Jon Stewart appeared in his first Sunday morning news show interview ever with Chris Wallace, and unlike his often entertaining and jovial encounters with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, this confrontation was a bit more heated. Wallace opened the segment suggesting to Stewart “you love to take shots at Fox News” and from there Wallace was determined to get Stewart to admit that the mainstream media has a liberal bias. Yet Stewart refused to believe that anyone in the media is as “relentlessly activist” as Fox News. Stewart maintained that besides possibly MSNBC, no media organization is in any way close to being as agenda-driven as Fox News. Despite multiple attempts by Wallace to convince Stewart of a liberal bias in the mainstream media, Stewart argued the “bias of the mainstream media is towards sensationalism, conflict and laziness.” And as proof of a lack of partisanship, Stewart suggested the media “jumped into the Weiner pool with such delight and such relish.” The conversation got a bit more personal as Stewart and Wallace shared thoughts on how they viewed each other. Wallace declared “I think you want to be a political player.” Stewart responded “dead wrong” and reiterated that he is a comedian first. And then he admitted himself, “the embarrassment is that I’m given credibility in this world because of the disappointment that the public has in what the news media does.” Stewart returned fire at Fox News, but by complimenting Wallace in the process:
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=110431