It was a sign of how inept and skewed the Bush-era news media was that a comic who loved to make jokes about Arby’s and Chicago pizza was shoved into the spotlight as the only man behind a desk you could trust. It's hard to blame Stewart for clearly struggling with the position he’d been forced into. It was a stance that wore thin for many, especially as Stewart conducted in-depth and pressing interviews with politicians and news figures alike. Even as he became, rather, unfortunately, “the most trusted name in news,” Stewart would pull back from the precipice to insist that he was just a comedian. The thing that Stewart was most widely criticized for was his unwillingness to embrace the seriousness that his unique position had evolved into. This was a comparison that wasn't lost on Cenac, who tweeted a clip of himself saying (opens in new tab), “If you want somebody to take a Black guy saying something meaningful on TV seriously, you really need to have a white guy say basically the same thing right after.”
#The jon steward show series#
Cenac would later go on to create his own show, Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, on HBO, to which Stewart's new series bears some striking similarities. Former Daily Show writer and correspondent Wyatt Cenac revealed how Stewart told him (opens in new tab) to "f**k off" during a heated argument about race. He was frequently called out for how overwhelmingly white and male his writer’s room was and how that influenced the way he talked about issues like gender and race.
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Stewart was a man with some major blind spots. It’s more a question of how the conversation has changed, evolved in a way that doesn’t leave much room for Stewart’s particular brand. This is not to deny or downplay the immense legacy and good work of Stewart, which includes a vast amount of political lobbying on behalf of 9/11 survivors.
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How does Stewart fit into this crowded field now, the one he helped to birth? He’s no longer the only person sitting at the table, but is there room for another seat?