The Daily Show and the 2016 Elections

Who is actually left to replace Jon Stewart? He has won 19 Emmys, a Grammy for Best Comedy Album Award, and two Peabody awards over the course of his hosting of The Daily Show. He will retire from the show at the end of the year. The Colbert Report, a spin-off of The Daily Show, ended late in 2014 when Stephen Colbert retired after 1,447 episodes. Long-time correspondents Jason Jones, Jessica Williams, and Samantha Bee are all out of the running. Former fan favourite John Oliver is also out of the running due to the success of his show Last Week Tonight.

While The Daily Show intends to continue with a new host, there are some massive shoes to fill. The Guardian said of Stewart, “to some Americans he is the most trusted man in the US since the iconic news anchor, Walter Cronkite, told the country that the Vietnam War was a lost cause.” Don’t underestimate the show because it’s satire. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report still represent high-quality reporting, delivered in a way that is entertaining and easy to understand.

This is why the 2016 U.S. elections seem precarious. The Brian Williams scandal tainted the reputation of NBC. The infamously biased sources of Fox and MSNBC are more entertainment and sensationalist than fact-based at this point. While still comedy, The Daily Show provides a solid foundation on which to poke holes into the arguments of prominent politicians in a constructive and logical manner.

Neither Jon Stewart nor Stephen Colbert will be covering next year’s U.S. election. While the previously mentioned Last Week Tonight is also a news satire show, it is focused more on general issues than politics specifically. There will be a huge void for both political satire and factual reporting that will have to be filled by members who have far less experience than their predecessors. As correspondents plan to leave The Daily Show when Stewart does, it is very likely that the satire will have an entirely different approach and style. It is also very likely that these efforts will be worse, given the high praise and accolades of the current staff.

How do you replace one of the most trusted men in the U.S.? You could ask the more casual members of the audience to embrace other sources to become informed and lift some of the responsibility off political satire if it were not for the lack of other options. You could ask the next generation of the show to live up to the Jon Stewart standard if that task did not seem nearly impossible.

Is the possibility of being a bit more blissfully ignorant one that you are willing to accept? Can you really afford to not know what is going on with our neighbours to the south? Everyone’s solution should be different. You could decide to filter out sources in favour of those more trusted, follow the filter of social media for trends, or increase your scope to lesser known publications. Maybe your solution does not involve any of these. The only consistency needed is the understanding that Jon Stewart might mean more to your understanding of American politics than you realize.