[elblanco]

> Of interviews with politicians which they obtained under false pretences?

Why do you say that? I've watched TDS since before Stewart was the host. I think it's pretty clear they are a comedic satire show when they do their interviews. They stage and prompt their interviewees to make the interviews more fun.

"Say, 'I like Cocaine'"

"I like Cocaine"

Only morons believe it's a real news show. But it does a fabulous job, through comedy and satire, at revealing the uncomfortable hypocrisy that underlies an awful lot of news and politics.

There are tons of comedy shows that dip into politics. Lampooning politicians is probably one of the oldest and most common forms of comedy. I won't even attempt to list some, you'd have to be willfully trying to avoid it if you aren't aware of this.

[w00pla2]

> I think it's pretty clear they are a comedic satire show when they do their interviews.

Nope. They often have interviews under false pretenses (the interviewee doesn't know he is from the daily show). The questions and the persons facial expressions) is often edited in afterwards.

[bbatsell]

Not according to John Oliver; every pre-arranged interviewee knows exactly who they will be speaking with and what their schtick is. Man-on-the-street interviewees are told they're with The Daily Show, but it's on them to know what that is.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1222483...

[mkr-hn]

Can you cite this?

[elblanco]

Don't even bother engaging him anymore, he's just regurgitating conspiracy theories that float around in right-wing circles as a way to explain their often public embarrassments.

[w00pla2]

> he's just regurgitating conspiracy theories that float around in right-wing circles as

Firstly, I am not "right wing". I am libertarian and socially liberal.

> as a way to explain their often public embarrassments.

This is exactly the idiocy that I was talking about. Note that you put everyone in an "us" and "them" basket.

I do not care what the content of the program is, as long as it is objective.

Unfortunately many people on the internet (such as yourself) just flock to news sources that agree with your point of view (such as Huffington Post, reddit.com, Alternet, TDS, etc...) and the right flock to their websites and programs (Glen Beck, Redstate, whatever).

In the end those programs just end up engaging in character assassination instead of having a constructive and rational debate. But I guess that is too much too ask.

[elblanco]

This is probably my last response to you and I'm trying to say this without coming across as mean.

First off, there are no serious claims anywhere that TDS misrepresents itself when filming interviews. People here have asked for citations of your claim several times and you've failed to respond. Please stop regurgitating nonsense. This isn't the place for it.

While I enjoy your willingness to engage on some level, and not immediately degenerate every posting into a Godwin's law violation, you really have a terrible awful lot to learn. I don't mean this in a "if only you knew more about the brilliance of leftist politics, the truth would become obvious" sort of way. I mean this completely apolitically. You actually seem to be completely unawares what political parody, satire, irony, sarcasm and comedy is, its history and how it works. The audience of TDS does know. You are clearly not the audience.

The Daily show has been broadcast in the U.S. for almost 15 years on a channel exclusively devoted to broadcasting comedy programming, it's one of the most popular and well known shows in America. It's commonly rebroadcast on the Internet, on other stations and other programs. Its host, Stewart appears often on popular competing and opposing shows. It's commonly derided by right-leaning talkshow hosts, news programs and commentary shows. It makes no claims to be a news show, unbiased or otherwise. Stewart himself has said on many occasions that he and the show are clearly left-leaning but make a concerted effort to make fun of all-sides. Despite their admitted left-lean, the show has gained a strong reputation among the right-leaning people as a place where they can have a fair conversation during the table-talk guest interviews. Every episode is available online, and youtube is practically clogged with TDS clips. It's won dozens upon dozens of major awards (I don't mean this as a point of legitimacy, but as a point of notoriety). It's well known in most English speaking countries and many non-English speaking countries. They even put this up at the beginning of every episode: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/TDSglobal.png. In other words, what it is, and what it serves is well and widely known by anybody who has ever watched it.

Stewart himself says of how they target the show, "Our show would not be valuable to people who didn't understand the news because it wouldn't make sense," he argues. "We make assumptions about your level of knowledge that... if we were your only source of news, you would just watch our show and think, 'I don't know what's happening.'"

Again, I'm not saying this to be mean spirited, but you are clearly not somebody who they are targeting for their audience. In order to understand the show, you have to be well informed about current events, people in the news, politics, who the major players are, and understand parody, satire, sarcasm, irony and comedy. You clearly don't fit into this mold and that's okay. I don't get the work of Mark Rothko, I'm clearly not the intended audience of his work either.

Your objection is that TDS is not an apolitical objective news program doesn't make any sense because you don't know and understand the things you have to know and understand to "get it", it's like complaining that my car is not a helicopter.

[mkr-hn]

I wish they showed that logo in the US. I laughed at the last part.

[redrobot5050]

>I do not care what the content of the program is, as long as it is objective.

Then WHY do you even own a TV?

The Daily Show is a mock-comedy news program. It's objective is to be funny. That you don't get the joke and complain about how "serious" people take it, well, that only underscores that they've hit their objective right on the nose.

You might want to shop around for a startup who can give you a sense of humor.

[RickHull]

http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/04/14/behind-the-scenes-ffrf...