On Tuesday night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart put on his media-criticism hat. This might be his favorite role, and his favorite target is clearly CNN. This time, the focus of Stewart's mockery is the pioneering cable news network's increasing reliance on a single question: "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
The problem is that most news stories are complex and full of nuance. TV news should help viewers understand the details and context of what's happening in the world, Stewart said earnestly... before letting us know that the idea of that happening in real life is risible.
Back to you, Wolf Blitzer! Stewart played a reel of CNN anchors asking if news stories are good or bad. "Good thing or bad thing," he said mockingly. "Let's turn to our analyst Flippy the Coin." After pantomiming a coin toss — "Bad!" — he casually dropped one of his best quips of the night: "What are the odds?"
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
Most people play along with the good/bad game, but Stewart pointed them to a CNN guest who didn't: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who refused to answer Blitzer's pestering with a yes or no question. "I just want to make this clear," Stewart said. "That's Michele 'I think vaccines give you brain damage' Bachmann being told by Wolf Blitzer to dumb it down."
It's not just Blitzer and other news anchors that use the good/bad dichotomy, Stewart said. Everyone at the network does, presumably on the orders of CNN's top brass — everyone, that is, but anchor Carol Costello. Costello has found a way around this idiocy, by simply noting that there is some middle ground between good and bad. Unfortunately, this revelation sent Stewart off down his own rabbit hole, in which he ended up musing about sex with elves.
To be fair, Stewart added — noting that, of course, he isn't — other cable news networks ask if a story is good or bad, too:
The difference is that Fox News personalities already know the answer to their "good or bad?" questions, and MSNBC only asks sarcastically — what the liberal network is really asking, Stewart said, is: "What are you, f--king stupid?" CNN seems to genuinely not know if any given news event is, in fact, good or bad.
If CNN is really committed to treating us like children by reducing complex news events to "their most reductive mood-ring essence," Stewart offered, he can save them a lot of money in personnel costs by hooking them up with a girl he used to follow named Penny. He's mocking, but CNN really could do with a little more claymation in its broadcasts.
