Stewart v Carlson

Well the Daily Show has been on a writer's strike for over a month now. We are left to watch clips of past interviews and other video's from the daily show vault. Searching around a bit I found this clip from over 3 years back of John Stewart on Crossfire arguing against the debate style show he was on. I cannot type my full admiration of John Stewart in the first place, but this clip somehow brought this admiration up even more. Stewart attacks the media we currently have in this country through a style of media he believes is destroying America telling them that he is there to confront them. He then tells host Tucker Carlson that " We need help from the media, and they are hurting us". Stewart then says how much we need a public debate and not a theater show which he says that shows such as Crossfire are. He puts this amazingly well stating that CNN has "a responsibility to the public discourse and they fail miserably" Stewart defends his show vigorously saying that it is a comedy show on before "puppets making crank phone calls" and he does not owe the public hard hitting news that stations such as CNN owe.
Stewart is quick witted and very well thought. Tucker Carlson is quick witted and well thought out as well. This makes for a very well put debate between the two of them. Stewart fights many arguments heard around the right saying that he does not ask hard hitting questions when he has big names on his program. I don't believe that for a second, as he has asked many hard hitting questions and has, at times, gotten into rough arguments with his guests on the shows. That being said however, it is not his job to ask questions that push the envelope because he is not a hard hitting news show, nor is he pretending to be. His show is on COMEDY CENTRAL, which as we all know is known solely for it's hard hitting news coverage and top notch journalists. Its the Daily Show, it is supposed to be funny and semi informative at the same time, it is not supposed to be a place you go to hear all the sides of the argument in the hopes of making a fair and unbiased decision. Thats for the Colbert Report.

FoxNN

Fox News : Noone Covers Politics like Fox News
Ron Paul support in NH
House Page Program
NASA and Atlantis
Richardson and New Mexico voters
5 worst blunder on 08 campaigns. (audio cut) 4 republican 1 Hilary
Landowners on Mexican Border Wall (phrasing done poor about drug smugglers)
Clinton Family Dinner in Iowa


CNN: The Best Political Team in the Nation
Jenna Bush calls family on Ellen Degeneres (funny)
Mccrery not running again, 17 other republicans stepping down from House
Magna Carta up for auction
Huckabee at 39% in Iowa in one poll, tied in others
Clinton family dinner in Iowa

Above is the stories for Both Fox News and CNN Headline News at approximately 3 pm on Saturday, December 8th. As you can see, in the time slots which I watched, the majority of the information shown on both channels was different, with the exception of course being Hilary Clinton eating dinner with her family on the campaign trail (shocking I know). I will go on record as saying that I am not particularly fond of Fox News and believe that their brand of "journalism" is very biased as they seem to be the new talking heads for the bush administration.

That having been said, my thoughts were soon justified as Fox showed a great deal of small mush pieces in between their hard hitting stories (Ron Paul in NH and the White House Paige debacle). This was soon followed by two commercial breaks within 50 seconds of each other after an audio problem occured with a man discussing campaign slips for the candidates. On the other side, Cnn disappointed me. I was hoping for a bit more hard hitting news, and instead got a decent size piece on Ellen Degeneres and Jenna Bush talking to the President on the phone. Hours before that happened, the President gave a speech on Iraq which supposedly answered some lingering questions, but this wasn't even touched upon. When Hilary Clinton showed up on the screen eating with her family in Iowa, i threw a shoe at the television and turned it off. While Fox News was not produced very well (grainy footage and audio difficulties) CNN had crisp pictures and seemed to be more in touch with the public. Although Fox lost this battle quite easily, I am still a much bigger fan of CNN, I just personally wish both would cover harder hitting stories in their afternoon programming.

Half an hour later I turned Fox News back on just to check out what was showing. It was a female reporter bashing Democrats on a bill in the house. There is never two sides to an argument I guess. Fox News coined the phrase "fair and balanced" as part of their slogan, yet they seem to be "unorganized and unbalanced". I have yet to turn CNN back on after showing Hilary's dinner plans.