Not Necessarily Not the News: Gatekeeping, Remediation, and The Daily Show

"I don't know if you are practicing an old form of parody or a new form of journalism." -PBS's Bill Moyers, interviewing Jon Stewart "He says in public what a lot of us say privately in the newsroom." - Peter Jennings, former host of ABC World News Tonight "Usually we clearly don't give a shit and neither do the guests." -Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart1 There were approximately fifty million young Americans eligible to vote in the 2004 presidential election. Of these eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds, only twenty-three percent stated that they regularly learned something about the election from the nightly network news, down from thirty-nine percent in 2000 ("Cable and Internet Loom Large"). In contrast, twenty-one percent claimed to receive their regular campaign news from comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ("Cable and Internet Loom Large"). Presumably, they are among the one million-plus viewers who continue to tune in to the latter program each night.2 These figures tell us that one out of five young adults prefers to receive his or her news from self-described "fake news" than get their news from the news (more on this phrasing is discussed below). This phenomenon has not gone unnoticed, particularly since The Daily Show, currently the most prominent news parody, was awarded a Peabody for its coverage of the 2000 election, two Emmys for comedy writing, a Television Critics Association nomination (alongside Nightline and 60 Minutes) for outstanding achievement in news and information, and Newsweek crowned "fake host" Jon Stewart one of the twenty-five biggest influencers of the 2004 election. But over the roar of hype, criticism, and adulation, a fairly predictable question is being heard: Is The Daily Show news or isn't it? And while this question is a nod in the right direction, wading into the binary of "is it or isn't it" news is not the best way to obtain logical answers. Rather, if the news is how we construct our political reality-and that news tells us that "fake news" is now one of the most influential constructors of this reality-determining how this fake news is formally different from conventional news and ascertaining the precise nature of the relationship between the two will lead us to much more urgent and productive questions. In an effort to tackle these questions, this investigation of The Daily Show (TDS) proceeds through roughly five different stages, or critical frameworks. The analysis begins by demonstrating that TDS's parody can be formally understood as manipulating, and consequently laying bare, the gatekeeping processes of news organizations. Then, because TDS's methodology is to operate on materials that have already appeared on other programs and mediums, media scholars Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's conception of remediation is brought in to better articulate the nuances of TDS's reappropriations. Aware of TDS's current influence and popularity as a news (or antinews) source, the examination turns to consider the limits that genre and parody place upon TDS's project and its critique of the news; similarly, this article considers how the "pseudo" Daniel Boorstin's notion of artificial news events -both emboldens and mutes TDS's critical voice. Finally, recognizing that the news's relationship to TDS is as important as the relationship running the other way, the discussion concludes with what is at stake-rhetorically, formally, and politically-in the news-TDS exchanges and offers some predictions for how these interactions will continue to evolve in the future. But before we begin, a terminological point about the object of analysis must be clarified. The word news can potentially carry significant rhetorical weight and therefore is rightly haggled over. But academic, journalistic, and everyday usage of the term news actually conflates two separate phenomena. …