ourselves but not move into, 'So follow me! And I will lead you to the land of answers, my people!' You can fall in love with your own idea of common sense. Maybe the nice thing about being a comedian is never having a full belief in yourself to know the answer. So you can say all this stuff, but underneath, you're going, 'But of course, I'm fucking idiotic.' It's why we don't lead a lot of marches. ("Fresh Air")

The comedian demonstrates an awareness here of why many may have suspected that the rally was an active step outside of his role as a satirist, because as he reminds us, marches or events of that nature are typically led by visionaries who are aiming to convince followers of their leadership or position. Despite this, Stewart continues to refuse a new label, arguing that it is more than possible to organize a large event without transforming oneself into a demagogue. To him, the two are inconsistent with each other, as to be a comedian requires him to be sceptical, even about his own wisdom on matters of political principle. He embraces that outsider role of the critic, and argues that it begets also that he be critical of himself. Perhaps this idea is said best by long-time friend and fellow comedian Dennis Leary, who claims while speaking of the rally that Stewart "knows that the moment he really believes he's important, the funny goes away and he becomes Bill

O'Reilly, except shorter and Jewish" (Smith 2010). iii. Is Stewart a political figure? /Is the rally a political event? /Is the rally partisan?

These three closely related queries were asked most frequently and most directly to

Stewart throughout his press interviews, and the response to each was a consistent and enthusiastic no. Larry King, for instance, asked Stewart each of the questions nearly sequentially, first wondering if the event was a political rally, to which the comic Ill responded plainly: "no, it is in fact not a political rally" ("Larry King Live"). When King followed up by asking if Stewart was "putting himself in the same place as Martin Luther

King Jr." as a political leader by holding a rally in Washington on a Saturday, the response was equally as dismissive: "Let me put it this way - I'm putting myself in the same class as

[comedian] Martin Mull" ("Larry King Live"). King then asked if the intent was to hold an anti-Glenn Beck rally, wherein Stewart expanded on his vision for the event, arguing that the rally was just a construct through which himself and Colbert could present the same type of satire that appears on their nightly programs:

It is not the anti-Glenn Beck rally. It's a very similar - what we are doing is we are using the rally format to do the same thing we do with our shows. The message will be a very similar-type idea. It's just using the rally through a satirical format. Like the [Earth] book is like our show in book form. [...] It's not - you know, everybody should just wait and see what it is, make their own decisions. ("Larry King Live")

Discussions surrounding whether the rally serves as a counter-balance to Beck's conservative August event are thinly-veiled attempts to gauge just how left-leaning and sympathetic to the Democratic Party Stewart plans to make his own day in Washington.

While appearing on Good Morning America, Colbert was pressed on the issue of partisanship while speaking with former Clinton-aide George Stephanopoulos, who asked if he believed that the rally would help the Democrats in November. "I can't believe that's true," responded the comic, taking the opportunity to crack a joke: "I think it's going to take more than a march to help Democrats in November. I think it might take leadership, a few more ideas..." ("Good Morning America"). NPR's Terry Gross, on the other hand, took a more aggressive approach to the issue of Stewart's role in relation to the left-wing 112 political establishment, speaking to critiques on behalf of the AFL-CIO, FFL, NAACP and other liberal groups who claim that the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' is distracting from their serious efforts to get out the vote. Stewart's response was characteristically blunt: "tough shit" ("Fresh Air"). He then expanded on his response:

1 have a job. I don't have to do yours. [...] If their job is to motivate the voters and to rally people to their cause, God bless. Do whatever you've got to do. But that's not my job. My job is to, again, express our point of view comedically about what we view as the political process. You know, I don't - I have no obligation to the Democrats or progressives or liberals or unions. Our feeling is [that] corruption is corruption. [...] We're not warriors in their cause. ("Fresh Air")

While the above responses clearly dismiss the claim that Stewart intends to make himself the leader of a political cause or connect himself to any political organizations or a party, he still left ambiguous - for those unwilling to read between the lines, presumably - whether or not he intends to run for office. During Stewart's appearance on Oprah, the daytime talk-show host took suggestions for her questions from audience members, many of which wanted to know if they would ever have an opportunity to vote for the comic in an upcoming election. Again, Stewart fielded the question with as direct an answer as possible, expanding on his rationale:

OPRAH: We have a lot of Jon Stewart fans in the house today, and one question many of them had is 'Will Jon Stewart ever run for public office?'

STEWART: Jon Stewart will never run for public office.

OPRAH: [...] And why do you say that, Jon?

STEWART: Because I - my ability to recognize my not having the answers it what keeps me sane. [...] I think public office requires a certain discipline and 113

collaborative spirit that I don't possess. And I think in that system I would lose my mind almost immediately. And people that have run their own thing, or done their own thing, or have been able to express themselves in a relatively unfettered way would have a horrible time running for office.

OPRAH: I think so too, and also, the platform that you have right now reaches so many people, and you get to have more fun, and get paid a lot better.

STEWART: Well, the other thing is [...] my job is I make jokes, I don't solve problems. If my job became solving problems, I would suddenly become a lot less good at what I do. You know, unless the problem that was being had by the country was a lack of jokes. ("The Oprah Winfrey Show.")

Whether Stewart is being genuine or coy in claiming that he would not be apt at solving the nation's problems, he is unashamed to admit that The Daily Show provides him with a platform and editorial freedom to communicate much more to the American people than he would otherwise be granted as a candidate or politician. This is unsurprising. If the trappings of public office are typically power and influence, then it would be difficult to argue that Stewart could garner more of the latter by becoming an insider rather than remaining an outsider, given the acclaim and attention his program is given week-to-week.

As well, as someone who makes a living ridiculing those who possess power, it is likely that he finds it difficult to see the appeal in opening oneself to such attack. "Our currency is not this town's currency," stated Stewart at the post-rally press conference, when he was asked if he accepts his new role as a leader of civil society; "we're not running for anything, we don't have a constituency. We do television shows for people who like them, and we just hope that people continue to like them so that Comedy Central can sell beer to young people" ("National Press Club") 114 iv. Is Stewart akin to a pundit?

This is peihaps the debate that reaches most prominently to the core of this thesis' central question regarding the role of satirist as an outsider. To borrow terms that Stewart himself coined on his program and in the rally, what is the difference between a

4comedian/pundit' and a 'pundit/comedian,' of which Stewart classifies himself as the former rather than the latter? This linguistic shift is clearly an intentional one, meant to indicate that Stewart feels there is a significant element in the twenty-four-hour cable news pundit job that is entertainment based, and perhaps even makes them similar to Stewart himself in a number of ways. Stewart touches on some of those similarities in the New York

Magazine piece, when speaking about Glenn Beck:

Glenn was going to do the Rally to Restore Honor. And I thought man, that actually is, that's a great idea. [...] He's a reaction to what he feels like is the news, and so are we. We actually share, I think, quite a bit in common in terms of - not point of view, necessarily, but reason for being. We're both, in some ways, an op-ed. We consider ourselves sort of editorial cartoonists, in some respect. (Smith 2010)

The author of the New York piece gave Beck the opportunity to respond to Stewart's comparison and comment on the job he feels the Comedy Central host does nightly on his program, to which he posited the following in an e-mail:

Jon Stewart is very funny, and if I were in his position, I'd be doing a lot of the same things. In fact, a lot of the jokes I've heard before, either from my staff or myself. He takes things out of context (no worse than most of the other mainstream media) and is more interested in being funny than trying to actually understand the key messages in [my] show [...] But I don't think he's looking for a Pulitzer. [...] People like Jon, his ratings are good. Good for him, keep doing what he's doing. People seem to like watching my show as well, and hopefully that continues for both of us for a very long time. (Smith 2010) 115

At least outwardly, Beck appears to feel a kinship with Stewart as an individual who works in the same field towards the same goals. They both comment on the news and both at times use humour to get their point across most effectively, so in what way can Stewart claim that he is different from a pundit as a satirist? He answers that question more directly while speaking with Maddow, who makes a similar case as Beck. "I think a lot of people who watch your show and watch cable news think of what we do as not being that different," she explains, "which sucks for me, because I used to be a sort of mildly amusing person talking... and now I'm the person trying to be Jon Stewart and sucking" ("The

Rachel Maddow Show"). Stewart feels, on the other hand, that she is needlessly diminishing her own role by levelling it with his own:

STEWART: The one thing that I don't have that you have, is the ability to really do something about it. You're in the game -

MADDOW: You're in the game too... we're in the same game.

STEWART: I don't think so. I think you're in a better game than I'm in.

MADDOW: How? What's the difference? What's the material difference?

STEWART: You're on the playing field, and I'm in the stands yelling things... criticizing.

MADDOW: Everybody sees you as on the playing field too, I think. ("The Rachel Maddow Show").

This begs further explanation. If Maddow and Stewart are both commenting on news comedically, then what classifies her as 'on the playing field' in his mind? He continues: 116

STEWART: A satirist is... I can always criticize, but I can't actually do anything. There is a certain, uh - we have an advantage in terms of loose rules, in terms of language, hyperbole, sarcasm, and everything else... but what we don't have, at the end of the day, is what the lowest ranking member of an organization that builds something has, which is that they build something.

MADDOW: Responsibility.

STEWART: Exactly! We have no responsibility. ("The Rachel Maddow Show").

This idea of responsibility is related to another important characteristic of the mainstream media that was discussed in the previous chapter - legitimacy. It is something that Maddow possesses but Stewart does not. He further explains this distinction:

You're one person, with one great voice. [...] But I'm a climate scientist. I study weather patterns and climate. You're talking about the weather. And maybe these networks aren't meant to be viewed in aggregate, but there is an aggregate. There is an effect. And when people say 'well you're influential too' - I'm a 22 minute show, and when I say 'puppets making crank calls in front of me', I don't say that to diminish comedy. I mean that that is not then reinforced through the next person. It's not a relay. And there is an amplifying effect to the relay. ("The Rachel Maddow Show").

The importance of this quote and the clarity with which he expresses this point cannot be overstated. In The Daily Show host's eyes, he is viewed by those in the media as being on Comedy Central because he is a satirist. In reality, he is a satirist because he is on

Comedy Central. While he and Maddow could literally be saying the same things on their programs, the fact that she is on a network that calls itself 'news' gives her a greater responsibility than he possesses on his program. The reference he makes to 'puppets making crank calls' refers back to a comment he had made six years earlier on Crossfire, when he defended himself from an attack regarding his own journalistic responsibility by 117 arguing that the nature of the programs around his own diminished his responsibility.

Stewart argues here that regardless of how a pundit feels about their own views and their own program, the aggregate effect of being surrounded by more news and views means that each pundit contributes towards painting a larger picture - or, to take Stewart's own words, to "build something" as an organization, such as a perspective or an agenda.

This, in short, is the difference between a comedian/pundit and a pundit/comedian.

As long as Stewart keeps his job at Comedy Central and insists that he is a satirist rather than a pundit, then in his eyes he shirks much of the responsibilities that are required of mainstream news personalities. His problem with pundits, then, is not that they use humour to get their point across or that they editorialize, but rather, it is that they do so under the banner of news. This gives them a greater responsibility to be truthful and conscientious of the impact of their views than he possesses, simply because he calls himself a. comedian. He removes his own legitimacy, and thus, earns freedom. While this definition of rhetorical boundaries between insiders and outsiders satisfies Stewart in terms of his intent, it fails to address the fact that he can still be received or perceived as an insider or pundit. Maddow, in turn, addresses this fact:

MADDOW: You know, even if you're not launching it in the same way, it's being received in the same way, and the barriers between what actually happens on cable news that you're satirizing and what you're doing - we're not seen as being all that different. Is that worrying you?

STEWART: The only thing that I would say - it doesn't worry me. I think that, I can understand how it would worry people in the news. What I do -1 have existed - I am the Highlander. You know, there has been a form of me around forever: a comedian who, with political and social concepts, criticizes them from a haughty and yet ultimately feckless perch, throwing things. The box that I'm in has always existed. The box that you're talking about, I think, is new. And so I do think, if 118

that's moving towards me that's okay, but I really feel like I'm on pretty solid ground with the footsteps of my ancestors. [...] I don't happen if the Smothers Brothers didn't happen. Bill Maher. You know, those guys all paved a way for something I do but that's always existed. ("The Rachel Maddow Show").

Stewart claims here that he is being held responsible not for being the greatest satirist in a generation, but instead for doing what comedians have always done at a time when the media is rapidly losing their legitimacy. Perhaps Maddow puts this best when paraphrasing her guest: "we're getting to be more like you; you're not getting to be more like us" ("The Rachel Maddow Show"). In his mind, if journalists were doing a better job, there would be no need to confuse him for a pundit in the same way that pundits would not be confused for comedians. In this response, though, Stewart also reveals an interesting opinion regarding his and his ancestors' role as comedians, referring to their domain as "a haughty and yet ultimately feckless perch" - a point that will be returned to momentarily

("The Rachel Maddow Show").

Given that we understand how Stewart views his own position in relation to the media, the question is whether the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' did anything to change this established role. When the MSNBC host suggested that taking the stage made him "a little more like us," he responded defiantly:

Yeah, because I felt like, in twelve years, I had earned a moment to tell people who I was. And that's what I did. And this isn't going to be me forever, either. In my life, I also try and actually get on the field and help people, just in a different way. Just not through the show. ("The Rachel Maddow Show")

Given the lengths that he went on his program and in interviews to insist that hosting a rally did not necessarily indicate a shift in his role as a satirist, Stewart expresses 119 a bit of frustration with Maddow that he is required to defend any instance in which he breaks script and character and speaks momentarily from the heart. He is both an adept utilizer as well as victim of the twenty-four-hour invasive news cycle when it comes to the rally, and it appears that he bemoans that which he criticizes when it comes to impact him personally. Regardless of how it is perceived, Stewart insists again that neither his ten- minute closing remarks nor his hosting of the event in general make him any more of a pundit and any less of a comedian, and he resents that he must continually clarify which arena he plays in. Not only does he have no regard for how anyone classifies him, but he disagrees philosophically with the idea of separate 'arenas' in the first place. He makes this point most succinctly at the post-rally press conference:

REPORTER: You spoke at the rally about the idea of comedians and pundits having boundaries that are established by... whomever. Do you really believe, on your end, that you have boundaries as a comedian, or as a performer, or as a fake pundit or real pundit that you have to set for yourself about the places you're not going to go.

STEWART: No. The boundaries that we set for ourselves are based on our own sense of human decency, not based on some preordained category of people who are allowed to speak seriously... people who must only speak in jokes or only speak in rhyme. Our shows are just a reflection of our points of view. I'm not exactly sure why there are lanes. ("National Press Club") v. Does the rally promote 'sanity'? /Is the rally cynical? / Does the rally promote disengagement?

Talking with NPR's Gross in October, Stewart clarified the intended tone of the rally as "not meant to ridicule activism or the Tea Party movement or religious people - it's meant as, again, a great construct to express kind of the dynamic that we like to express on the show" ("Fresh Air"). As is true on his show, Stewart recognizes that criticism could be 120 associated with cynicism, but thinks the result winds up being a much more positive one.

"You want to add something to the world that is clarifying and not obscuring," he told New

York Magazine in September (Smith 2010). In regards to the inflated rhetoric he so often criticizes:

[IJt's very easy to dehumanize, and I will say in this room: [...] Beck and Palin are easier punching bags, and we can think of it as, 'oh my God, I'm so scared if they take over.' And you know what? Well be fine. You know, we had a civil war. Just - we're not that fragile, and I think we always have to remember that people can be opponents, but not enemies. ("Fresh Air")

For Stewart, satire is a means through which he and his audience can navigate through the rhetorical muck and find some clarity and hope, and while it is at times presented in the form of ridicule or even disbelief and anger, this doesn't necessarily overshadow the positive result. In speaking with Maddow, Stewart defended his choice to not enter the 'field' of the mainstream media or politics by defending the craft of political satire:

That rally - I could have gotten on the field. And people got mad that I didn't. But that was the point. That rally was to deflate a bubble and to do what I think satire does best, which is articulate an intangible feeling that people are having, bring it into focus, say 'you're not alone.' It's a real feeling, it's maybe even a positive feeling, a hopeful feeling, in a weird way it's idealistic, but it's impotent. The next thing I could do is step on to the field and go 'so now here's what we're going to do people. Jones, you go over there. Brooklin, you grab the canteens.' But I don't. That's my failing. And my indulgence. But it's done because /feel like I am where I belong, and I feel like I serve the best purpose in my life or whatever it is... that I can. But I don't take any satisfaction in that. And I don't take any satisfaction in just being a critic. Roger Ebert doesn't make movies. So to say 'Roger, you're in the game...' - no he's not. He's not making movies. He's sitting in a seat going 'this movie sucks.' That's me. And by the way - very proud to do it. There is no honour in what I do, but I do it as honourably as I can. [emphasis added] ("The Rachel Maddow Show") 121

Stewart's comments here echo a point made in the previous chapter regarding the tenets of satirical theory. He alludes here to judgment, which builds or defends a community of morally compatible viewers who come together to release their aggression through collective laughter. By highlighting satire's ability to articulate intangible feelings, communicate to an audience that they are not alone, and transform an attack into a hopeful or idealistic reaction, The Daily Show host justifies his passion for satirical work. To call him a mere critic undermines the potential consequence of his critique, which is to inspire social change or action on behalf of others. "I know the difference between real social change and what we do," Stewart clarifies. "You know what we are? Soil enrichers. Maybe we can add a little fertilizer to the soil so that real people can come along and grow things"

(Smith 2010). In the Maddow interview, he expands on this idea of satire being ultimately impotent without others out there creating the real change:

You think about the greatest [satirical] work [...] - Chaplin's film 'The Dictator' was just an unbelievable work of satire... ultimately it did very little to stop Hitler. I think that when people think there's a misperception that we don't recognize our own limitations, and our own lack of responsibility and our own self-indulgence. I think we kind of do. ("The Rachel Maddow Show")

For this reason he is self-deprecating and hesitant about his pride as a political comedian, but refuses to admit that he isn't contributing something worthwhile to the society at large. It follows logically that if the goal of satire is to use negativity to bring about positive change, then engagement would be classified as one of those forms of positive change. Reading into Stewart's comments regarding the form of his critique, 122 though, it appears that outcomes such as engagement or political action come as an indirect rather than direct result of satire. Satire can clarify a problem or issue and create a reaction, but it leaves it to the audience to decide what to do about it. This point was made clear in a humourous exchange at the post-rally press conference between Stewart, Colbert, and a reporter:

REPORTER: What advice do you have for citizens who want to get engaged and change their government in a sane way?

STEWART: I think they should definitely get engaged and change... their government... in... a... [trails off, repeating the question]

COLBERT: Absolutely!

STEWART: I think that sounds fine. That sounds like a smart thing to do.

REPORTER: How?

STEWART: How would you do that?

REPORTER: Shouting at a rally is obviously not the best way to do that.

COLBERT: How about just talking? You don't have to shout. I heard you. ("National Press Club")

When Stewart was asked later in the same press conference if he would encourage his audience to vote in the upcoming election, he stated simply: "I think people should do what moves them" ("National Press Club"). Clearly, neither comic has any intention of being roped into making a proclamation about voting, joining a political party, boycotting cable news, or any number of suggestions that could be made as a result of the remarks made by Stewart at the rally. Instead, they dodge the questions, affirming that getting engaged sounds like a great idea, but not dictating what form of engagement that should be. 123

In his discussion with Maddow, The Daily Show host clarified that he could no longer be a satirist if he were to use the rally stage as a platform to encourage any specific directives:

I think the point of the rally was: this is as far as I can go. This is the ultimate expression. So in some ways it's a bitter-sweet moment, because you stand there - boy, believe me, Lonesome Rhodes is on one shoulder, and he's going 'tell them to follow you. Tell them what to do.' [...] The ultimate feeling for me of satire is it helps deflate something that you might think is toxic, but it doesn't help build anything. ('The Rachel Maddow Show")

E. ANALYSIS: MEDIA COVERAGE i. Methods

There are nine news outlets included in this section of the study; three each from

American newspapers, network news sites, and online newsmagazines or aggregators. The relevant dates included for analysis are September 16th through 19th - the day of the rally's announcement and the three days following - as well as October 24th through November

1st, which includes the week leading up to the event, the day of the rally, and two days afterwards. In all, 138 pieces were analyzed and categorized.

The three newspapers covered are , The New York Times, and The Washington Post, which together are three of the top five most circulated newspapers in the United States for the period studied, with USA Today and The Los

Angeles Times being the two excluded. The rationale for selecting these papers is that their high circulation numbers gives them a more national impact, and it is more easily justifiable to make conclusions about the direction of media discourse based on papers that lead the field rather than follow. Additionally, of the top five, these three had the highest 124 likelihood of covering the rally, being that one is based out of Washington and two are from , where Stewart and Colbert's shows are taped.

The three network news outlets chosen are ABC News, NBC News, and CBS

News, which are three of the big four networks in the United States, with the other being

Fox. While it may have been ideal to have included a right-leaning perspective from Fox, the conservative network has no independent news website apart from its cable news network; Fox News. Being that around-the-clock cable news networks are the primary target of Stewart's program, they are excluded from this study, which aims to gauge the media reaction aside from those who may be more likely to be defensive or biased against

Stewart.

The two online news magazines included in this study are Politico and The Daily

Beast, with The Huffington Post included as a hybrid of a news magazine and news aggregator. While these are by no means the only political sites that boast a dedicated following - Slate or Salon are two other popular examples that could have been selected - these three offer a range of editorial perspective. Both news magazines typically lean conservative and are well regarded for their consistently high quality pieces, while The

Huffington Post is decidedly liberal, though its inclusion of a wide array of opinions as an aggregator gives it a breadth that few others in the market can match. They should provide an adequate sample of the online response towards the rally.

The articles were compiled from each source's web archives in December of 2010, by narrowing a search to include only the relevant dates with the following keywords: 'Jon

Stewart'; 'Stephen Colbert'; 'The Daily Show'; 'The Colbert Report'; 'March to Keep Fear 125

Alive'; and 'Rally to Restore Sanity.' A full list of the 138 articles is included in this thesis as Appendix B. Each piece uncovered was read and categorized according to a number of criteria. First, the pieces were divided into four periods - announcement, pre-rally, rally day, and post-rally. Second, the pieces were divided into their five different formats: articles, opinion pieces/editorials, blogs, discussions, and videos. Third, each piece was then catagorized by editorial perspective - positive, negative or neutral in regards to its view of Stewart, Colbert, satire, or the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.' If the piece included both positive and negative views, it was labelled as neutral. It should be noted here that 'article' denotes a traditional news piece, written dispassionately from an objective standpoint and covering a specific news event. As such, these are all identified as written from a neutral perspective. A discussion, on the other hand, was either a back-and- forth between two journalists, or a question-and-answer between readers and an expert.

Fourth and finally, the adjective or descriptive word used to describe Stewart or Colbert in the piece were noted, be it comedian, satirist, host, pundit, or politician. A full breakdown of these categories is provided in this thesis as Appendix C.

After the pieces were broken down in accordance with these categories, they were re-read and identified by their central topic for articles and videos - the rally announcement, the NPR controversy, or the Obama interview, for example - and by their central argument for blogs, editorials, and discussions. Each was also broken down in regards to how they responded to the eight questions used in the previous two sections, in an attempt to reveal any overarching themes in the news coverage. 126

As outlined in the first chapter, CDA allows for a flexible method of data collection in order for the information to be reviewed, re-categorized, and even dismissed given its relevance and contribution to the study. The rationale for this exhaustive categorization was a genuine attempt to determine if any trends or themes revealed themselves through the results that would be useful in drawing conclusions about how the rally was received by these media outlets. The data that wound up relevant and those dismissed are discussed in the following subsection. ii. Findings

After reviewing the collected data following the study, it was clear that very little journalistic consensus emerged regarding what the rally would be before it occurred, and just as little on what the rally was once it happened. Indeed, preconceived notions about

Stewart and Colbert, their programs, the value of satire, and the intent of the rally were prominent in editorial and blog positions before, during, and after the event regardless of what went on in Washington. This had an effect on the usefulness of the eight questions addressed in the previous two sections, as they failed to reveal any trends on behalf of the coverage as a whole. No single organization went from thinking Stewart was a comedian before the rally to concluding that he was a pundit or politician afterwards, nor did the nine outlets as a collective agree on any one question before or after the event. Instead, the coverage was a collection of individual and unrelated opinions that didn't quite compile to tell a larger story about the event. 127

Just about the only thing that was nearly unanimous was the designation of Stewart and Colbert as 'comedians,' or at the very least, 'hosts' of their respective programs when it came to the adjectives used to identify them in news stories. A third, equally popular decision was to leave out the adjectives altogether, simply writing about 'Jon Stewart' or

'Stephen Colbert' on the assumption that readers would be aware of the personalities already. Only a handful of pieces strayed from these descriptive designations, and those that did used a different designation either cheekily or labelled Stewart as a holder of a hybrid role, such as 'comedian/pundit.' The collection of overwhelmingly similar adjectives regarding the two hosts speaks volumes as to the value of existing labels on journalistic choices rather than to a substantive change of role on behalf of the comics. For instance, even if the piece argued that the comics were crossing into the political sphere,

Stewart and Colbert appear to be designated as 'comedians' for the sake of clarity, since presumably, most readers currently identify them as 'comedians.' To label them as otherwise may be confusing to a reader - a conceptual oversight in the design of the experiment. As such, little insight can be gleaned from the collection of that data.

The most useful breakdown of the material is in the four discemable themes that ran through the majority of the pieces, which are entirely contradictory when taken together.

They are as follows: the rally restores sanity (and was what it promised to be); the rally is insane (and, defensively, its criticisms of the media were misguided); the rally is too political (and Stewart is changing his role); and the rally is not political enough (because it fails to fit the narrow bias of the author). Each theme was readily identifiable across different pieces both before and after the rally, showing that many of these preconceived 128 journalistic notions failed to change despite what Stewart and Colbert presented on October

30th. Again, for posterity, an exemplary list of pieces that fit under each of these categories is included in this thesis as Appendix D.

F. THE CENTRAL QUESTIONS: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS

/. Does the willingness to engage in the mainstream threaten Stewart and Colbert's ability to hold brokers of power to account?

While it may appear that the inclusion of media reaction regarding the rally has yielded little in the way of conclusive results, it may indeed be the case that a lack of findings is itself a finding. Journalists attending the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' pinpointed a dozen individual elements about the event and its atmosphere to draw conclusions regarding Stewart's shifting role, which misses the point. As was highlighted in The Daily Show host's interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, the difference between a comedian/pundit and a pundit/comedian is not only the venue used to communicate a critique, but also the self-declared legitimacy of that perspective, be it explicitly stated or insinuated through a title or occupation. As an example, Glenn Beck can change his venue from radio show to the National Mall to a shopping mall, but as long as he does so while employed at Fox News, Stewart argues that he maintains his legitimacy as a result of that title and organization and remains first-and-foremost a pundit.

Despite Stewart's insistence that his legitimacy and perspective were not changing, the media coverage drew as much insight as possible from the venue of his critique.

Interestingly, though, many of the same points raised regarding what was different about 129 the rally can be and are often made about his program on Comedy Central. To some, the attendance at the rally by opportunist, sign-carrying liberal groups was evidence that the event was partisan and that Stewart was political; but does the comic ever have control over who walks into his studio nightly and sits in the audience? To others, holding a rally makes

Stewart look like Beck, just as interviewing Obama makes him look like Barbara Walters, and thus, he is a media personality; but wouldn't this same line of reasoning state that because The Daily Show looks like news, it is indistinguishable from news? All fair questions. Perhaps fittingly, the only conclusion that can be discerned from the collective media coverage of Stewart is that the mass amount of conflicting, idle speculation clarifies very little, simply adding more voices to the pile. To steal a phrase, "if we amplify everything, we hear nothing" (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally").

When Stewart was asked at the post-rally press conference about how he predicted he would be treated by the media going forward, he responded: "I couldn't care... don't care, just don't care. We're proud of ourselves, we're proud of the show we did, and for us, the success of it was the execution of the idea and the intention" ("National Press Club").

Throughout the announcement, his episodes, the interviews and the rally itself, Stewart remained steadfastly consistent with his intention to keep the rally distant from suggestions that he was getting out the youth or leftist vote, claiming territory once stood on by political or media personalities, and most importantly, that he would be anything but funny. In short, nothing about the content of his comedy would change, nor would his own view of himself as a satirist. 130

That doesn't mean that he can't mix real messages into his humour, because in fact, that is what he does on his program nightly, be it directly or through the frame of satire. His

'sincere' closing remarks at the rally, for instance, are not without precedent. There are numerous examples from The Daily Show of Stewart speaking seriously to his audience when he feels an issue is too important to ignore but is perhaps not suited for humourous coverage, as was the case on his first episode back after the attacks on the World Trade

Centre in 2001, his furious interview with Mad Money host Jim Cramer after the financial collapse in 2009, or more recently, in January of 2011, after a Congress woman and many innocent Americans were gunned down in (Stewart "January 20,2011").

Returning to the core question at hand, it would be invalid to conclude that Stewart or Colbert's continued insistence of their own role as satirists would alone guarantee their ability to hold brokers of power to account. Similarly, to give too much credence to the opining of journalists, politicians, or even academics regarding the proper confines and limits of a satirist's space in American discourse - on television in New York, but never on a stage in Washington - ignores the content of the critique, and thus, misses the point entirely. It is the ability for Stewart and Colbert to preserve the efficacy of their satire while venturing outside their traditional arenas that truly quantifies risk, and only one group can weigh definitively on that matter - their audience.

There is an important distinction that must be made between the perception that someone is changing their role, and the legitimate act of that person changing. Regarding the media reaction to the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear', these two are indistinguishable, or at the very least, the optics related to being a satirist is all-important. 131

While Stewart made it quite clear that he is not loyal to any political party or the cause of a specific ideology, and that he doesn't have any regard for how the media perceives his program, he must still remain loyal to his fan-base. The true judge of whether or not

Stewart or Colbert threatened their role is the two-million or so Americans who choose whether or not to tune in nightly to the programs. If they are to betray the expectations the audience has for them - that they will spend four nights a week to help the country navigate through the messy political world by releasing frustrations through collective laughter - then they risk their satire becoming all the more impotent than Stewart already claims it to be. With a loyal following and adherence to the principles of satire, Stewart and Colbert can remain important critics of political discourse in America. Without both, they are just comedians with television shows.

The satirist's job is to speak truth to power, so whether that is done on a stage in

Washington in the form of a rally, on an iPod in the form of an , or in Iraq in front of the troops, we have to take Stewart and Colbert at their word that they remain aware of their limitations as satirists and are making intelligent choices regarding their increasingly diverse platforms. When speaking with Rachel Maddow, Stewart invoked his predecessors when discussing the rally, mentioning that he didn't exist without the

Smothers Brothers and Bill Maher before him ("The Rachel Maddow Show"). Thanks, in part, to Saturday Night Live embracing President Gerald Ford as they lampooned him and his administration, Stewart can confidently debate President Obama on a comedy program and Colbert can ridicule President Bush at the Correspondent's Dinner without fear of reprisal on the grounds of crossing a line. Just as the Smothers Brothers ran a candidate for 132 office and garnered national media attention doing so, Colbert can form a political action committee and receive donations for his own Presidential run and still be maintaining a long-held satirical tradition. As mentioned in the first chapter, Will Rogers even had a close friendship with President Roosevelt and spoke at the Democratic Convention, and rather than be criticized for being partisan or political, he is still regarded as perhaps America's greatest political comic. Satire is an impressively flexible critical form, and its range should not be so easily underestimated. As was made clear in their remarks following the rally,

Stewart and Colbert need only to look to those who came before them to find comfort when viewing their roles as satirists with a broad scope.

II. For the purposes of discussion, does satirizing politics necessarily inspire cynicism and provide a disincentive for political engagement?

Intention and reception are not always synonymous. While this was certainly the case when Stewart's justification for the rally was contrasted with its media coverage, the same fact informs the discussion surrounding satire's effect on viewership. The literature review presents two opposing views amongst academics regarding what effect political satire has on viewers - in theory, the necessary characteristics of satire appear to make it well positioned to serve a democracy. As a text, satire questions the legitimacy of societal truths and uncovers reality by challenging the powerful and promoting defamiliarization. In the process, it builds a community by appealing to common values and empowering this viewership with a disposition to act, or otherwise engage politically. The form uses negativity as a means to a positive end, optimistically looking to inspire change by being provocative rather than dismissive. It takes a moderate position and facilitates critical 133 thinking by questioning norms, unsettling convictions, raising doubts, but rarely providing answers. Instead, satire demands that an informed audience 'work' through self-learned lessons, granting the viewer a greater 'ownership' over politics which promotes further learning and engagement. It is moralistic, situated in a shared ethical code that seeks objective truth and aims to uncover those who wield influence and yet do not adhere to the standard set by the satirist and their audience. Satire is, perhaps most importantly from a democratic standpoint, "artful political critique;" "a valuable means for citizens to analyze and interrogate power and the realm of politics rather than simply remain subjects of it"

(Caufield 2009: 4; Gray et al 2009: 4).

Given this, the academic and journalistic perspective persists that satire can inspire cynicism and promote disengagement amongst audiences, and perhaps for good reason. It is very conceivable that despite the intent for positive outcomes, the use of a negative form

- judging, attacking, and to some laughing at a target - can yield unintended and possibly detrimental consequences for the audience. Young, Morris and Baumgartner have previously argued that otherwise uninformed citizens who are repeatedly exposed to the mockery of politicians and the media demonstrate lower levels of approval of both institutions when surveyed, though no study has been adequately designed to put forth a conclusive case that disengagement necessarily follows (Baumgartner and Morris 2006:

361). Without further insight into the effects of these programs, it would be premature to hail The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as standard bearers for the health of American democracy. Still, the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' can be instructive about how

Stewart and Colbert address these competing accounts of satire's effect on their audience. One conclusion that can be drawn from reviewing the interviews is that Stewart appears to be willing to admit that no certainty exists as to how his material is received by his audience. When speaking with Bill O'Reilly on The Daily Show, he is accused by the

Fox News host of being a contributor to mass disengagement by citizens, who would I otherwise enter politics if not for the risk of being slandered daily by critics like Stewart and other mainstream pundits ("September 27, 2010"). Instead of defending his program as one that inspires a disposition to act on political convictions as theory would suggest,

Stewart recommends that these hesitant individuals O'Reilly speaks of attend his rally, making a direct appeal for their engagement. While Stewart cannot control how his i audience interprets his satire when watching The Daily Show, the rally serves as a fresh chance to reset that relationship.

While the event included its fair share of media and political criticism regarding what passes for discourse in America, the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,' was also a positive and optimistic rallying cry for everyday Americans to recast what it means to be engaged. From the very announcement of the event, Stewart contrasted his ideal attendees - who are, presumably, also fans of his and Colbert's programs by nature of them seeing the announcement itself - with the types of people that are most typically associated with

'engagement' in the current political climate. By showing that you can rally in Washington without bringing a weapon, associating a candidate with Hitler, or even being angry, he is I saying that his fans needn't confuse political participation with extreme partisanship or ideology. Sanity and engagement can and should be compatible, and Stewart aims to alter the tone of discourse so that everyday Americans engaging in politics becomes the norm 135 that is portrayed in media. In this sense, he not only encourages engagement by asking his fans to attend his event, but in a broader way he intends to portray engagement itself in a more positive light.

"This is not a fragile country," Stewart argued during his interview with New York

Magazine: "I'm not suggesting we couldn't find ourselves in deep conflict. But we had slaves, and we fought a civil war; now we're down to Glenn Beck being hyperbolic with his audience about nostalgia. This too shall pass" (Smith 2010). From the announcement to the event itself, Stewart maintained this tone of optimism regarding the fate of the country, contrasting that with the negativity he feels is the currency of mainstream news. "We live in hard times, not end times" was his appeal to the crowd during his closing remarks at the rally, and by triumphing behind this theme he was pointing the finger towards those he criticizes for creating cynicism (Stewart and Colbert "The Rally"). This isn't to say, though, that he exonerated himself. By including himself in his announcement montage of the extreme voices who contribute to negative discourse, he takes partial ownership over a problem that he hopes to help solve with his rally.

Stewart appears to be a satirist who is aware of the benefits and potential failings of his role in American political culture, and while he doesn't intend to change that role, he wants to help along his audience towards the intended result. While the scope of this thesis does not allow us to make any definitive conclusions regarding this issue, we can be sure that at the very least the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' gives Stewart and Colbert the ability to defend themselves against charges of promoting cynicism and disengagement.

Whether or not we can determine the absolute effects that their programs have on their 136 audiences, their proverbial "doctoral thesis" was shaped to encourage fans to be hopeful about the country's future and the political process, and to encourage them to think of standing up for what you believe in as a 'sane' act, rather than one reserved for the fringe elements of society. 137

(4) DISCUSSION

A. STEWART AND THE RALLY: A YEAR LATER

Eleven months after the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' took place in

Washington, magazine featured Jon Stewart - "America's leading satirist" - on the cover of their television issue, which included a lengthy interview with the Daily

Show host (Bates 2011: 44). In the piece, Stewart fielded familiar questions regarding the fine line he straddles between critic and that which he criticizes, the similarities between his program and Fox News, the difficulties of being funny without getting preachy, his dissatisfaction with the rhetoric that passes as political discourse, and the impotence of satire (Bates 2011: 46-50). Despite him dubbing the event as his "ultimate expression" and his satirical "doctoral thesis" back in October 2010, the preamble of Stewart's interview a year later considers the rally to be merely another one of "those rare occasions when his passion is on full display, unleavened by comedy" (Bates 2011: 46).

For a project of this nature, hindsight is a gift. When the rally concluded and the media blitz finally subsided, Stewart and Colbert went back to satirizing America's political landscape four nights a week on Comedy Central, and discussion surrounding their threatened outsider roles or newfound insider responsibilities disappeared from the news as the midterm elections took over the national conversation. With each passing month, the continued delivery of quality social commentary to a dedicated audience from the desks of

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report appears to confirm the previous chapter's findings, 138 which argued that the role both comedians hold in relation to the mainstream media and political class remains unchanged as a result of the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.'

What, then, did the rally accomplish? When viewed in its totality from announcement to reaction, the event that Stewart calls his "ten minutes of rank sincerity" was perhaps his very long overdue catharsis: an opportunity for him to step into the media spotlight for a sufficiently controversial reason and lengthy enough period so as to respond to his critics conclusively on all matters surrounding political satire's influence on politics and his role in relation to mainstream discourse (Bates 2011: 46). Not only did his optimistic plea for sanity on-stage give him a chance to counter the charges of promoting cynicism and disengagement, but his interviews and appearances over six weeks were an opportunity to receive and respond on record to every last question the media had regarding his critical perspective. Stewart gave the nation a lengthy peek into his consciousness and expressed his intentions regarding how his comedy is delivered and how he hopes it is received, stating plainly and definitively that he has no plan to change his approach.

When reading the most recent Rolling Stone piece, it is striking just how exhaustive the interviews with Stewart were in the period surrounding the rally. Save those that address current events, each question posed to the comedian in September 2011 is a paraphrase or rewording of one that was previously asked and answered in his discussions with Rachel Maddow, Larry King, Terry Gross, or the roomful of journalists in the post- rally press conference. Unsurprisingly, his answers remain nearly identical to those he gave a year earlier. Notably, though, are the questions that are now absent: any and all suggestion or encouragement to run for office, lead a political movement, or embrace an 139 influence akin to a media pundit. This, perhaps, is the rally's lasting legacy. Beyond

'restoring sanity,' it provided journalists and Stewart's fans alike with an opportunity to conclusively hash out long-standing debates about The Daily Show, and after years of speculation, it was a chance for Stewart to put all rumours surrounding his aspirations beyond political satire to rest. As an outsider - the kid shouting disruptive comments from the back of the classroom - Stewart claims to be serving his optimal purpose for America, and by re-affirming his comfort with that role and its distance from positions of power, his audience and critics can refocus their energy on the content of his critique rather than its source.

B. ENGAGEMENT AND COLBERT'S NATION: FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS

The questions surrounding political satire's relationship with cynicism and engagement have been and will continue to be central to academic discussion regarding

Stewart and Colbert. While this thesis has provided coverage of this debate in both theory and practice, and speculated on the manner by which the two hosts attempted to counteract these potential outcomes with their rally, we find ourselves no closer to definitive answers that could resolve the matter. Instead, there are still more questions. Given that satire is a negative form intended to bring about a positive result, to what extent can we quantify its reception to determine its effect on viewers? Does satire bring about a different reaction amongst viewers with high levels of political knowledge than amongst those who demonstrate lower levels of political knowledge? Does cynicism necessarily lead to disengagement, as many assume? The academic community would benefit from the 140 funding of future surveys and studies that more accurately gauge the effect these satire programs have on their young viewers, and ideally, research that measures how satire viewers compare to the audiences of mainstream news sources.

These proposed studies would contribute far more to the understanding of media and politics than simply offering conclusions about two comedians on Comedy Central, as they hold the potential to challenge the deep-seeded convictions of those who continue to divide the world into rational and affective spheres. To witness a sitting President reaching out to voters in the days preceding an election by shunning traditional media in favour of a comedy program is to admit that the realms of politics and entertainment are increasingly indistinguishable. These mutually dependent spheres continue to evolve in the United

States and around the globe, and so too should the assumptions made by experts regarding the political implications of engaging citizens in novel, compelling, and at times controversial ways.

While this thesis focused primarily on Stewart and his approach to political critique, future academic consideration should be given to studying the effects of Colbert's use of his loyal following to satirize democracy. As was discussed in the second chapter, the

Colbert Nation has demonstrated itself to be a community of highly capable, likeminded individuals who strive for creative attention and real-world influence, and the Report has earned this unique audience by offering an outlet for those desires. Whether it is seeing their video creation on Colbert's program, assaulting an online vote to name a Hungarian bridge, or raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity to promote their own grassroots cause, these viewers have expanded the reach of political satire in unprecedented 141 ways. While admittedly humourous, these campaigns also raise a legitimate debate about the effects of satirizing democracy through mock participation: does it inform viewers about the benefits of political action, or does it encourage disengagement; does it increase internal political efficacy, or does it promote cynicism about politics; and more rhetorically, is building a meta-democracy around Colbert's Nation helping or hurting America?

Thus far, few academic studies of The Colbert Report exist. Despite this, we can still speculate about two hypothetical effects that result from Colbert coveting an active fan following. If viewed positively, then Colbert uses his cult of personality to both manipulate and criticize the democratization of society by encouraging his followers to mass participate towards blatantly self-serving goals. In this respect, Colbert satirizes the libertarian and populist right by demonstrating an extreme version of misused democracy, and exposes the inherent flaw in believing that the will of the majority is inherently good.

His own versions of direct democracy suffer from an irrational mob mentality, and as was true with both the Hungarian bridge - which wound up with a different name - and the

NASA space node mentioned earlier, he often forces the hand of authority to refuse the will of his legion of fans. He then bemoans this elite interference, but in doing so, is playing his typical ignorant role. Viewers are not supposed to believe that the public would be better served if government agencies allowed a single influential person to hijack a public vote, even if Colbert argues the contrary. This is a plea for Americans to recognize the inherent stupidity of blindly following any single opinion, regardless of the source. Just as Colbert is prone to demonstrating ignorance and a lack of rational thought, he shows that it is quite possible that the network pundits he parodies lack the same capacity for reason. When 142 viewed in this context, the exercise is meant to cause viewers to think critically about what it means to engage in the public sphere, and emphasizes the importance of using one's own intelligence to guide their decision making.

On the other hand, there is an equally legitimate case to be made against these mock campaigns from the perspective of serving a healthy democracy. Colbert takes his criticism further than simply satirizing political pundits by engaging the system directly, encouraging his viewers to participate in the political process not on their own terms but through the filter of his own parody. Viewers are not just exposed to the satire but become the satire, and in crossing this line the program may be instructive about political action within the frame of a mock reality. By mobilizing behind Colbert's fictional character online, the

Colbert Nation is not necessarily seeking alternative news sources to better engage in the political process, but could be substituting legitimate political engagement with their commitment to Colbert and his causes. If this is the case, then Colbert is unintentionally satirizing participation itself, and in doing so, is not just revealing truths about the news media but demonstrating the futility of political action. There is an irony to Colbert's farcical use of democracy. Despite the ridiculous grounds by which he encourages the

Colbert Nation to act, the movement is typically disruptive and garners substantial media attention as a result of these manufactured controversies. The primary beneficiary of this relationship between Colbert and his fans is Colbert himself, as publicity drives ratings up and increases his personal fame. If viewers perceive their support in this way, then political participation seems to be a vehicle to continually increase the power and status of elites in society. By choosing to get behind Colbert instead of the Democrats or Republicans, they 143 are protesting the system and choosing the Colbert Nation as a means to disengage. In this case, the program does not train more critical citizens but provides an avenue for apathy, which would support the claim that the Colbert Nation is bad for democracy.

While taking a side on this debate is outside the scope of this thesis, it can be said with certainty that these fans are becoming progressively more ambitious and aggressive in their efforts to influence the American political landscape. What began as a forum for fan- generated content and humourous assaults on web voting has evolved into a movement powerful enough to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the National Mall in

Washington, raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in just days without Colbert's urging, and more recently, to launch a Federal Election Committee-approved political action committee to raise funds and air legitimate advertisements advocating for specific initiatives and candidates for the 2012 federal election (Rafferty 2011). Whether we interpret these campaigns as a mockery of the power of the collective, an impressive demonstration of it, or both; this compelling shift towards taking on the system directly as a means of critique could perhaps be termed 'Satire 2.0,' and its implications could very well define how young people engage with politics in the twenty-first century.

Some insight into the matter is offered by Kristen Boesel, a communication Masters student at the London School of Economics who studied The Colbert Report extensively for her dissertation. She mined the program archives and speculates on the true intentions of Colbert and his writing staff when defining the Colbert Nation on-screen and online, putting the acts of mass populism outside the context of the program's satirical nature. In her view, the Colbert Nation is "a metaphor for the United States itself, divided on political 144 lines but united by a feeling of frustration about dominant powers" (Boesl 2007: 35).

Within this imaginary society Colbert acts as "Commander in Chief in his nation of heroes," and by elevating his supporters to this status he "suggests that the Colbert Nation, in which citizens actively participate by voting and voicing their opinions, can represent

America itself' (Boesl 2007: 35). The ideal citizen of Colbert Nation, thus, is "well educated about the American political process, media literate enough to recognize biased or unsubstantial news content, and an active participant in the democratic process" (Boesl

2007:40).

This explanation strips away the complexities of the prior debate, but makes a valid point in doing so. Colbert Nation could simply represent a healthy meta-democracy. In the absence of true decision making capacity, Colbert creates democratic opportunities to encourage his viewers to follow in the ideal image he sees for his country, where critical and engaged Americans can exert significant political influence over matters concerning the nation. The result is inevitably humourous, but perhaps Colbert is communicating to his supporters that analogous victories could be fought in the true political sphere, and critical citizens could transfer these lessons from The Colbert Report to discern between truth and lies to make collectively better decisions for America.

If viewed within this context, then the 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' served as an opportunity for the Nation to assemble in numbers in Washington to show support for the type of democracy that they promote through their online campaigns - a more hopeful, less partisan and extreme, and more participatory American political culture that features strong leadership with a capacity for grassroots involvement. While satirists are limited by 145 their need to keep distance from the mechanisms of power, their audience doesn't share these restrictions. Perhaps the dispatch of the Colbert Nation - and by extension, the purpose of 'Satire 2.0' - signifies a transformation of the genre into a less impotent state, whereby social critique can be more directly converted into legitimate political action by establishing a space and identity for the community that is formed through satire. If this is the case, then rallying in Washington may have been just as much about revealing the size and strength of that community to itself as it was a chance for two comedians to entertain a crowd.

Reflecting back to Stewart's Crossfire appearance and Colbert's performance at the

White House Correspondent's Dinner, Jeffrey Jones argues that the instances in which satirists leave the safety of their studios and confront their targets directly represents a

"maturation of the genre" (2010: xi). If this is the case, then a rally in Washington is merely the beginning. When comparing himself and Colbert to mainstream journalists, Stewart has argued that "we're serious people doing an unserious thing, and they're unserious people doing a serious thing" (Smith 2010). As Colbert continues to raise the stakes of his participatory satire, all eyes are on him and his supporters. With the Colbert Nation leading the charge rather than in tow, we may now be seeing satire get serious. 146

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APPENDIX A:

STEWART'S CLOSING REMARKS AT THE RALLY (OCTOBER 30,2010)

And now I thought we might have a moment, however brief, for some sincerity. If that's okay - I know that there are boundaries for a comedian / pundit / talker guy, and I'm sure that I'll find out tomorrow how I have violated them. I'm really happy you guys are here, even if none of us are really quite sure why we are here. Some of you may have seen today as a clarion call for action, or for some of the more hip or ironic cats, as a "clarion call" for "action". Clearly some of you just wanted to see the Air and Space Museum and got royally screwed. And I'm sure a lot of you are just here to have a nice time, and I hope you did. I know that many of you made a great effort to be here today, and I want you to know that everyone involved with this project worked incredibly hard to make sure that we honoured the effort that you put in and gave you the best show that we could possibly do.

We know your time's valuable, and we didn't want to waste it. And we are all extremely honoured to have had a chance to perform for you on this beautiful space, on the Mall in

Washington, D.C.

So, uh, what exactly was this? I can't control what people think this was: I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear - they are, and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus, and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. 156

The country's 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous flaming ants epidemic.

If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

There are terrorists, and racists, and Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned! You must have the resume! Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Party-ers, or real bigots and or Rick Sanchez is an insult - not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more.

The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker - and, perhaps, eczema. And yet, with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly, good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us, through a funhouse mirror - and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist, and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead, and an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin, and one eyeball.

So why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle, to a pumpkin-assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable - why would you 157 work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution, or racists and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?

We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is we do! We work together to get things done every damned day!

The only place we don't is here [in Congress] or on cable TV! But Americans don't live here, or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done - not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.

Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do! But they do it.

Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.

[Stewart points to a video screen, showing a video of cars in heavy traffic merging into two lanes to enter a tunnel out of Manhattan.] Look on the screen. This is where we are, this is who we are. These cars. That's a schoolteacher who probably think his taxes are too high, he's going to work. There's another car, a woman with two small kids, can't really think about anything else right now. A lady's in the NRA, loves Oprah. There's another car, an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car's a Latino carpenter; another car, a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. 158

But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief, and principles they hold dear - often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers'. And yet, these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze, one by one, into a mile-long, 30-foot-wide tunnel, carved underneath a mighty river.

Carved by people, by the way, who probably had their differences.

And they do it, concession by concession: you go, then I'll go. You go, then I'll go.

You go, then I'll go. 'Oh my God - is that an NRA sticker on your car?' 'Is that an Obama sticker on your car?' It's okay - you go, then I go.

And sure, at some point, there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder, and cuts in at the last minute. But that individual is rare, and he is scorned, and not hired as an analyst!

Because we know, instinctively, as a people, that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. And the truth is there will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land.

Sometimes, it's just .

But we do it anyways, together. If you want to know why I'm here, and what I want from you, I can only assure you this. You have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted. Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today, and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you. 159

APPENDIX B:

FULL LIST OF MEDIA SOURCES USED IN THE STUDY

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ABC News. "Stewart v Colbert: The Threatdown." ABCNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

ABC News. "GOP Contenders Set To Duke It Out "ABCNews.com. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

ABC News. "Stewart: 'We Live In Hard Times, Not End Times.'" ABCNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Applebaum, Anne. "Jon Stewart's March is No Laughing Matter." The Washington Post. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Barr, Andy. ": Jon Stewart Jumped The Shark." Politico. 0111 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Baym, Geoffrey. "Jon Stewart / Stephen Colbert Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear." The Washington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Beinart, Peter. "How Jon Stewart Blew It." . 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Benjamin, Madea. "Dear Jon, Sane People Protest Crazy Wars." The Huffington Post. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Bergthold, Linda. "Fired Up For the Restore Sanity Rally in DC." The Huffington Post. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Bishop, Russell. "Can Comedians Really Lead Us To Sanity and Civility?" The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 160

Blue Virginia. "CBS' Estimate of 215,000 at Stewart/Colbert Rally is Wildly Low." The Washington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Brandzel, Ben. "Rally To Restore Satyagraha?" The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Brooks, David, and Gail Collins. "Humor to Restore Sanity." The New York Times. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Bunch, Will. "Sanity, Iraq, and Jon Stewart's 'View From Nowhere.'" The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Calbuzz. "Stewart's Apt Critique; Jerry, Meg Final Barnstorms." The Washington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Capehart, Jonathan. "Stewart, Colbert: Isn't there a Better Way to Restore Sanity?" The Washington Post. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Carr, David. "Blurring Satire and Politics." The New York Times. 19 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Carr, David. "Rally To Shift The Blame." The New York Times. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Carter, Bill. "Jon Stewart Plans To Rally Against Extremism." The New York Times. 16 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Carter, Bill. "Between Stewart and Colbert, Duelling Rallies." The New York Times. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Carter, Bill, and Brian Stelter. "Jon Stewart and his Rally May Shun Politics, but Attendees are Embracing It." The New York Times. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

CBS News. "Obama on 'Daily Show': 'Most Democrats Want to See More Progress.'" CBSNews.com. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

CBS News. "Stewart's 'Rally For Sanity' Highlights." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

CBS News. "Will 'Rally To Restore Sanity' Help Youth Vote." CBSNews.com. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 161

CBS News. "Feed: Thousands Rally For Sanity, Fear." CBSNews.com. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Chandler, Adam. "Whither Jon Stewart?" The Huffington Post. 0111 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Clothier, Peter. "The Rally." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Condon, Stephanie. "Jon Stewart Rally: Tentative Schedule Leaks." CBSNews.com. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Condon, Stephanie. "Jon Stewart Rally A Magnet for Activists." CBSNews.com. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Condon, Stephanie. "Jon Stewart Attracts Moderates Who Want To Be Heard." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Corsaro, Ryan. "Jon Stewart 'Sanity' Rally Prompts Cross-Country Journey." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Daily Beast. "7 Best Moments from the Rally." The Daily Beast. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Day, Amber. "Satirists Telling the Truth." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. de Moraes, Lisa. "How It Unfolded: 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear." The Washington Post. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Delargy, Christine. "Obama on the 'Daily Show:' What You Didn't See." CBSNews.com. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Delargy, Christine. "Jon Stewart's 'Rally To Restore Sanity:' A 'Non-Political 'Rally That is Actually Politically Charged." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Dropp, Kyle. "Stewart Trounces Colbert in Head-to-Head Match-Up." The Washington Post. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Elk, Mike. "Jon Stewart Rally Represents Elitism, Consumerism, and Disrespect for Movement. The Huffington Post. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Farhi, Paul. "Just Who Does Jon Stewart Think He Is?" The Washington Post. 25 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 162

Farley, Christopher John. "Jon Stewart Rally Attendance: Roots Drummer Gives His Take." The Wall Street Journal. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Foy, Joseph. "Channelling Voter Disaffection?" The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Frates, Chris. "Liberal Groups Tag Along With Jon Stewart Rally." Politico. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Gavin, Patrick. "Five Questions for Jon Stewart." Politico. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Green, Charles H. "Stewart's and Colbert's Joke Is On The Media." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Harshaw, Tobin. "Jon Stewart on the Hustings." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Hegedus, Mike. "Stewart/Colbert 'Love Train' Rally Like Tapioca Pudding; Something Missing." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Hill, Zac. "Comedy At The Center: Why Jon Stewart Is Actually For Real." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Hohmann, James, Marin Cogan, and Byron Tau. "Democrats Can't Ride Jon Stewart's Wave." Politico. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Hohmann, James, and Marin Cogan. "Jon Stewart Points Finger At Media." Politico. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Horowitz, Jason, Monica Hesse, and Dan Zak. "Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Host Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear." The Washington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Huffington, Arianna. "Takeaways from a Saturday Spent Riding To Washington With 10,000 Sane Americans." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Huffington Post Staff. "Stewart, Colbert: 'Rally To Restore Sanity' vs. 'March To Keep Fear Alive.'" The Huffington Post. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Huffington Post Staff. "Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart Show Up In NYT Crossword Puzzle." The Huffington Post. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 163

Huffington Post Staff. "Obama 'Daily Show' Interview Gets Huge Ratings." The Huffington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Huffington Post Staff. "Rally To Restore Sanity Attendance Estimated In Hundreds of Thousands." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Huffington Post Staff. "Keith Olbermann: Jon Stewart Jumped The Shark At Rally." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Itzkoff, Dave. "LiveBlog: At The Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear." The New York Times. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Jarvis, Jeff. 'To Rally, Perchance To Dream." The Huffington Post. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Khan, Huma. "Obama on "The Daily Show': 'Yes We Can... But It's Not Going to Happen Overnight." ABCNews.com. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Khan, Huma. "Stewart and Colbert Set To Hold Rally Tomorrow: Simply Comedy or Larger Political Statement?" ABCNews.com. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Khan, Huma, and Kevin Dolak. "Stewart and Colbert's DC Rally Staged For Comedy, Not Politics." ABCNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Khan, Huma, and Kevin Dolak. "Stewart and Colbert's DC Rally Draws 215K." ABCNews.com. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Khan, Huma, and Jennifer Schlesinger. "Stewart to Hold 'Rally To Restore Sanity' Oct. 30, Colbert Plans 'March to Keep Fear Alive." ABCNews.com. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Kurtz, Howard. "Obama's Last Laugh." The Daily Beast. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Kurtz, Howard. "The Day D.C. Went Sane." The Daily Beast. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Kurutz, Steven. "Should Jon Stewart Have Called the President 'Dude'?" The Wall Street Journal. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Linkins, Jason. "'Rally To Restore Sanity' Critics Unite To Offer America Pretentious Whining." The Huffington Post. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Linkins, Jason. "Politico Has Some Concerns About Rally To Restore Sanity For Some Reason." The Huffington Post. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 164

Linkins, Jason. "Rally To Restore Sanity: Jon Stewart Assesses the Risk." The Huffington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Linkins, Jason. "My Day At The Rally To Restore Sanity." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Lewis, Paul. "Will Audiences Get The Point?" The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Lozada, Carlos. "The Case Against Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity, by a "Daily Show' Fan." The Washington Post. 24 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Mann, Bill. "Laughing At Palin and her Wingnut Pals Getting Harder to do These Days." The Huffington Post. 19 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Marshall, John. "Sane-dinista!" The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Marr, Kendra, and Kiki Ryan. "'Daily Show' Gets Dose of Barack Obama." Politico. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

McCartney, Robert. "Stewart's Liberal Flock Errs If It Thinks Civil Discourse Alone Will Help it Win." The Washington Post. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

McGregor, Jena. "Bad Move for Obama to Go On Daily Show?" The Washington Post. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

McGregor, Jena. "How To Lead Like Jon Stewart (and why you'd want to)." The Washington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Montopoli, Brian. "Rally To Restore Sanity: Jon Stewart Goes Glenn Beck." CBSNews.com. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Montopoli, Brian. "Jon Stewart Rally Attracts Estimated 215,000." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Montopoli, Brian. "Jon Stewart Rallies for Sanity - And Against Cable News." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Murray, Alan, and Jerry Seib. "Campaign Journal: Is the Center Disappearing?" The Wall Street Journal. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 165

NBC Nightly News. "Stewart, Colbert Issue Comedic Call For Calm." NBC Nightly News. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Nishi, Dennis. "The Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear: Los Angeles Edition, Part II." The Wall Street Journal. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Parnes, Amie, and Natasha Lennard. "Will The Rally Be Funny?" Politico. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Patel, Raj. "Polite Laughter On The Mall." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Peterson, Russell L. "The Opposite of Cynicism." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Petri, Alexandra. "Why the Jon Stewart Rally is My Generation's Woodstock." The Washington Post. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Phillips, Michael M, and Radnofsky, Louise. "Thousands Drawn to Stewart-Colbert Rally." The Wall Street Journal. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Qureshi, Rizvi. "Against Jon Stewart: Restoring Sanity or Restoring Spectatorship?" The Huffington Post. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Radnofsky, Louise. "Comedy Central Plans Rally on National Mall." The Wall Street Journal. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Radnofsky, Louise. "Head Count: Stewart, Colbert Expect 150,000 for Rally." The Wall Street Journal. 25 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Radnofsky, Louise. "Colbert, Stewart Get Rally Permit." The Wall Street Journal. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Radnofsky, Louise. "Masters of the Ambivalent." The Wall Street Journal. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Radnofsky, Louise. "Counting the Crowd: Hard To Do For Jon Stewart's Rally." The Wall Street Journal. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Reardon, Kathleen. "Obama vs. Stewart: The Pace of Change." The Huffington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 166

Reich, Robert. "The Real Center of American Politics: A Reflection on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Riedel, David. "Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to Hold Rallies on Washington Mall Oct. 30." CBSNews.com. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Ruffini, Christina. "Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rallies: No Permit Issued Yet." CBSNews.com. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Samuels, Bob. "Why Jon Stewart is Bad For America (and Why You Will Dislike This Article)." The Huffington Post. 25 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Sarlin, Benjamin. "Jon Stewart's Demographic Surprise." The Daily Beast. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Schwartz, Sid. "Jon Stewart: We Need More than Amplification." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Simon, Roger. "Can Stewart and Colbert Save Us?" Politico. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Smith, Ben, and Byron Tau. "Jon Stewart Gets Serious." Politico. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Somashekhar, Sandhya. "For Liberal Groups, 'Daily Show' Rally on Mall, Not Just for Laughs." The Washington Post. 24 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Srikrishnan, Maya, and Schlesinger, Jennifer. "Thousands to Voice Frustrations at Stewart and Colbert Rallies." ABCNews.com. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Stan, Adele. "4 Reasons Why Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity Is Great For Progressives." The Huffington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Stanley, Alessandra. "Dude, Can I Have My Parody Back?" The New York Times. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. "In 'Daily Show' Visit, Obama Defends Record." The New York Times. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Stuever, Hank. "Obama is a Guest as Jon Stewart Brings his 'Daily Show' Gags to Town." The Washington Post. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 167

Taranto, James. "The Politics of Sanity." The Wall Street Journal. 25 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Taranto, James. "Opinion Journal: Obama Hearts Jon Stewart." The Wall Street Journal. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Taranto, James. "Vote for the Nut. It's Important." The Wall Street Journal. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Taranto, James. "Rally To Restore Authority." The Wall Street Journal. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Tavernise, Sabrina, and Brian Stelter. "At Rally, Thousands - Billions? - Respond." The New York Times. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

This Week with Christiane Amanpour. 'Transcript: John Brennan, Sens. Coryn and Menendez." ABCNews.com. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Thompson, Ethan. "Entertainment as Politics." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Thrush, Glenn. "Left 'Genetically Disappointed.'" Politico. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Today Show. "Stewart, Colbert To Bring Levity to D.C." The Today Show. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Varadarajan, Tunku. "Sanity is Overrated." The Daily Beast. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Wall Street Journal Staff. "Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert 'Rally To Restore Sanity' Papers Filed." The Wall Street Journal. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Wall Street Journal Staff. "'Rally To Restore Sanity': Jon Stewart on His March on Washington." The Wall Street Journal. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Wall Street Journal Staff. "'Rally To Restore Sanity': Famous Faces From The Event." The Wall Street Journal. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Wall Street Journal Staff. "' is Red, Jon Stewart is Blue' Study States Obvious: Comedy is Partisan." The Wall Street Journal. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Warner, Jamie. "Sincere and Ironic." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 168

Weigant, Chris. "Entertainment and Politics." The Huffington Post. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Wimsatt, Billy. "Vote Sanity." The Huffington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Wolf, Z Byron. "Obama Meets Jon Stewart's Enthusiasm Gap." ABCNews.com. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Zak, Dan. "Jon Stewart's 'Daily Show' Has Exploded Beyond its Humble Late-Night Comedy Roots." The Washington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Zoglin, Richard. "It Takes a Comedian." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 169

APPENDIX C:

MEDIA BREAKDOWN BY CATEGORY

WPo NYT WSJ NBC ABC CBS TDB PCo HPo Totals Type of Piece Article 4 5 1 0 6 12 1 8 5 42 Opinion/Editorial 8 10 3 0 0 0 5 2 4 32 Blog 4 4 11 0 2 0 0 0 25 46 Discussion 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 Video 0 0 3 2 6 5 0 0 0 16 Totals 17 19 18 2 15 17 6 10 34 138

Date of Piece Sept 15-19,2010 0 3 3 0 3 3 0 1 3 16 Oct 24-29, 2010 10 12 7 1 7 8 2 6 13 66 Oct 30, 2010 4 2 3 1 2 1 0 0 0 13 Oct31-Nov 1, 2010 3 2 5 0 3 5 4 3 18 43 Editorial Perspective Positive 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 19 Negative 4 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 8 17 Neutral 11 16 16 2 15 17 4 10 11 102 170

APPENDIX D:

BREAKDOWN OF PROMINENT THEMES IN RALLY'S MEDIA COVERAGE i. The rally restores sanity (and was what it promised to be)

Aaron, Craig. "Jon Stewart vs. the Perpetual Panic Conflictinator." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Baym, Geoffrey. "Jon Stewart / Stephen Colbert Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear." The Washington Post. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Bergthold, Linda. "Fired Up For the Restore Sanity Rally in DC." The Huffington Post. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Condon, Stephanie. "Jon Stewart Attracts Moderates Who Want To Be Heard." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Corsaro, Ryan. "Jon Stewart 'Sanity' Rally Prompts Cross-Country Journey." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Green, Charles H. "Stewart's and Colbert's Joke Is On The Media." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Hohmann, James, and Marin Cogan. "Jon Stewart Points Finger At Media." Politico. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Huffington, Arianna. "Takeaways from a Saturday Spent Riding To Washington With 10,000 Sane Americans." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Jarvis, Jeff. 'To Rally, Perchance To Dream." The Huffington Post. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Khan, Huma, and Kevin Dolak. "Stewart and Colbert's DC Rally Staged For Comedy, Not Politics." ABCNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Kurtz, Howard. "The Day D.C. Went Sane." The Daily Beast. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Linkins, Jason. "'Rally To Restore Sanity' Critics Unite To Offer America Pretentious Whining." The Huffington Post. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 171

McGregor, Jena. "How To Lead Like Jon Stewart (and why you'd want to)." The Washington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Phillips, Michael M, and Radnofsky, Louise. "Thousands Drawn to Stewart-Colbert Rally." The Wall Street Journal. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Srikrishnan, Maya, and Schlesinger, Jennifer. "Thousands to Voice Frustrations at Stewart and Colbert Rallies." ABCNews.com. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Tavernise, Sabrina, and Brian Stelter. "At Rally, Thousands - Billions? - Respond." The New York Times. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. ii. The rally is insane (and, defensively, its criticisms of the media were misguided)

Bunch, Will. "Sanity, Iraq, and Jon Stewart's 'View From Nowhere.'" The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Carr, David. "Rally To Shift The Blame." The New York Times. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Harshaw, Tobin. "Jon Stewart on the Hustings." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

McCartney, Robert. "Stewart's Liberal Flock Errs If It Thinks Civil Discourse Alone Will Help it Win." The Washington Post. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Samuels, Bob. "Why Jon Stewart is Bad For America (and Why You Will Dislike This Article)." The Huffington Post. 25 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Taranto, James. "Rally To Restore Authority." The Wall Street Journal. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Varadarajan, Tunku. "Sanity is Overrated." The Daily Beast. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. iii. The rally is too political (and Stewart is changing his role)

Applebaum, Anne. "Jon Stewart's March is No Laughing Matter." The Washington Post. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 172

Brandzel, Ben. "Rally To Restore Satyagraha?" The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Brooks, David, and Gail Collins. "Humor to Restore Sanity." The New York Times. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Carr, David. "Blurring Satire and Politics." The New York Times. 19 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Delargy, Christine. "Jon Stewart's 'Rally To Restore Sanity:' A 'Non-Political 'Rally That is Actually Politically Charged." CBSNews.com. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Hohmann, James, Marin Cogan, and Byron Tau. "Democrats Can't Ride Jon Stewart's Wave." Politico. 30 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Lozada, Carlos. "The Case Against Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity, by a T>aily Show' Fan." The Washington Post. 24 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Montopoli, Brian. "Rally To Restore Sanity: Jon Stewart Goes Glenn Beck." CBSNews.com. 17 09 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Somashekhar, Sandhya. "For Liberal Groups, 'Daily Show' Rally on Mall, Not Just for Laughs." The Washington Post. 24 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Thompson, Ethan. "Entertainment as Politics." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. iv. The rally is not political enough (because it fails to fit the narrow bias of the author)

Beinart, Peter. "How Jon Stewart Blew It." The Daily Beast. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Benjamin, Madea. "Dear Jon, Sane People Protest Crazy Wars." The Huffington Post. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Capehart, Jonathan. "Stewart, Colbert: Isn't there a Better Way to Restore Sanity?" The Washington Post. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Chandler, Adam. "Whither Jon Stewart?" The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011. 173

Elk, Mike. "Jon Stewart Rally Represents Elitism, Consumerism, and Disrespect for the Progressive Movement. The Huffington Post. 28 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Harshaw, Tobin. "Jon Stewart on the Hustings." The New York Times. 29 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Hegedus, Mike. "Stewart/Colbert 'Love Train' Rally Like Tapioca Pudding; Something Missing." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Patel, Raj. "Polite Laughter On The Mall." The Huffington Post. 31 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Qureshi, Rizvi. "Against Jon Stewart: Restoring Sanity or Restoring Spectatorship?" The Huffington Post. 26 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Schwartz, Sid. "Jon Stewart: We Need More than Amplification." The Huffington Post. 01 11 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.

Weigant, Chris. "Entertainment and Politics." The Huffington Post. 27 10 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2011.