Speaking of the late great Walter Cronkite over at the Daily Mosteller ... his popularity was pitted posthumously the other day (sort of) against the proportional popularity of present pretenders to his pedestal of premier presenter (somebody stop me) of the news on our TV machines. Jon Stewart won. The Time magazine poll gave him a 44% plurality over Couric, Gibson, Williams, et al. A poor showing, really--Cronkite in his heyday would have scored in the 90's, I'm sure.The criterion was "most trusted newscaster," inspired no doubt by the death of the "most trusted MAN in America." You see the difference. Never could Stewart aspire to the "Uncle" honorific attached to Walter, nor could he hope to have the the kind of moral authority to sway a nation, as Cronkite assuredly did over Vietnam and Watergate. Nonetheless, Huffpost pictured them side by side under the headline.
Their methodology of influence was/is very different, though. Cronkite was a journalist; Stewart, a satirist. The former was so trusted because he was perceived to be scrupulously impartial. In deference to that, for the very few times he lowered his personal boom on a controversial issue (honestly, I can't think of any but the two above), he was careful to label it an "editorial"--and boy-o-boy was he believed. Stewart, on the other hand, has never been accused of impartiality. He always hedges his bets by calling the Daily Show a "fake news" program, grounded in comedy and entertainment. Fair enough, but it's so often so very earnest in its satire, and always on the right side of the popular Zeitgeist--the moral/social/political consensus of thinking people. And that's where the "most trusted" business really comes from.
For instance: yesterday's show. The first segment lampooned the "Birthers"--that wingnut cabal (supported even by some southern congressmen!) which believes against all evidence that Obama is somehow a Kenyan. As Jon ran the clips, hardly any sarcastic commentary was needed: res ipsa loquitur. These folk are so far behind the "curve" that they make fools of themselves. In one, Liz Cheney is seen exploiting the so-called "controversy" to impugn Obama's overseas posture as "appeasement"--an unwillingness to properly defend the country against foreign threats. Because, after all, he's a foreigner.
The second segment was typical, and as usual salutary, as Stewart took off on his own medium, television journalism--this time for its coverage of Michael Jackson's death, and its aftermath. Of course it was over-covered. But here the satire gets sweet and subversive: he showed a montage of clips wherein mainstream reporters report on themselves reporting too much on Michael Jackson! This included soul-searching Q&A's about how they might be short-shrifting more important news, while at the same time interviewing the groundskeeper at the Jackson gravesite. Very funny.
Today he went after Fox News for misrepresenting Health Care Reform in "Candyland" maps that would confuse anybody. The bias was obvious: scrap reform. Waaay askew from the current Zeitgeist curvature. The American people, to their credit, overwhelmingly favor universal health care in one form or another. Polls reflect it, and so does Jon Stewart. Otherwise, Q.E.D., he wouldn't be the most trusted.
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