On a substantive level, the Kerik development was easily the most significant, since Giuliani’s long-standing patronage of a man with alleged mob ties raises serious questions about his ability to run the country. But all three developments positively seethed fake-news potential. And now — for a certain segment of the population — it’s almost like they never happened.
Or is it? Steve Bodow, The Daily Show’s head writer, admits that it’s frustrating watching choice material go untapped. (He calls the November 15 Democratic debate in Las Vegas a “big meatball,” and says Giuliani is becoming “quite a resource.”) But Bodow adds that he’s skeptical of studies that identify The Daily Show as a primary news source for any group. “I don’t have any statistical knowledge or anything, but it seems implausible to me,” he tells the Phoenix. “It seems like the type of thing people might be prone to say because it seems like a fun thing to say, rather than because it’s actually true.”
This is a deceptively subtle argument: since The Daily Show is now a dominant media brand for twentysomethings, it’s not implausible that twentysomethings would brand themselves by exaggerating their relationship to it. But Bodow’s skepticism itself needs to be treated skeptically. After all, one way for Bodow and other fake-news purveyors to guard against increased expectations that might accompany increased influence is to downplay those claims of influence, or dismiss them as exaggerated. (Stewart himself did this when the Pew study was released in 2004, saying that a lot of the respondents were “probably high,” according to the Associated Press.)
Another point worth pondering, as the fake-news drought stretches on, is the distinction between the medium’s various purveyors. “I would make a delineation between Leno and Letterman and Conan and the Colberts, the Stewarts, even Bill Maher,” argues Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism (and a former Phoenix staffer). “By the time [the first group is] commenting on current affairs, caricaturing political leaders, or joking about them, they’re essentially codifying public opinion that’s congealed for a while. These are still, at their heart and soul, mainstream media outlets; they’re not looking to insult people or be seen as ideological. Having said that, once they go after a guy — once they create a political narrative of some sort — you’re in trouble. That’s a sure sign it’s reached critical mass.”
Silent scream
The flip side of this argument is that Stewart, Colbert, and Maher are edgier than their late-night network counterparts: quicker to the punch, more ideological. But these characterizations come with asterisks, too. Julia Fox, the Indiana University associate professor who authored the aforementioned study on The Daily Show’s substance, insists that — Stewart’s 2004 endorsement of John Kerry notwithstanding — The Daily Show doesn’t have a liberal bias. Instead, she contends, “it has bias against people with political power who aren’t using it properly. And since the Republicans have been in charge of most things since it’s been such a popular show, they’re often the target of it.”
