Watching it last night, I thought The Daily Show was on brand but a little underprepared about the subject. Also, Chang’s outbursts of “Aliens” every 30 seconds got a little worn out by the end, it kind of had its place though in order to keep things upbeat. For me it was a step in the right direction away from all the political drama at the moment. Why were you so disappointed?
The daily show’s job is not to fact check the guests, their job is to help promote whatever product the guests are selling with a veneer of journalism. So he wasn’t “underprepared”, that implies their intent was to actually get to the truth. The intent is only to give the guests a glorified ad spot.
People pushing overt bullshit should not be given a platform. Even with that sort of mockery, there will be enough people who just see that he was on the Daily Show that feel it gives him an air of credibility. This is the same show serious politicians and academics go on, after all.
It damages discourse. Sure, it doesn’t damage political discourse overtly, but it is anti-critical thinking, which damages all discourse.
To be fair, this is the kind of guest the show needs to hold up against more “serious” guests who get up to all sorts of bullshit. Appearing on The Daily Show shouldn’t be considered a feather in anyone’s cap, save for comedians.
Every guest on the daily show is there to promote something, it’s a glorified extended ad spot. A skeptic raining on their parade does not help sell their books or other product, so that’s never going to happen. The purpose is not to reveal truth, but sell shit.
It’s a step left from Jerry Springer, and always has been. It’s The Onion of talk shows.
If you need every implication of falsehood spelled out for you, then satire is not your thing, and that’s okay, but it doesn’t change the fact that the show started out on, and still airs on, Comedy Central. Its timeslot set it up to watched before/after Saturday Night Live and so many others, and it started at a time when people were getting wise to the big conglomerates buying up all the news stations so they could control the narrative; Roughly the same time-period that gave us fark.com, Cracked.com, and TheOnion.com website literally went online the same year.
If you think The Daily Show expects to be taken seriously, and/or even pretends to be an entirely trustworth news source in the slightest, you’ve missed SO, SO MANY memos.
exactly, that’s why your suggestion above:
this is the kind of guest the show needs to hold up against more “serious” guests who get up to all sorts of bullshit.
is not going to happen. it’s not a serious show.
You’re missing the point. The less serious guests like this jackass discredit those more serious guests. Without him, people are more likely to get confused and start taking the show more seriously, like you apparently have.
Your personal obliviousness is not indicative of a trend among the general public. Pull your head out of your ass. We have to shift the overton window back to where bigotted idiots look like bigotted idiots, and you don’t do that by platforming them exclusively alongside respecable people, academics, scientists, whatever.
Ideally, we wouldn’t be platforming bigotted idiots at all, and people like you wouldn’t confuse the show making fun of conspiracy theory whackjobs for a serious news source, but here we are.
And yet many people do take their guests seriously. Maybe they shouldn’t, but they do. A lot of people get all of their news from The Daily Show. I hate that, but that’s just how it is. So when they platform a fraud like Elizondo, that’s a problem.
Sure kid, large numbers of people worth engaging, accomodating, or mitigating are using The Daily Show as their exclusive source of news. Next you’ll tell me Oprah is a good person.
EDIT: added “large numbers”, for clarity.
Who you personally care to engage with is not at issue here. There are far more people than that and they cumulatively guide society. Ignore that at your peril.
Maybe it shouldn’t, but that’s how the public perceives it quite often.
