Jon Stewart Drops the Ball on Brian Williams’ Self-Important Bloviating
Feb 3rd, 2010 | 24 responses
When I saw Brian Williams was going to be the guest on last night’s Daily Show, I checked to see if I was watching a rerun — Williams has been on that many times before. The NBC Nightly News anchor is an affable fellow and he and Stewart clearly enjoy each others company. But I was brought to the point of yelling at the screen early on when, on the topic of Haiti, Williams smugly proclaimed:
We beat the military down there. We were on the tarmac when the first prop plane landed with Special Forces guys whose job it was to figure out where everything was going to go.
Stewart followed that up with a lame joke before giving Williams the opportunity to take it down a notch by asking the appropriate follow-up:
Let’s get serious here… At what point do you go, “You know what? I can’t report on this; I have to help.”
Williams gave the formula j-school response that it’s vital to get such an important story out. 
“If we weren’t working down there… the world wouldn’t know about it… It’s a job and it’s a big job!”
Big enough, one assumes he believes, that it’s equally vital for the usually coiffed anchor to be standing sweating in civvies in front of the horrific suffering. Someone’s got to do it. Lucky us. We’ve got Brian Williams.
Noam Scheiber, a senior editor at The New Republic, acknowledges the vital role journalists play. Still, he offered up a significantly different take on their quick en masse Haiti arrival in a January 22 On The Media appearance:
A few days after the earthquake you had hundreds of journalists there, and it was just hard to believe that they weren’t taxing an already fairly weak infrastructure there. There were constant streams of stories about teams of nurses and rescue workers who were marooned at airports and military bases because of the clogging and congestion at the Port-au Prince-airport.
Once they got into the country, obviously the journalists had to have places to stay, food to eat, flashlights, batteries. Even if they did not think of themselves as directly taking food out of the mouths of Haitians, clearly they were bidding up the prices of these things and making it more difficult for people on the ground there to get access to them. In fairness, some news organizations actually shipped in their own supplies, but then the question arises, well [LAUGHS] why not ship in supplies for relief, rather than to serve journalists who are on the ground.
Scheiber believes journalists have a “Hippocratic-like obligation to at least do no harm.” He was on the show to present his proposal for a disaster pool:
For those unfamiliar with the arrangement, a pool is journalism’s longstanding solution to the problem of stories that attract more interest from reporters than there is room to accommodate them. Most famously, the dozens of news organizations that cover the White House document the president’s daily comings and goings this way. At any given moment, there may only be one or two journalists in the room with the leader of the free world, leaving dozens on the outside. But that doesn’t mean they lack information they need to file their own stories. Instead, one of the reporters with a front-row seat writes what’s known as a “pool report,” which everyone else in the syndicate shares. (Something analogous happens for video coverage.)
A “disaster pool” could work the same way. Just like they do for White House coverage, the major (and some not so major) news organizations could draw up an agreement to send a contingent of print, radio, and television reporters to wherever the next global disaster strikes.
The idea has enough obvious merit that Stewart actually asked Williams about it on last night’s show:
STEWART: Are you down there with other organizations, like ABC, CBS News, competing organizations? Do you guys consolidate your resources and all work together…?
WILLIAMS: Um, no, actually, um…
STEWART: Is that really true?
WILLIAMS: Sometimes in a situation like in Iraq, when you’re under fire, when you’ve become a target…
Oh. To protect yourself, yes. For the good of others, no.
Williams does offer up that “the on-air physicians, that’s a different circumstance.” As it happens, On The Media looked at that genre, too, and found it wanting:
BOB GARFIELD: …While [president of WNET Public Television in New York and a former president of NBC News] Neal Shapiro says he knows of no TV news bosses pushing medical correspondents to look for on-camera hero opportunities, a top CBS news exec told The Washington Post this week, quote, “We’re guilty of the appalling sin of competing.”
Well, no wonder, as Dr. Bob Arnot, former chief medical correspondent for NBC News, well understands.
DR. BOB ARNOT: It’s amazing theater. It’s really the most incredible theater that there is in television today, to have, you know, your correspondent doctor out there treating somebody in the field.
BOB GARFIELD: Yet, when Arnot intervened medically and bureaucratically in Iraq, in Rwanda, in Aceh, Indonesia, he did so almost entirely with the cameras switched off.
DR. BOB ARNOT: Look, the real risk is here that your producer calls up and says, hey we just saw the other network’s doctor deliver a baby, could you do an amputation. There’s a real risk that doctors could be pushed into things they shouldn’t be doing because of the pressure of the suits or the producers, to just get better ratings.
BOB GARFIELD: Things they shouldn’t do, he says, such as treating somebody in the street who can just as easily and more safely be attended to at a clinic or hospital, and such as exploiting the pain of an earthquake victim, not to mention the emotions of the audience, for three minutes of drama, genuine or otherwise.
DR. BOB ARNOT: Absolutely, I mean, look-it. If this happened on the streets of New York, do you think you could do that with the current HIPAA regulations? So, sure, you’re potentially exploiting the patient, and you are becoming more of a showman than you are a medical doctor out there.
Sadly, I am as guilty as anyone of watching Stewart’s slick shtick and seeing journalism instead of comedy. Remember, The Fifth Estate Shines? My first TMV post was an interview with the guy who coined that, Dr. Robert J. Thompson, Professor of Television and Founding Director of the Bleier Center for the Study of Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. Thompson warned that we should not be fooled by the Peabody Awards (they “…recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious public service by TV and radio stations, networks, producing organizations, individuals and the World Wide Web”) that Stewart and his compatriot, Stephen Colbert, have won.
The mistake was mine, but not mine alone. In a July Time Magazine poll asking, Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America’s most trusted newscaster? Stewart won, beating out Williams 44% to 29%. (For more fun, rollover the state-by-state numbers.)
Watch for lots of blog action around Stewart’s appearance on the O’Reilly Factor tonight. His fans are eager for one of his trademark smack-downs. TV Squad suggests it may not be all that, “but it will likely be entertaining.” A needed reminder. Jon Stewart is now and has always been nothing more than an entertainer. The media criticism a tool of his trade. He is a fine and talented entertainer, but only just.
RELATED: Howard Kurtz’s column in the WaPo Monday, Jon Stewart’s Obama barbs on ‘The Daily Show’ are creating buzz, created quite a bit of buzz of its own. And a shout out to Jezebel’s Irin who suggests Stewart and Williams should just get a room already.
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24 Responses to “Jon Stewart Drops the Ball on Brian Williams’ Self-Important Bloviating”
..lol…do we honestly think the McCain household would be so publicly polarized about the issue? No, the dog and pony show ain't foolin' this blogger.
But as duplicitous as McCain is, he has a point. The arrogance implicit in the pro GLBT [but not polygamist] agenda is one of “you WILL make homosexuality mainstream”. When lucid rebuttals are made [representing the majority of people against mainstreaming sexual deviance as a "minority group" ...(but not polygamists)] they are met by irrational demonizing calling the rebutting party “homophobic” “closet homosexual” or “haters” or any number of disrespectful venomous hate to close down discussions.
They aren't going to close down discussions. They aren't going to monopolize discussions. They aren't going to force their agenda of pinning their bedroom behaviors on their lapels for everyone to have to explain to the kiddies. Where do we start? Oh, Tommy, there goes Mr. and Mr. Swanson. Why is one dressed more like a lady and one more like a man? Got me there Tommy. I have no idea. Do THEY even have an idea? I've asked repeatedly all over the internet about this one peculiarity alone about homosexuality and have N-E-V-E-R, never ever received an answer. The only response I got, and it was pretty much across the board, that I am “stupid” for not getting it. That I was a hater, a homophobe, a closet homo…etc.etc. etc. You get the drill.
So I'll ask it again: Why do gay couples almost unanimously have one butch and one fem partner if they're supposedly not attracted to the opposite gender?????????
No hostility. No telling me how I'm going to have to get used to it because it's “inevitable”. I want real psychological answers. If you're asking us to buy your product, you'd better understand it forwards and backwards BEFORE you try to sell..
All I can say is it's a good thing McCain isn't president. Being a cranky, forgetful senator isn't nearly as dangerous, in fact it's something of a tradition.
Seriously though, McCain is really out of touch. Probably still hot about losing to Obama too for that matter.
There's no reason to be clowns about it (or worse, with the McCain ladies).
McCain (John), here, is just being one of the pioneers taking the “defend the conventional stance” position on behalf of the GOP. Did anyone expect him or all other Republicans all to be silent, stupid, even engage in stunts like the McCain ladies? Someone has to test the “conventional” political stance for public reaction.
I'm not a big McCain fan although I deeply respect his service. But he absolutely demolishes these two who were trotted in to parrot the Obama line as a fait accompli. Basically Gates position seems to be whatever Obama wishes is our command, no need to assess the impact. No wonder McCain was disappointed with that. Shouldn't we all be?
It is a fait accompli. Obama is Commander in Chief and McCain, well.. is not. Neither is Gates. The Commander in Chief has the unilateral power to decide the armed forces policies such as this one. As Sen.McCain has wisely advised, elections matter.
Issues like this, where our elected representatives try to force such grotesque law down the people's throat against the obvious and overwhelming popular opinion against the creation of such laws prove the fallibility of our governmental system.
Bring this issue to the people in a popular vote, OR DROP IT!
GOOD JOB SENATOR MCCAIN!
Ad hominem alert! McCain is “cranky” on Joe Windish's reading. That tells me something about the messenger (pejorative, mind you) but doesn't address the issue. As for Sil, can you EVER mention the topic of homosexuality without using some form of the word “polygamy” in the same breath? I happen to agree that one opens the door to the other, as current court cases are proving, but just to throw the word randomly into a sentence a time or two (as you've done) doesn't make a lot of sense. As for President Obama, health care is dead. I guess he needed to change the subject and DADT is as good a topic as any, read meat for the leftist base. Since I've never served in the military, I'll rely on those who do, and I'm sure testimonies on both sides of the issue will be trotted out. My nephew is a recent retiree (Army Captain, with Iraq duty) and he squarely opposes repealing the policy, but let's hear all sides.
First, I am 4-square in support of repealing DADT. But you are dead wrong. Obama cannot repeal this under his authority as CIC; if he could, he would have, I believe.
But the Constitution is very, very clear on this issue. From my posts on this a few days ago:
And more importantly he has a difficult primary coming up and is not thought of as conservative enough by many, but of course this will make all the difference!! Sorry I sometimes get amused with election year politics left and right it is almost always this obvious, sometimes even more. If he wants to remain in his seat this is the path to doing so.
Indeed I am dead wrong. I just read “TITLE 10 > Subtitle A > PART II > CHAPTER 37 > § 654
§ 654 Policy concerning homosexuality in the armed forces” in its entirety. I should have done to prior to my post. Mea culpa.
Sometimes I love the consistency around here.
Sil lol'ing followed by the word “polygamy”
DLS rolling his eyes at anyone with any modicum of emotion
Father_Time having an anuerism followed! by! LOTS! of! EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!
Others having reasonable debate about the actual issue.
Anyway, the interesting thing about the McCain quote, in my mind anyway, is that it assumes that Gates has no idea what gays in the military would do. Gates likely knows that while there might be some trust lost due to the fact that a sizable portion of the military has been forced to lie for the last 16 years, people who are willing to die for their country are likely strong enough to serve with those who have different sexual preferences than they do.
I think you are reading way too much into McCain's comments. He's not coming out (haha, pun intended) against repealing DADT, he's simply pointing out that maybe the military should have undertaken a study to determine its effects before the decision was made. It's not like anyone was ignorant that this change was likely. Military leaders are supposed to show a bit more initiative.
In other words, how can the Adm Mullen make such confident claims about repealing DADT when the last major military study of the issue was done by RAND in 1994? And now that the decision is made – now they're going to update the RAND study. That's backwards – they should have done the study first and I think that's all Senator McCain is saying there.
There's two issues here: DADT, and McCain. I can't speak with any real authority on DADT. But McCain looks like a charlatan, I mean, chameleon. During the presidential campaign, he was Obama lite: everything Obama was for, so was McCain. He was the ultimate moderate, leading Republicans to the center and able to see everything from the polls, I mean, peoples point of view. Now he's the ultimate neocon, I mean, conservative, leading Republicans to the right and staunchly opposing everything that candidate McCain, I mean, Obama has been pushing.
I've got to figure out what went wrong with my backspace key.
I'm glad we can agree on at least one thing (repealing DADT), and btw, Pres. Truman desegregated the Armed Forces via Executive Order.
keelaay -
No big deal.
The point is that Gates may be talking about what needs to happen, and it does need to happen, but unless Congress overturns DADT, their will be a conflict.
Gates cannot just say ignore DADT either. In that sense, this part of McCain's comment is correct – “it is an act of Congress and it requires the agreement of Congress in order to repeal it.”
Yes, I know that, and indeed pointed that out in my post. I even cited the EO (9981).
KK – I bet we agree on more than just that, although I will grant it is not likely an extensive list.
McCain said nothing about doing a study. He said Mullen and Gates should have consulted him first before deciding to support the repeal of DADT. And the interesting thing about that is that his earlier position was that if the military leaders decided that the DADT policy should be changed, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, then he (McCain) would consider supporting that, too. So when the military leaders were opposed to repealing DADT, McCain said he supported their judgment but would consider supporting the end of DADT if the day came that they supported the repeal of DADT. Well, that day was today. McCain heard the Secretary of Defense and Admiral Mike Mullen say they supported repealing DADT, and now McCain says they should have consulted him first.
There's no way to understand that, Andy, other than the most crass, self-centered opportunism. It takes, imo, a degree of generosity approaching blindness to interpret McCain's words as “not coming out against repealing DADT.”
Cranky? If McCain were younger and, more importantly, if he weren't arguing for a position you disagreed with, I doubt you would have used that word. But I'll just link to this post of mine on the subject and move on: http://sovereignmind.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/o…
I agree with other commenters that the Think Progress take on McCain's statement is (predictably) biased. If you listen to his entire statement and Gates' statement (you can find the entire proceeding here, starting at 203: http://armed-services.senate.gov/Webcasts/2010/…) I think the point McCain is making does not contradict his earlier statement. While he is certainly expressing quite a bit of skepticism about changing the law, his main point is that he wants the military to study whether the law should be repealed, as it apparently did in 1993 when the law was first considered. McCain is right to point out that Gates is not doing that. Gates essentially said that Obama wants it done and so the military is studying how to implement if it is passed by Congress. Gates did not saying that “we ought to change the policy”. In fact, McCain is inviting the military the study the question and tell them whether we ought to change it or not, from the military's perspective. That is consistent with his previous statement.
Secondly, and less importantly, he said that if the military says we ought to change the policy, we should “consider seriously” changing it. It seems to me that is what they are trying to do, and McCain is expressing his frustration that the military seems unwilling to weigh in on the question.
Lastly, as some other have done, let me clarify that I'm not necessarily opposed to reversing the policy, but I'm arguing here that I think McCain's position is consistent and supportable: before we change the policy, we ought to know if the military thinks it will help or hurt the military's effectiveness.
Looks like this thread has been deleted. Weird.
“he has a difficult primary coming up and is not thought of as conservative enough by many”
He's being challenged by J.D. Hayworth, isn't he? Hayworth made a name briefly for himself after the 1994 elections. Hint: He's louder than Beck, Boortz, or Hannity.
Really good post!
I think we need to be a little more kind to Stewart. No he is not a journalist, but his people spend endless hours reviewing tape trying to find hypocrisy….and make fun of it. The two shows are significantly more redeeming than American Idol.
Williams considers himself a “proper” educator and informant for the people, does he?
HAH! American major media is one of the most puerile, plebeian and low institutions in the Western world! There is no philosopher worth the salt who hasn't recognized the complete lack of meaning and solidity in the MSM.
Williams is part of one of the classes who have failed America on a fundamental level. The media is supposed to be a solid transmitter between the public and the polity – instead it has fused with both, *combining* populism and elitism almost perfectly!
Slowly, everything in America is losing meaning and definition almost completely. The news has become the news.