• by Staff Writers , February 22, 2008

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Author Jeffrey Scheuer, whose recently published book The Big Picture (Routledge, $24.95) examines how democracies need excellence in journalism, does not suffer fake news gladly. Though he states in his book, “If journalism were strictly limited to objective truth, it would not be journalism as we know it and could tell no stories,” he doesn’t take kindly to a dilution of the facts. We’re also pretty sure he’d be a big fan of The Colbert Report’s “The Wørd” segments since he writes, “It is hard to achieve much certainty, objectivity or neutrality in any enterprise … that centrally involves the uses of language. Language itself is a vast, complex array of choices, and choice is the quintessence of subjectivity.” Clearly though, he is not one to mince words. Chop, maybe. Dice, surely. 

What is Stephen Colbert’s role in journalism?

Stephen Colbert is a comedian, albeit a very topical and political one. As such, his work amounts to a kind of commentary, but it isn’t journalism by any stretch. He spins issues, and keeps them in the public eye, but he doesn’t report, analyze or synthesize in any conventional way that we call news. That remains an important distinction if journalism is to survive.

A media person told us, “As far as I’m concerned, The Colbert Report is real news.”

That’s preposterous. 

Well, his rationale was that a viewer must be informed to understand the show.

News is timely information that is gathered, organized and transmitted — not comedy, however topical. It is not a message type that depends on an already-informed audience to receive it. This person is really confused. Of course, some people are incidentally informed through Colbert, Stewart, et al., but they would know a lot more if they got the news firsthand from journalism before listening to those shows.

Should advertisers fear the audience might be more cynical toward a direct message?

Yes. Probably they are more cynical vis-à-vis commercial advertising (though perhaps not more cynical in general) than the audience for, say, Letterman or Leno.

What appeals to people about these shows is that they are refreshing, ironic, and don’t take the world as seriously as journalists do and must. They pierce the armor of both journalism and politics with their irreverence and inanity, and echo some ordinary people’s feelings — such as contempt, ridicule, disgust, frivolity — that don’t get expressed in the more serious discourse.