The Daily Show: A Quite Week

The week of April 14th, 2008 has been a quiet week in terms of election news, but the Daily Show did cover Obama's recent infamous comment about the personality of western Pennsylvania.

Stewart opens the segment by saying that it is almost a mathematical certainty that Obama will go into the convention with more votes and more delegates, non super, than Hillary Clinton. And then he frames the recording of Obama by saying that it would take,

Some sort of egregious, self inflicted, undiplomatic, poorly recorded semi-truth by Obama.

He then plays a rather long clip of Obama's radio recorded voice saying,

You go into some of those small towns in Pennsylvania...the jobs have been gone
now for 25 years...they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy
to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment...

Jon Stewart, with his sarcastic and witty comments responds to this quote by saying that it is "Outrageous" because the people of Western PA don't turn to God and guns and mistrust of foreigners because of a downturn in the economy, rather it is the heart and soul of what they are made of. Essentially Stewart is agreeing with Obama's statement, and then he goes even further and says that he would hope that his president was elite or better than him, purposely changing the connotation that the word "elite" has in the American political sphere.

Stewart then plays clips from numerous different mainstream news stations that clearly misquote, misinterpret and exaggerate Obama's statement rather unfairly (they do this to Hillary's words all the time). Although it is frustrating to see Stewart blatantly support Obama, I commend him on trying to present a different frame, especially since the media is blatantly taking Obama's sentiment too far.

It is frustrating though when seconds later he played short clips of Hillary and tries to make her look untrustworthy and insincere. It is the first time that Stewart has clearly taken sides on the Democratic election although the past month has seen him becoming increasingly more favorable to Obama.

The Daily Show: Dick Move of the Week

Although not too much about the election on April 8th, 2008, The Daily Show does introduce a "Dick Move of the Week" segment which talks about how the Obama campaign was giving out free Dave Matthew's Band tickets at the same time that Bill Clinton was giving a speech on the same campus. It is interesting because although he calls it the 'Dick Move', the way he presents it is rather hilarious and incredulous. He doesn't make a judgement on the event really, and unlike a mainstream news show might do he doesn't talk about how it reflects on Obama as a candidate.

There was also a special section called "Back in Black: Celeb Endorsements" which is a special section by a correspondant on his show, Lewis Black. This segment made fun of the celebrity endorsments that happen. It was interesting because this was one of the first shows that actually mentioned John McCain (he recieved a celebrity nomination from a character on the Hills). There was an interesting Obama tilt. Out of about 7 or 8 celebrities quoted for endorsing one candidate or the other, they only showed one endorsing Hillary (Laura Linny), who also happened to be one of the two women shown (the other being Oprah, of course). Also for one of the celebrities, Stewart makes the claim that we shouldn't bother to listen to celebrities because what do they know? But then he shows a clip of the same celebrity sounding extremely intelligent while talking about real issues and why he supports Obama.

This show was one of the view that had a woman interviewed. Cokey Roberts was interviewed for her newly released book, "Ladies of Liberty" about the first ladies of young America.

The Daily Show: Barack's Bowling for Votes

The Pennsylvania primary is coming up in a little less than month, and Barack is moving around the state connecting with the 'Reagan Democratics' according to the Daily Show on April 1st, 2008. The Daily Show has consistantly gotten more and more openly in favor of Obama, I wonder if this has anything with the writers coming back? Impossible to say. But it would be interesting to know the gender rundown of The Daily Show's writers. That is not to say that the gender of the writers is directly in correlation to which candidate they support, although it is a possibility, but regardless it would be an interesting fact to know.

Anyways, in this episode Jon Stewart blatantly makes fun of the mainstream media's rather ridiculous framing of Barack Obama's gutterball while bowling in PA. He shows clips of the media framing this in terms of his masculinity, as well as undercurrents of racism, for example one anchor says something along the lines of, "He should stick to basketball". Stewart takes great delight in pointing out that Barack's bowling skills don't have any bearing on his ability to lead the country.

Although the show has been rather biased lately in favor of Obama, I commend the show for also making fun of the media's opinion that Hillary is hurting the democratic party by not dropping out. He played clips from at least 6 different mainstream nightly news shows that all were implying that Hillary should drop out of the race by a certain date because she is hurting the democratic party. It was funny because although all the clips had the same frame they had vastly different dates of when she should drop out by. Stewart says something to the effect of, "Oh no, there's too much democracy".




This episode was full of information on the upcoming 2008 Presidential election! Stewart also had one of his correspondants interview a 21 year old college student who also happens to be a super delegate. It was very interesting, but I wish they would have framed it differently. Instead of focusing on how cool it is for a young person to be involved in the democratic process of our country, they framed it in the sense that he wasn't representative of American youth (example, he like to listen to Celion Dion and his favorite movie was Love Actually). I wish they would have given more background; I would have liked to know how he got chosen to be a super delegate. It was nice though that the show took a tiny bit of time to talk about what a super delegate was, though the information they imparted about that was weak at best. This episode also had all men.

The Daily Show: Important Primaries

The week of March 10th, 2008 wasn't a huge week for coverage of the 2008 presidential election, although there was coverage of the Wyoming primary and the Mississippi primary briefly.



The Daily Show took a humorous approach to the Wyoming primary by having Sam Bee analyze the 'race' break down of the voters. Instead of using the typical breakdown (Black, White, Latino, etc) they used titles such as 'Rugged Outdoorsmen', 'Grizzled Old Coots', and 'Ornery Drifters' among others. Esentially The Daily Show was satirizing the media's frame that sometimes implies that certain candidates win using certain demographics only. More specifically I think they were using the fact that Wyoming is a mainly white, blue collar area, which is supposed to be Hillary's stronger demographic.

This episode was one of the first that I've seen with a woman being a integral part of the show, although Sam Bee was the only woman on the show.




On March 12th, 2008 Jon Stewart looked at the media's framing of the Mississippi primary. He showed clips from at least 5 different mainstream news shows that all had the anchor saying that the results of the Mississippi primary (Obama won by a lot) was no surprise. Stewart asks the question, "So that means it doesn't count?" Stewart then shows the delegate count:
Obama: 1598
Clinton: 1487
Differece: 111
and questions the media's frame that the election seems to be out of reach for Hillary. Again there on no women in this show. It is interesting to note that although March 13th, 2008 doesn't directly talk about the 2008 presidential election, there is a woman intereviewed and a special segement by a woman.

The Daily Show: Barack's Wright Response

On March 18th, 2008 the Daily Show addressed Presidential Hopeful, Barack Obama's pastor's controversial remarks about America. The clip Stewart played of Pastor Wright's remarks was longer than the one I saw on a mainstream news show, but the longer clip didn't really change the framing as it sometimes does on the show. Stewart didn't voice an opinion one way or the other about how this should or shouldn't affect Obama, but he did play numerous clips from mainstream media that showed their analysis of Pastor Wright's remarks, and he tried to frame it differently, using comedy. He brought an 'expert' on the show to have a 'dialogue' on race, and the language both Steward and his 'expert' used was really interesting.

Stewart also played a clip of Obama's response speech, which was extremely elequent. Stewart also opened the segment saying that although there had been whispers that Obama was a 'foreigner', there was good news because he's christian. This was really hilarious!

Like many of Steward's other shows, there were no women on this show.

"The Ultimate Last Final Showdown"

The Daily Show has gotten back into the swing of things since the writer's strike and on March 3rd, 2008 Jon Stewart interviewed Hillary Clinton! It was an interesting show because despite the fact that Stewart was interviewing Clinton the first segment of his show was called the "Ultimate Last Final Showdown (Unless Hillary Wins One or Both of the Larger States)" and although the title clearly makes fun of how the media frames each new primary, Stewart mainly focuses on how the candidates have been bashing each other as they criss-cross both Ohio and Texas before the primary tomorrow, March 4th, 2008. Stewart plays clips (with commentary) of both Clinton and Obama taking small jabs at each other; Clinton tries to insinuate that although Obama makes pretty speeches they lack substance and action and Obama questions Hillary's ability, using her vote for the Iraq war as an example.

I was very impressed because it Jon Steward's portrayal of the candidates was equal and he didn't seem to favor either candidate.

The interview with Hillary was really interesting and he asked her good questions, though he seemed to stay within the media's frame and he didn't ask her about actual actions she would take or concrete issues in Ohio or Texas. I really liked how Stewart talked about how Ohio is always courted during the elections but then is ignored once the candidate is in office, and what Hillary feels about that. She of course had a good answer. I also really liked how she said that regardless of who wins there will be a unified democratic party. Overall a wonderful interview!

The Daily Show: Trendspotting Youthquake

Finally The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is back after the writers strike! February 28th, 2008 featured news on Bush's trip to Africa, a section on the upcoming election and the importance of the youth vote, as well as an interview with Brian Williams from NBC Nightly News who hosted the recent Presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Stewart's show is a hybrid between a comic show and an actual nightly news show, so it is a fun way to get the daily news.

The portion titled Trendspotting-Youthquake is a comedic look at the importance of the youth vote in the upcoming election and the people in the mainstream media who follow the trends among youth voters. Demetri Martin assembles a 'street team' to find out whats on the minds of this year's all important youth vote. The 'street team' consists of the five men and one woman who make up Jon Stewart's news team. The clip shows them interviewing young men and women in bars using 'youth language'. This segment pokes fun of the people who interview youth voters because it shows the interviewers as being rather stupid and trying to use 'street slang' to better relate to the youth. The men and women in the bar are clearly a bit offended. This segment also interviews a reporter from CBS News, Itay Hod, who has a video blog that focus on the youth voters.

This segment doesn't have a frame for the youth voters, but is merely poking fun at how youth are treated as a demographic. I thought the piece might at least mention the frame that Obama has all the youth voters, but that wasn't mentioned at all, and when the candidates names were mentioned they were both mentioned equally.

Although this isn't different from the general trend on the Jon Stewart show, there were only two women in the whole segement; one of the street team, Sam Bee, and the other was a young woman in a bar who was interviewed.

The interview with Brian Williams was interesting because he is clearly not allowed to voice an opinion on politics, but Jon Stewart asked about Hillary Clinton's recent observation that she always gets asked the question first in the debates, and it was interesting because Williams said that in general it had to do with the fact that she was getting more press and news.

Overall an interesting show!