What Rachel Maddow missed in her interview with Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow spent the better part of their one hour interview discussing Stewart as a media and political figure and how his rally fit into that point. However, they were discussing two separate structures and failed, especially at a point in the conversation 40 minutes into the show, to connect their separate paradigms. However, the difference is simple.

Jon Stewart is a comedian who satirizes the news, in particular the 24-hour news cycle.

Rachel Maddow is a commentator who comments, sometimes with satire, about political conflict in America.

The primary difference between them, and why according to Jon they’re not on the same level, is that Jon’s focus is on the news process while Rachel’s focus is on the political process. However, Jon’s show is so overtly political in nature that it’s hard to separate his content from political content. Jon’s show, at least according to the argument he put forth in the interview, is only accidentally politically focused. He talks about politics because news stations talk about politics. Rachel, on the other hand, talks about politics because she’s a news person, and politics is news. Therefore, her show’s focus on politics is purposeful and limited, basically different from The Daily Show’s purpose.

Therefore, the “game” that Jon references isn’t the political game, to say that he could become a political force. He’s not particularly critical of politics in general. The positive influence he seems to regret not having is on the news process: he regrets that he can’t create a news station from scratch that focuses on conflicts in the country other than the political. Rachel, on the other hand, is part of a major news network and has, presumably, the leeway to use different rhetorical approaches on her show than has been seen in the past. Jon referenced Keith Olbermann as one of the first movers in MSNBC towards the left to take up the polarizing begun by Fox  News. And while MSNBC seems offended at the accusation that they’re trying to be to the left what Fox is to the right, the change that Jon wants to initiate is that MSNBC be something other than the left to Fox’s right: he’s essential asking Rachel and others to find something other than politics and a narrative other than left vs. right by witch to define their news programs. He, being a comedian that comments on the news rather than a journalist who comments on politics, cannot initiate that shift.

Essentially, Jon wants to remain a comedian who satirizes the news, but he wants journalists to grow beyond people who comment on politics. The new conflict Jon proposes is corruption vs. not-corruption, which he seems to think is the primary purpose of news in the first place. Is this the type of news set forward by sites like OpenCongress.org and sites dedicated to the open sharing of governmental data? I’m not sure that’s what he means, because that process would allow the focus to remain only on politics and the political divide. But at least it would make the political conversation a little more complex and thereby a little more realistic.

Perhaps if Jon set out in particular terms what he means by the axis of corruption vs. non-corruption, news stations could pick it up and run with it. He is clear, however, that he is not a news person; he is a comedian that comments on the news. Rachel would do well, in my opinion, to realize that she is not a news-commentator but a news commentator, not one who reacts to the news but one who relays news, and thereby is much more fundamental, as Jon Stewart recognizes, in setting the tone of our nation’s media than Jon, whatever his ratings and media prowess.

Corporate free speech

We live in an age with the most advanced propaganda machines the world has ever seen. We call them, euphemistically, marketing departments. Public relations. The primary function of these branches, having worked closely with them myself for years, is to get people to purchase without thinking overmuch about what it is they’re buying. The most effective advertising has little to do with the product itself but rather associates a brand with a happy lifestyle. It is public knowledge, in that the public is capable of seeing marketing mechanisms at work, that there is a disconnect between message and purpose. And yet we watch them daily, as a nation. We watch as many of them as the marketers think we can stand without revolting, without being sick to death of them.

We also live in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that grants corporations the power of free speech. We are going to allow, in our national debate, the most widely successful propaganda campaigners into our political arena. This is one large step down the road America has already started upon: we have fought tooth and nail for our freedoms, but we would rather sacrifice them to those already in power than use our votes ourselves. It’s a logical outcome of our faith in the division of labor, an outcome of the long hours brought about by our longstanding work ethic.

The problem with propaganda is that it’s polarizing. These effects exist already in our bipolar government, but the arm of marketers and publicists has always been limited by scrutinized  means. A politician has a speech written; he reads it off a teleprompter; he hands a press release to FOX News and CNN and waits to see what they do with it. Corporations are much more savvy. They write a press release, they offer no information other than their press release, they purchase some advertising space, and then they watch their press release and their ads appear simultaneously, side by side, unquestioned by the very arm that’s pushing them out.

Now we’re going to allow these propagandists into the most closely waged war of this country, and I expect an escalation of violent proportions. We slung mud before, but that was when we were too poor to afford farmers’ tools. Watch us march ahead, torch and pitch fork in hand, and the pandemonium screams ever louder around us, amplified in the way only professionals could accomplish. Watch it lead to political turmoil the like of which America has not recently endured, perhaps to a second civil war, caused only by the irresponsible voices of profit-hungry but incorporeal pseudo-individuals.

This is not an instance in which greed, functioning as a primary virtue, will overcome all lesser obstacles. This is not an instance in which self-interest will stop with victory. Self-interest will go further. The corporate powers that be will not stop until they have secured a stable puppet on the thone, not just in the presidency but across all of Washington, and this kind of tyranny the people will not stand. At least, I hope they won’t stand it.