Jon Stewart vs. The News Media

3 May ’07

If you’ve been wondering about the return of Bill Moyers to PBS on Bill Moyers Journal, the answer is decidedly “yes” – it was, in fact, darned strange comparing Moyers’ interview of Jon Stewart (in which Stewart presented (and rightly so) as a forthright, sensible and intelligent observer of the news media and purveyor of news), to the portrayal of the news media Moyers presented in the series’ inaugural show on the media’s incompetent reporting of – or complicity in – the U.S. Government’s selling of the Iraq War.

It’s one thing to see the Web turning the news media on its head by sheer force of technology, but it’s quite another to watch the news media eagerly abandoning the credibility that is (was?) perhaps its only enduring advantage in the battle it faces against newcomers, and quite simply leaving the field open to anyone who wants it. Anyone like Josh Marshall and the rest of his contributors at the TPM properties, who were also covered in a recent episode on Moyers’ show.

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