I'm extremely disappointed in The Daily Show for a segment they ran last night on the Buzzfeed/Mueller and Covington Catholic confrontation stories.
Trevor Noah started the segment mentioning Donald Trump's oft-repeated line of the mainstream media only reporting "fake news" about him. He segued from that to a couple of stories he felt constituted as "fake-ish" news.
As most even semi-active political listeners know by now, Buzzfeed recently reported that Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. In a very rare move, a spokesperson for the special counsel, Bob Mueller, responded by saying the report wasn't entirely accurate. Speculation then ensued on what about the report wasn't accurate, if it was a minute detail or something much larger. Buzzfeed has since defended its reporting, claiming it's 100% accurate and time will showcase that. I've strayed away from writing about this story because I want to know all the facts before doing so. In saying that, I think it was premature for Noah and the writers at The Daily Show to call Buzzfeed's report "fake-ish news." Ironically, Noah said something along the lines of, "Media outlets shouldn't rush to report a story until they have all the necessary information from credible sources. It's not about being first; it's about getting things right." I agree with all those points. However, Noah and company aren't abiding to their own advice here. Not all the facts have been relayed unto the public regarding the matter, so how can we rightfully determine with any degree of certainty that the Buzzfeed report is or is not fully accurate? Simple, we can't, and unlike The Daily Show, I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers. I'm simply going to wait things out and see what all the evidence provides me first - you know, what Trevor Noah suggested I do but didn't do himself.
While their take on the Buzzfeed report irritated me slightly, that was nothing compared to the disappointment I felt with their take on the Covington Catholic confrontation from this past weekend. Noah opened the piece by saying everyone got this story wrong. Brief clips were then played of the Covington Catholic students being shown in a negative light, with no mention of Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips' take on the situation. Brief clips were then played of Black Hebrew Israelites being shown in a negative light, with student Nick Sandmann seemingly dictating via a response he had written for him but for which he took credit. Noah concluded the matter by basically saying, "The kids didn't surround Nathan Phillips; Nathan Phillips approached them. Here's a situation where everyone was a jerk to each other."
This was a one-sided segment which provided me with flashbacks of Donald Trump contending that "both sides" were to blame during the Charlottesville protests, where a Trump protester was run over by a Trump supporter and killed as a result. The writing was lazy and the conclusion was, for lack of a better phrase, chicken-sh*t. The Covington Catholic students and Black Hebrew Israelites hurled insults at one another. Nathan Phillips, a veteran, was fearful of what might happen if the tensions between the two groups continued to escalate, so he decided to get in the middle and play some music in an attempt to defuse the situation. Insults were then hurled by the two before-mentioned groups toward the Natives, who were participating in a peaceful Indigenous Peoples March. From what I've seen and heard, the only negative comment any of the Natives uttered was, "Go back to Europe!" This was likely in response to one of the students shouting, "Go back to your reservation" and "Build a wall!" While other students jumped around, did the tomahawk chop, and provided over-the-top vocals to mock Mr. Phillips, Nick Sandmann just stood there, with a smirk that could be seen from space. He claims, like Mr. Phillips did, he was merely trying to defuse the situation. Give me a break. Two groups are throwing nasty insults at one another, an elderly man with drums tries intervening by playing a song, and a member of one group attempts to defuse the defuser by looking at him smugly? Yeah, okay... According to Noah's logic, if two people are shoving one another, about to engage in a fist-fight and a third party comes between them and tries to defuse the situation, he/she is apparently at fault for said shoving/fight. Yeah, that makes sense... Why did Noah and the writers at The Daily Show seem to only believe and report the young Nick Sandmann's account? Why didn't they take Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips's words into account as well? While watching this segment, I had to check the guide to make certain I was watching Comedy Central and not Fox News. No, the Covington Catholic students weren't the only ones at fault during this heated exchange, but to give them a pass and paint them as victims because of this is irresponsible on multiple fronts. To also paint the Indigenous Peoples March participants with the same brush as the other two groups is being blind to reality. They were there for peace, while the other two groups were not. I'm sorry, but a person who is a part of a march to take away women's rights while wearing a hat which symbolizes racism, sexism, and xenophobia, he isn't there to promote peace.
In the future, Daily Show writers, if you don't have all the necessary information to provide a full picture of a viral story like the two mentioned in this post, perhaps you should heed your own advice and wait for all the facts to be known before airing a segment on it.
Trevor Noah started the segment mentioning Donald Trump's oft-repeated line of the mainstream media only reporting "fake news" about him. He segued from that to a couple of stories he felt constituted as "fake-ish" news.
As most even semi-active political listeners know by now, Buzzfeed recently reported that Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. In a very rare move, a spokesperson for the special counsel, Bob Mueller, responded by saying the report wasn't entirely accurate. Speculation then ensued on what about the report wasn't accurate, if it was a minute detail or something much larger. Buzzfeed has since defended its reporting, claiming it's 100% accurate and time will showcase that. I've strayed away from writing about this story because I want to know all the facts before doing so. In saying that, I think it was premature for Noah and the writers at The Daily Show to call Buzzfeed's report "fake-ish news." Ironically, Noah said something along the lines of, "Media outlets shouldn't rush to report a story until they have all the necessary information from credible sources. It's not about being first; it's about getting things right." I agree with all those points. However, Noah and company aren't abiding to their own advice here. Not all the facts have been relayed unto the public regarding the matter, so how can we rightfully determine with any degree of certainty that the Buzzfeed report is or is not fully accurate? Simple, we can't, and unlike The Daily Show, I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers. I'm simply going to wait things out and see what all the evidence provides me first - you know, what Trevor Noah suggested I do but didn't do himself.
While their take on the Buzzfeed report irritated me slightly, that was nothing compared to the disappointment I felt with their take on the Covington Catholic confrontation from this past weekend. Noah opened the piece by saying everyone got this story wrong. Brief clips were then played of the Covington Catholic students being shown in a negative light, with no mention of Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips' take on the situation. Brief clips were then played of Black Hebrew Israelites being shown in a negative light, with student Nick Sandmann seemingly dictating via a response he had written for him but for which he took credit. Noah concluded the matter by basically saying, "The kids didn't surround Nathan Phillips; Nathan Phillips approached them. Here's a situation where everyone was a jerk to each other."
This was a one-sided segment which provided me with flashbacks of Donald Trump contending that "both sides" were to blame during the Charlottesville protests, where a Trump protester was run over by a Trump supporter and killed as a result. The writing was lazy and the conclusion was, for lack of a better phrase, chicken-sh*t. The Covington Catholic students and Black Hebrew Israelites hurled insults at one another. Nathan Phillips, a veteran, was fearful of what might happen if the tensions between the two groups continued to escalate, so he decided to get in the middle and play some music in an attempt to defuse the situation. Insults were then hurled by the two before-mentioned groups toward the Natives, who were participating in a peaceful Indigenous Peoples March. From what I've seen and heard, the only negative comment any of the Natives uttered was, "Go back to Europe!" This was likely in response to one of the students shouting, "Go back to your reservation" and "Build a wall!" While other students jumped around, did the tomahawk chop, and provided over-the-top vocals to mock Mr. Phillips, Nick Sandmann just stood there, with a smirk that could be seen from space. He claims, like Mr. Phillips did, he was merely trying to defuse the situation. Give me a break. Two groups are throwing nasty insults at one another, an elderly man with drums tries intervening by playing a song, and a member of one group attempts to defuse the defuser by looking at him smugly? Yeah, okay... According to Noah's logic, if two people are shoving one another, about to engage in a fist-fight and a third party comes between them and tries to defuse the situation, he/she is apparently at fault for said shoving/fight. Yeah, that makes sense... Why did Noah and the writers at The Daily Show seem to only believe and report the young Nick Sandmann's account? Why didn't they take Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips's words into account as well? While watching this segment, I had to check the guide to make certain I was watching Comedy Central and not Fox News. No, the Covington Catholic students weren't the only ones at fault during this heated exchange, but to give them a pass and paint them as victims because of this is irresponsible on multiple fronts. To also paint the Indigenous Peoples March participants with the same brush as the other two groups is being blind to reality. They were there for peace, while the other two groups were not. I'm sorry, but a person who is a part of a march to take away women's rights while wearing a hat which symbolizes racism, sexism, and xenophobia, he isn't there to promote peace.
In the future, Daily Show writers, if you don't have all the necessary information to provide a full picture of a viral story like the two mentioned in this post, perhaps you should heed your own advice and wait for all the facts to be known before airing a segment on it.
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