Jon Stewart, the MSM, and America's Most Trusted Newscaster … Or Not

So in case you haven’t heard, Jon Stewart was on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend and he spent a lot of time asserting to Chris Wallace that his Comedy Central program, “The Daily Show” doesn’t have a political agenda. He claimed that he has no desire to be a player in politics and that his show isn’t political commentary … it’s just comedy “informed by an ideological background.”

While walking that fine line, Stewart also insisted that the MSM isn’t politically biased, they just trend toward “sensationalism and laziness.” Inherent in that statement is the belief that one couldn’t be sensationalistic, lazy, and biased. Thing is, bullies often are lazy, sensationalistic, and biased … it’s the nature of the beast. But I digress.

As Stewart attempted to explain how the MSM isn’t politically biased in the face of examples from Wallace, he became visibly frustrated and spat out, “In the polls, who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers? The most consistently misinformed? Fox. Fox viewers! Consistently!”

Hmmmm. After the death of Walter Cronkite, a Time poll showed that Stewart was to inherit Cronkite’s coveted title of “America’s Most Trusted Newscaster.” For the record, 44% of respondents named Stewart, 29% Brian Williams, 19% Charlie Gibson, and Katie Couric raked in 7% large.

Seems his viewers, and for that matter Time readers, haven’t received the message that he’s just a comedian. How’s that for consistently misinformed viewership?

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