Jon Stewart was on Fresh Air on Monday night, with Terry Gross. The show was taped last Wednesday in front of a live audience at New York City’s 92nd Street Y (which means the interview occurred before the Rick Sanchez issue, so that little topic will not be mentioned).
Stewart is in high form on the show-–but also straightforward in his answers to Terry’s questions about what he does and how and why he does it.
Some of my own favorite moments:
When talking about the highly structured nature of his and the staff’s high scheduled writing day. (From about minute 16:01 on.)
I’m a real believe that creativity comes from limits, not freedom.
(No. This is not some bizarrely ironic First Amendment comment. It’s a nature-of-creative-work comment and, for the record, I agree with it entirely.)
Another interesting moment came in response to Terry’s contention that Daily Show often engages in good journalism, which Stewart denied:
We don’t fact check—and we don’t look at context,—because of journalistic criterion that we feel has to be met; we do that because jokes don’t work if they’re lies. …So it’s not because we have journalistic integrity. Hopefully we have comedic integrity that we don’t want to violate.
And then there is this:
I have become increasingly unnerved by just the depth of corruption that exists at many different levels. I’m less upset by politicians than the media. When you go to the zoo and the monkey throws his feces….its a monkey. But when the zoo keeper’s standing right there and he doesn’t say “bad monkey….”
Somebody’s got to be the zoo keeper. So I tend to feel much more strongly about the abdication of responsibility by the media, than by political advocates….”
You’re missing out if you don’t listen to the whole thing, but if you only listen to one part, tee up the section starting at minute 40:45—when Terry asks Stewart if he has had any peak moments on the show.
His answer is not funny or clever or satirical, it’s…well…just listen, okay? Just do it.
(And, yes, of course this is a social justice issue. What in the world else would it be?)