Jon Stewart described his second to last episode of "The Daily Show" as "the one everyone will probably forget." But for those viewers like me it will be impossible to forget every event, joke, and inquiry Stewart brought to the world at 11 pm every Monday through Thursday night.
When Stewart began hosting The Daily Show 16 years ago, the country’s perception of the media and it’s government was almost as bad as it is today, and Stewart was the late night voice that was on our side. His dramatic monologues, goofy impressions, and New Yorker/New Jersian attitude made him THE guy to watch. As he coaxed his viewers into laughing, he at the same time tricked us into opening our eyes to the bigger picture.
Despite whether you love or hate Jon Stewart there is no denying the fact that he cultivated a style of reporting that was unafraid and funny at the same time, creating a type of freedom that every journalist craves. He beat the typical formulated 22-minute newscast, and captivated the younger generation of voters. Reporters for the major networks he questioned can’t go on television and say ‘so and so is a liar’ or tell someone ‘go to hell’ no matter how mad or justified they are, but that’s what he did.
Stewart was unafraid to be passionate on television, from his hatred of eating pizza with a fork and knife (cough cough Donald Trump), to telling Fox News "Go f-ck yourself" with a gospel choir.
It was outrageous, but it didn’t make his point any less valid.
What may be viewed as one of the most cringe worthy interviews on the show, Stewart questioned CNBC’s "Mad Money" Jim Cramer in 2009 about his financial coverage leading up to the countries economic collapse. Cramer claimed on the show he tries to do what "The Daily Show" does in exposing "stuff" to get financial regulators to look at it. Stewart responded by rolling a clip of Cramer on camera encouraging subprime mortgages as “a quick and legal way to make money”. Stewart finished that interview by telling Cramer “I understand you want to make finance entertaining, but this isn’t a f-cking game. When I watch that, I can’t tell you how angry that makes me because what it says to me is you all know.”
In 2010, Stewart brought four 9/11 first responders on the show to talk about their feelings on the 111th Congress’s attempt to filibuster the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, a bill designed to aid those who became ill from working at ground zero. Stewart talked about the serious health conditions, including cancer, heart, brain, and respiratory issues, these four men suffered from 9/11. Stewart talked about how none of the Republican senators took the senate floor to explain why they would filibuster this bill, except for Republican Senator Mitch McConnell who simply went on the floor to give an emotional tribute to retiring Senator Judd Gregg. Stewart ended the segment saying “Gentlemen I can not thank you enough. All I can do is, I feel like apologizing to all of you and I’m not even sure why. It’s an absolute travesty.” Stewart was later credited with helping to get the bill passed.
Last September, Stewart talked about the media’s perception of President Obama as the sitting commander and chief. At the time both Republican and Democratic politicians agreed the president should be seeking congressional approval for more action against growing terror group ISIS.
However, many news stations decided to shed more light on the fact that President Obama saluted troops with a coffee up in his hand as he exited Air Force One. Stewart called out these news stations, criticizing one network in particular. Fox news continued their extensive coverage on what they called the ‘Latte Salute’ calling the president ‘disrespectful’ ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘un presidential.’ Stewart claimed they didn’t really care saying “You have no principal about this. You are just trying to score points in a game that no one is playing, and here is how we know.” Stewart showed a clip of Fox’s Eric Bolling preaching the message that these men and women are putting their lives at risk and that the president needs to show them the respect they deserve. Later on that very same program, Bolling describes the first female pilot to drop bombs on ISIS as “Boobs on the ground.”
Stewart compared Obama to President Bush when he saluted troops while carrying his dog. He went even deeper as to saying both of these presidents took U.S. forces against two terror groups with no exit strategy. He ended his monologue by publicly saying,“F-ck you and all of your false patriotism. When Bush took us to war any criticism was shouted as treasonous.”
It were the moments like these that Stewart stood up and changed the way we saw what the government wasn’t doing for us and what the media was feeding us.
Stewart’s long time friend Stephen Colbert gave his personal thank saying, “Here is the thing Jon, you said to me and to many other people here years ago never to thank you because we owe you nothing. It is one of the few times I’ve known you to be dead wrong. We owe you because we learned from you by example how to do a show with intention, and how to work with clarity, how to treat people with respect. You are infuriatingly good at your job. And all of us who were lucky enough to work with you for 16 years are better at our jobs because we got to watch you do yours.”
It is almost comedic irony that Stewart would be leaving his pedestal of humor the night of the first Republican primary debate, featuring his favorite object of ridicule Donald Trump. However, Stewart will be living the show at an all time high with whole lot of material for predecessor Trevor Noah to work with.
Stewart ended his final show telling his devoted viewers, crew and cast members, “An artist who I really admire once said, he thinks of his career as an long conversation with the audience, a dialogue, and I really like that metaphor for many different reasons. But the main one is because it takes away the idea of finality. This is just a conversation. This show isn’t ending. We are merely taking a small pause in the conversation. A conversation, which by the way I have hogged.”
In your honor Jon we will continue that conversation, but feel free to join in again any time. Thank you for your service.
