Yes, its true. An era is ending.
Jon Stewart, who hosted the Daily Show—the “fake news” program on Comedy Central—for the past 17 years, announced he was stepping down yesterday. Jon Stewart, the Jewish kid from New Jersey whose wit and satire helped shed light on the hypocrisies of government and society, who became for a generation a primary news source, who though humor took on the most serious of subjects, is moving on to new projects.
At seemingly the same time, NBC announced that Brian Williams, the host of NBC Nightly News for the past 10 years will be suspended without pay for six months after it was recently revealed that he had misrepresented facts of a helicopter incident while he was covering the war in Iraq in 2003. While he had claimed that he was travelling on a helicopter that was brought down by a rocket propelled grenade, it recently came to light that he was not entirely truthful in his account.
In a way, both of these stories can point to the blurring of the lines between news and entertainment. Stewart, who always claimed that he was not meant to be a “real” news outlet and was anchoring an entertainment show, nevertheless provided real social commentary that both reported and reflected the zeitgeist.
At the same time, Williams, who is one of the most well respected news anchors today since taking over the anchor chair from Tom Brokaw a decade ago, played off that serious persona to comic and entertaining effects. He made the rounds on Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock and as a frequent guest on the Daily Show. One wonders if his attraction to the world of entertainment led him to embellish the facts of his experiences.
The “real news” pursues entertainment, while the “fake news” pursues seriousness. As I joked on Facebook yesterday commenting on the parallel announcements, “Maybe Jon Stewart has been tapped to take over NBC Nightly News.”
But it would be too easy to draw these dichotomies. It is hard to say what is “the news” and what is “entertainment.” The elements of both are found in the other. Hard news is conveyed in entertaining ways, either though colorful graphics and flashy presentation, and entertainment sometimes reflects and comments on real events.
And perhaps we need a mix of both; the Torah tells us as much. In the weekly Torah reading this week, portion
Mishpatim
, Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the Torah from God. God enumerates all of the different laws (“mishpatim”) and practices that the people are to follow. We then read, in Exodus 24:3-8,
Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of God and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, “All the things that God has commanded we will do!” Moses then wrote down all the commands of God. Early in the morning, he set up an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He designated some young men among the Israelites, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as offerings of well-being to God. Moses took one part of the blood and put it in basins, and the other part of the blood he dashed against the altar. Then he took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that God has spoken we will faithfully do!” Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that God now makes with you concerning all these commands.”
The laws are serious. But the laws are delivered with pomp and spectacle. The Torah is telling us something about ourselves that Stewart and Williams confirm: we like our news, and we like our entertainment. And indeed, we can’t have one without the other.
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Torah
Pronunced: TORE-uh, Origin: Hebrew, the Five Books of Moses.
