"Crossfire" v. Jon Stewart

Even the New York Times has picked up on the significance of CNN president Jonathan Klein's decision to cancel the news channel's daily screamfest, otherwise known as "Crossfire". An editorial in Sunday's paper claims that

an important moment in the annals of modern culture may have occurred when Jon Stewart of Comedy Central went on CNN's "Crossfire" last October and decided to be serious. He told Paul Begala, on the left, and Tucker Carlson, on the right, that their show, which specializes in encouraging midlevel political types to yell slogans at each other, was "partisan hackery" that was lowering the level of political discourse. At the time, he was widely denounced for failing to be funny.

But of course Stewart got the last laugh.
The editorial continues:

Maybe this could be the start of something big. We have lived through a generation now in which television news operations grew more and more dependent on "talking heads" shows because they are inexpensive. Since conversation is not normally high-octane viewing, producers tried to raise the interest level by encouraging the guests to start yelling at one another. The Fox News network swept the decks when it combined the snarling heads with right-wing commentary. Soon, the all-news airwaves were awash with primal screams. ... Perhaps this trend has gone as far as it can go.

Perhaps. Though I'm not going to hold my breath. Fox News in particular lives and dies by this sort of thing - as the NYT editorial itself concedes, when noting the vast difference between CNN and Fox coverage of the tsunami. "CNN, with a comparatively large international army of journalists at its disposal, went out and covered the story. Fox News and MSNBC had to depend more on conversationalists in the studio, all of whom agreed that tidal waves were very, very bad." (Various media sources keep making this point, including the Financial Times, whose denunciation of Fox I noted in Friday's blog.)

Anyway, I have to take this opportunity to say that I really, really enjoyed this little moment in media history when "Crossfire" met its match, and Stewart reminded Begala and Carlson, "You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably." As it happens, on the day of Jon Stewart's appearance - Wednesday, October 13 - I was flipping through channels while IM-ing my partner. Here's the verbatim transcipt of our conversation at the time (including my misspelling of Stewart's name - sorry! I'm "D" by the way):

D: hey John Stewart is on Crossfire and it's cool
D; ..and he's asking Tucker and Paul to just “stop”!
D: -- "you're hurting America"
D: I don't think they like it.
D: he's really going at them
D: now Paul and Tucker are ganging up on John.
D: oh i wish i was recording this!
D: he's telling them they're "doing theatre" and "partisan hackery."
D: oh this is GREAT!
D: Tucker's getting upset!
D: Paul's staying quiet.
L: wow, wish I was there
L: though it's almost like I'm there, with your instant updates
D: i don't think they repeat it
L: THis is on CNN, right?
D: yes, the regular show. they said they were giving him almost the whole half hour, to plug his book -- and instead he' s spent the whole time slagging off their show. Oh wonderful!
D: someone has to put this up on the web!
D: i'm taping the second part -- maybe Tucker will get really pissed off now!
D: Tucker said, "It's really boring that you come here and lecture us -- I wouldn't want to come and have dinner with you."
L: wow, testy
D: John says, "Don't worry, you won't!" Just blew him off.
L: I'm looking at the show website right now, but they don't have any video links on it. Just transcripts.
D: John basically told them they're abdicating their responsibility.
D: Doing theatre, not journalism.
D: John's interviewing them!
L: I looked at the schedule, and it looks like they repeat everything but Crossfire
D: aww poo, i think it's over.
D: i don't see it coming up on CNNFN either.
D: I loved how Tucker kept saying "Well, you had Kerry, why didn't you do what you say we don't"
D: Answer: "Because we're a fake news show!"
D: and then even better: "You guys are CNN! If you're looking to us as the standard of journalistic probity, we're in real trouble."
D: hey they're back -- and Stewart's still there -- and taking questions from the audience
D: aww poo, only two questions, and not very incisive.
D: but the first part was beautiful.
D: "They'll never show that again!"

I was being a little ironic with that last remark, and of course it was shown again, and again, all over the web. And that one exchange really did burst the bubble of this ridiculous show. Thank you, John Stewart!