Jon Stewart on Crossfire

This is an .mp3 (14.9mb) of Jon Stewart's controversial interview on CNN's Crossfire on 10.15.2004.

Update: Here's an .mp3 (1.7mb) of Jon Stewart reflecting on his Crossfire appearance on the Daily Show the following Monday.

I've listened/watched both of them 2+ times and I think they are quite ballsy, but definitely what we need as far as someone standing up against the media. As far as I can tell, CNN isn't the best source of news that you can get. I've seen them screw up news that I knew was wrong and they never fixed it. This particular instance was when a lot of news organizations including CNN were reporting that officials in the UK (I think) were claiming that the Apple iPod is a security threat because it can be hooked to a computer and have large amount of information stored on it and it is highly mobile. Where they came up with this is unknown. But after some investigation, all the Apple news sites that I went to said that it was fixed. Even the BBC was reporting this directly, but CNN didn't change their story. That's one instance that I distinctly remember, and I also remember emailing them about it. I bookmarked the story and checked back two days later and CNN still hadn't changed it. So much for accurate news reporting. It's sad that Americans have to check the news from other countries to really find out what's going on in the world. My Poli-Sci teacher recommends the LA Times for accurate news reporting because they are the only US news organization that has offices in almost every country in the world.

However, what Jon Stewart did wasn't about accurate news reporting. And I don't think it was to be funny, although I heard some people say that he was trying to be cute but ended up looking stupid for approaching it like that. I think he went on there and used sarcasm and biting truth to bring to light what they are doing. From what I can tell, they are contributing to cookie cutter politics. Partisan hackery is what he called it, and that's about what it is. People don't realize that a long time ago some idiot came up with the two-party system and everyone thinks they fit on one side or the other. I think it's bullshit. You can just be a person with different feelings about different issues and even then it's not that simple. Every situation has it's own nuances that might cause one person think outside the partisan box. For instance, I took a 40-question quiz on issues that most people consider to be key topics for liberals and conservatives. Of the 40 questions, I had 22 of them lean toward conservative and 18 leaning toward liberal. Why is that? Because most people don't completely fit on one side or the other. The problem is the candidates almost always fit their issues nicely on one side or the other. In turn most people think they have to conform to one side or the other. If you're not for us, you must be for them. No. And this isn't about the common "don't label me" propaganda. I'm just saying that people are people and trying to categorize them politically into one side or the other is really misleading. Jim Goad calls this the "binary brain." I must agree. And I think that's what Jon Stewart was trying to point out, that they are basically kowtowing to the idea and furthering it instead of providing civilized discourse. Many people have pointed this out, but still the media doesn't understand. I'm glad Jon Stewart went on national TV to try to do some good. In my mind what he did was relatively harmless, but in our sensitive public arena just pointing out obvious truths causes an uproar.

The problem here is that people don't try to think outside the box. They don't try to think for themselves, they try to think in terms of liberal vs. conservative, good/evil, etc. Instead of making up their own mind, they tend to think "what would a liberal do" instead of thinking, what would I do?

Regarding politics, I had until tonight been confused on the Electoral College system. I now consider myself educated on the subject and I have found that despite the fact that I once thought the presidential election should be direct vote (one person, one vote vice electoral college or bloc voting) the EC system actually works and in fact prohibits a variety of bad situations from occurring. For more information, visit this site. Of particular interest in really understanding how the EC works, I highly recommend reading this excellent primer on it (.pdf file), particularly the last half about the modern state of the EC. I have asked many people about how the EC works, but no one really knew. Now I know. Not that there aren't flaws in the way certain states are over-represented, but for the most part, it works well.