"Your Network is Silly"

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show hosted a breakfast for the "real media" at the DNC. If anyone at the breakfast actually watched the Daily Show, they'd have been prepared for the reality of the breakfast. The article is from the USA Today, but I'm posting it in full.

'Daily Show' host shoots at media Stewart, host of The Daily Show on cable's Comedy Central, invited reporters for coffee Monday at the start of the Democratic convention. It was billed as an early morning yuk-fest, but it wasn't all that funny. At least not for the reporters, who were the subject of his monologue. In a poll this year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 21% of viewers ages 18 to 29 named The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as places where they get news about the presidential campaign. Does it bother Stewart that so many potential voters are relying on a joke show for information? "I'm concerned about the incredible number of people who say they get the news from you guys," Stewart shot back. Sensitive scribes scowled. The tightly wrapped comic's harangue included a blast at the media's "absolute acceptance of being stage-managed" and an attack on Washington as a city of "absolute self-delusion and arrogance." When Howard Kurtz, who covers the news media for The Washington Post and CNN, protested, Stewart stopped him with, "Your network is silly." Stewart blames boring coverage for low voter turnout. "We have wrung every ounce of inspiration out of the process because we are parsing strategy," he said. He wouldn't say how often he votes or whether he's registered with a party. In the end, Stewart apologized for his own vehemence. He said that's the way he and his staff begin the mornings when they are writing their show. "We spend our day trying to take the anger down and trying to turn up the volume of the humor." — By Kathy Kiely