John Stewart Interview (Rachel Maddow)

Maddow Interviews John Stewart

Almost 5 years after his infamous spot on CNN's Crossfire, in which Jon Stewart took on the hosts of the show in an episode that would lead to the show being ended by CNN, Stewart sits down with Rachel Maddow to discuss the very same concerns that drove him to CNN's Crossfire. Whether you like or find John credible as a journalist should not be the focal point but rather the issues with American political discourse that Stewart is pointing out, and the institution (the media) that continues to perpetrate political division rather than focusing on important issues that face the American people.

Stewart says to Maddow that "we have all bought into, that the conflict in this Country is between right and left, liberal and conservative, red and blue. And all the news networks have bought into that as well. What it does is it amplifies a division that I don't think is the right fight." Stewart goes on to say that in his opinion there is a greater difference between people with kids and people without kids than there is between left and right and that the left-right perceived division has become more of "an arms race."

Stewart says, "my problem is that it has become tribal." Maddow, of course, tries to diminish her (MSNBCs) involvement in this - or rather says that they don't do it in the same way or to the same degree as Fox News which really proves his point, right? Stewart points out quite correctly that "we have a tendency to grant amnesty to people who we agree with and to overtly demonize people we don't. I do the same thing. I think everybody does." And the effects of this are what he feels are polarizing the two sides.

"The problem with a 24 hour news cycle is that it is built for a very particular event, 9/11. Other than that, there really isn't 24 hours worth of stuff to talk about, in the same way. Now, the problem is how do you keep people watching it? O.J. isn't going to kill someone every day. What do you have to do? You have to elevate the passion of everything else that happens that might even be somewhat mundane and elevate it to the extent that this is 'Breaking News,' this is 'Developing News.' The aggregate effect of that is you lose the lexicon. You lose any meaning of what breaking news means or urgent or look at this or dangerous."

Stewart continues, "maybe these networks aren't meant to be viewed in aggregate, but there is an aggregate, there is an effect." Meanwhile, while the public is left fighting over which party is bad, the discourse about issues, real issues, like military adventurism, Wall St corruption, criminalization of victimless crimes, corporate greed and corruption are lost. Issues that everybody agrees on get pushed to the side.

Below you can listen to the full interview.