• Newsweek, Thursday, November 19, 2009 11:36 PM

In just the span of a short few years, "Jon Stewart has gone from optional to indispensable," writes NBC news anchor Brian Williams. Most important is the system of checks and balances that Stewart and "The Daily Show" have created.

Williams explains it this way: "On occasion, when we've been on the cusp of doing something completely inane on "NBC Nightly News," I will gently suggest to my colleagues that we simply courier the tape over to Jon's office, to spare "The Daily Show" interns the time and trouble of logging our broadcast that night. That usually gets us to rethink the inane segment we were planning on airing."

For the past several years, there's been another step added to arc of a news story - "being held to account for our faults by a comedy show with a sharp eye and a sharp tongue. How did we live without it?" Williams asks.

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