The episode of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" that I
watched aired on April 10th, 2014. The show opened up with Jon Stewart
congratulating Stephen Colbert for being named the next host of the Late Show
on CBS as he will take over for David Letterman who recently announced that he
will be retiring at the end of 2014. Next, the show gears towards the topic of
college athletes unionizing.
It started by talking about the UCONN Men's and Women's
basketball teams winning their respective Division 1 National Championship.
After the Men's team had won, the star player for the Huskies, Shabazz Napier,
stated in a locker room interview that there are nights where he and his
teammates do not have enough money to eat food. Stewart then brings up the
point that the NCAA, a nonprofit organization, just recently made a deal with
CBS to have full coverage of march madness through the next 14 years. The deal
earned the NCAA 10.8 Billion dollars which will be added to their already
estimated 11 Billion dollars in annual revenues. Stewart makes this point to
draw the irony that the NCAA makes tons of money, is a nonprofit organization,
yet their student athletes that attend national champion schools do not have
enough money to eat food.
Stewart then begins talking about how Northwestern Football
players have been ruled employees of the university in court, which means they can now unionize and earn a
salary for playing football in college. He then makes the point that head
coaches at university's are the nations highest paid state employees as they
bring in an estimated average of 2 Million dollars per year. Stewart again
makes this point to draw the irony that people are against college athletes
being paid, but their coaches are making millions of dollars each year. Stewart
closes out the topic of sports with a video montage of college coaches being
abusive to their student athletes to further his point of irony.
The next part of this episode had to do with political attack ads
that have been made by a couple of state congressmen as of late. All three
congressmen each made separate political ads in which they shot a bill that
they are opposed of with firearms. Stewart expressed his thoughts that these
ads were literally showing congressmen 'murdering' laws. Once again Jon Stewart
expressed the irony that the three guys running for governmental positions have
made television commercials that include them murdering, which against the law,
law documents. He then furthered his point with a comedic video montage of an
interrogation of Obama Care which resulted in the killing of the document.
The final part of this episode included an interview with
Jennifer Gardner. The interview started with a clip from her new movie,
"Draft Day" and a brief explanation of the movie. Gardner then
explained the relationship she has with Stephen Colbert and the experiences she
had with the various actors while making "Draft Day."
In my opinion, comedic news such as "The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart," is very beneficial to society. It is after all a news show that
gives news stories to its audiences. Having the show center itself around
comedy and making jokes about the news stories they are reporting on obviously
makes the audience laugh, but it still delivers the news. You can watch the
show, get a good laugh out of it, and still learn things from the actual
content they talk about. Having the show center itself around comedy can also
help increase the number of people who watch it. This is true because some
people may watch the show to only have a laugh, others may watch it to only be informed of the news, but either way both
categories of viewers are receiving the same news content.
Although Jon Stewart makes a lot of jokes through his ironic
points, it still brings up good arguments. Take the NCAA case for example.
Because of how today's media shows its content, most people who have been
following this case don't see the 'other side' to it. I have been following
along with the NCAA case and I did watch the interview with UCONN's Shabazz
Napier. From just watching any news station such as ESPN, my initial reaction
was "He can't eat because he spends all his money on his
tattoos." Now, after watching Jon
Stewarts show, I can put in perspective the fact that the NCAA makes billions
of dollars. I can now draw a different conclusion; "Maybe the NCAA should
fund student athletes for meals."
In conclusion, I do think that "The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart" and other shows alike is beneficial to society because it brings
up valid points that sometimes can be overlooked, although it does so in a
comedic type of way.
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