Jon Stewart sighs over the media's Baltimore amnesia, takes CNN to school

Jon Stewart sighs over CNN&#039;s Baltimore amnesia

(Image credit: The Daily Show)

last updated 29 April 2015

Over at CNN, Wolf Blitzer has been making a fool of himself with his shock over the rioting in Baltimore, Jon Stewart said on Tuesday's Daily Show. The eruption of violence in black neighborhoods of American cities come cyclically, like "tragedy cicadas, depressing in their predictability, similarity, and intractability." But Blitzer is saying the Baltimore riots are "hard to believe," and something he's never seen, just months after saying similar things about the violence in Ferguson, Missouri.

"Elvis leading a herd of Orthodox Jewish unicorns through a city street — that would be hard to believe," Stewart scoffed. "This sh-t happens all the time." So, he walked his viewers (and, presumably, Blitzer) through the socio-economic factors that made Baltimore a pile of kindling waiting for a match. He even offered a band-aid of a sort, a "more nuanced alert system" in cities that "would allow for more productive intervention beyond 'You have 10 seconds to disperse.'" Stewart even had a sensible, nice thing to say about the police. Watch below. —Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.