Like a lot of you, I discovered The Daily Show when I was in college (or maybe it was on a trip to the beach, when the house my family was staying at happened to have Comedy Central...anyway, for the purposes of this story, let's say college). I was charmed by the "fake news" format, the skewering of a tired old dinosaur of news-gathering, the nightly news. The host was tall, blond, a former Sports Center guy who seemed like he would coast on this gig for a while.
I'm talking about Craig Kilborn, the original host of the show. I went to college for the first time a long, long time ago.
But then, things were different: I thought I'd manage to finagle my way into a job on Conan O'Brien's NBC show as a writer, so I neglected class. You can already tell how that turned out without me going into further detail. Kilborn and the Daily Show were required viewing in my college dorm room, mostly because my roommate for my first semester liked to stay up late and I...I had eight o'clock class. In the morning. No wonder I didn't feel like attending. At any rate, Comedy Central was something that I didn't have back in old Walhalla, not anymore (we'd had CC back when we first got cable, twenty-five years ago, but it wasn't really "Comedy Central" yet). And when I flunked out and had to return home with my tail between my legs, it was something that I didn't have again, until about 2005 or 2006.
By then, of course, Kilborn was long gone (first to CBS, then into the yawning void that characterizes formerly famous people as "has-been." I'm sure he'll have a reality show before all is said and done). Jon Stewart, whom I was aware of only as a middling actor in some films I kinda avoided (he was in some Adam Sandler movies, and Death to Smoochie), was the host of the show, and he had become a force of nature by taking on the Bush administration's criminal war in Iraq. I'd bought the book America without having seen the show because, well, I just had a feeling that it was in my outrage wheelhouse. 2004 was probably the angriest-at-Bush I had ever been (especially when the asshole won a second term, I was livid), and that Daily Show book soothed my heartbroken liberal soul.
So we got Comedy Central sometime in 2005 or 2006, because the good people at Northland figured I and my grandparents had had our fill of CMT ("hey, it's a channel, I guess") and other lousy programming options. We also got VH1 (and I was able to reconnect with music and care about it again up until Iggy Azalea came along). But Comedy Central meant The Daily Show, as well as (eventually, because I didn't like it at first) The Colbert Report.
I won't bore you with the near-decade then that I've had to watch the show under Stewart's tenure, nor the moments that made me laugh hardest or made me think the most (sometimes they were both in the same act). And with Trevor Noah coming in to take over, it's not like The Daily Show is dying. But it feels like it.
I know that, during the time I wasn't able to see the show (yes, I know, there's this thing called "the internet" with all kinds of videos of cats playing keyboards and other nonsense, but be patient with me), Stewart steered the show away from the genial mockery of the Kilborn era into a more potent, more focused attack on the media and on the ways in which certain administrations (like, oh I don't know, the Bush one) manipulated that media for their own benefit. A lot of those same outlets seem to be tripping over themselves to damn with faint praise Stewart as he embarks on his final week of shows. I saw something on Fox News (if ever there was a "fake news outlet," it's those jackholes) where the once reputable Howard Kurtz tried to say that Stewart's "secret meetings" with Obama were a big deal. This is the same network that practically lived in Dick Cheney's sphincter from 2001 to 2008...anyway, the fact is that yes, Stewart is a leftie (and not just in terms of which hand he writes with). So what? News itself, the real deal, has been moving away from "objective" reporting for so long that I can't even begin to think of when it last was indeed objective (Ancient Sumer, maybe?). Bill O'Reilly is the right's Jon Stewart, only not funny on purpose. Sean Hannity is Colbert's character without the irony. And your point is what, exactly?
For as much as I'll miss Stewart when he made me laugh, it won't mean as much without the moments when something happened that was terrible, and I anticipated that evening's or that week's first new episode, to see his commentary about it. The most recent, on the shootings in my home state, might rank as just the most honest moment in news on the entire event, because the "agenda" Stewart was pushing that night was just outrage that this shit continues to happen, and that we don't seem willing to do anything about it (oh, we're able. Don't let anyone tell you we're not). I know Trevor Noah will do his best to fill that void (and Larry Wilmore, on The Nightly Show, is easily the peer of Stewart when it comes to showing outrage at horrific events, while still trying to save us all with the comedy that makes such tragedies bearable). But it won't be the same.
During Jon Stewart's tenure, he seemed to age well beyond his years. He's fifty-two, I think, but he looks far, far older. Trying to make sense of all the crap that passes for "news" these days will do that to a man, I'm sure, and I think he deserves a rest. But goddam it, I need him around to mock the powerful and unrepentant as he's done for fifteen years (almost ten of which I got to see). Imagine what he could do with a Trump presidency...oh lord, if that's what it takes to get him to come back, let him stay retired.
At any rate, the world of news (fake or otherwise) is better off for Stewart's tenure. You may disagree, but that's your opinion. And if you think Stewart was bad for this country, well...what's say you and me go get a meal down at Arby's? You know what, you go ahead and eat that roast beef sandwich, I can wait.
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