In a recent monologue, Jon Stewart satirically criticizes CNN, one of the largest and most popular news companies, and their public discourse. Stewart begins by talking about the big news that made the headlines recently--football, the Obama's whereabouts, and popular box-office hits. He sarcastically lists these unimportant events to highlight the idea that the news fails to cover meaningful happenings, such as protests. Stewart then discusses CNN's tendency to not "fact check", or establish and assure the credibility of the sources they get their information from. Rather than find legitimate sources, CNN resorts to Saturday Night Live sketches for research. Moreover, when delivering specific numerical data to their viewers, CNN reporters offer a wide-range of numbers and fail to cite their sources. The next criticism, and perhaps the most hysterical one, is CNN's habit of saying "Let's leave it there" without completing an argument and drawing a conclusion. Stewart shows numerous clips of CNN dropping that infamous line, often cutting off people from finishing what they had to say and leaving the initial debate issue unsolved. Lastly, Jon Stewart discusses news reporters' failure to conduct thorough and relevant issue. On a clip from CNN, when asked whether we can check how much our health insurance premiums go up, a reporter responded by saying, "That's a good question." For such a widespread news organization that should be informing the public, that is simply an unacceptable response. Reporters should know these things before going on air, and because this particular woman did not do proper research, Stewart joked about it.
As you can see, Jon Stewart has found many flaws in media practices and public discourse. In turn, these flaws would not and should not find its way in academic discourse. Academic discourse, unlike public discourse, focuses mainly on showing a wide range of views for students, and from there, allowing those students to construct new ideas and develop a stance on the issue or debated topic. Also, public discourse does not spend much time establishing the credibility of their sources, but rather goes to great lengths to push their thoughts into other peoples' minds. On the other hand, academic discourse is typically associated with well-cited sources from various points of views. Therefore, perhaps if news outlets adopted some ideas of academic discourse to their programs, they would be more credible, informative, and not end up at the butt of Jon Stewart's jokes.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-12-2009/cnn-leaves-it-there
I like your point that public discourse goes to "great lengths to push their thoughts into other people's minds" even if that means fudging data or overexaggerating the facts to get ratings. How would one reconcile academic discourse with public discourse without detracting from the popularity of the news segment?
ReplyDeleteI like the last part of the blog when you mention the credibility of news productions, notably CNN. Jon Stewart has made a living off of exploiting the flaws in the mainstream media and it almost seems that people see through the bull$h*t of the media when Mr. Stewart points out these flaws. This lesson in checking sources also provides an insight to the common statement, "don't believe everything you hear."
ReplyDeleteI don't watch the news much, but when I do, I never fully picked up on all the flaws the media was putting forth. It's funny how Stewart's comedy has more truth in it than the mainstream media from which the public is relying on to be informed about important issues that effect our daily living.
ReplyDeletejon stewart is great. i'm glad someone came out and discussed the issue with the media. people rely on it as fact way tooo much. no one realizes that censorship and media spin is heavily utilized
ReplyDelete