When Jon Stewart’s fake news “Daily Show” is America’s most trusted news source, what does that say?
It’s getting harder and harder to tell real news from fake news, and even the correspondents we trust to give us the straight story seem to be making it up as they go along.
Now, with Jon Stewart set to leave his 17-year stint at the head of Comedy Central’s fake news “Daily Show,” it almost makes sense that he and Brian Williams would switch places. After all, polls show the Jon Stewart – not anyone from a “real” news organization – is America’s most trusted source of news. And certainly, Mr. Williams has shown his talent for faking it.
Still, you get the feeling that the mainstream media is missing the important story here – as usual. Williams may have played fast and loose with the facts regarding his own past, but that didn’t really hurt Americans. What did hurt our country was the way the corporate-owned media played fast and loose with the facts regarding the build up to the Iraq War under George W. Bush.
The only organization that seemed to regret it was the New York Times, which published some in-depth articles about how they were fooled, and even took steps to make sure it never happened again. Except, it did. Now the Times is pushing fabrications about Putin and his takeover of Crimea, and seem to once again be irresponsibly cheering on another war, this time with Russia.
Meanwhile, the big television networks continue to substitute titillation and entertainment for real news coverage. Fortunately, people are beginning to see that they have to be their own researchers if they want to get at the truth. Luckily, we have a great tool for that – a free and open internet – for now. But that, too, is under assault, and if the corporate interests that want to do away with net neutrality are successful, well, it will be much more difficult to uncover the truth on our own any more.
It’s a shame that society has put such an important task – that of finding and presenting the truth – in the hands of such arrogant incompetents, whose concern is not for the public, but for their profit margins. There must be a better way.
Meanwhile, here at the pretty much (though not officially) not-for-profit Humor Times, we are getting ready to publish our 24th Anniversary Issue, next month!
You can depend on us to continue to do our job, which is to mercilessly lampoon the idiots who only pretend to do their jobs. Thank you for reading, and don’t forget – subscriptions make awesome gifts!
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