Tuesday, November 17, 2009

‘Daily Show’ Producers, Writers Say They’re Seriou s about Media Criticism

'Daily Show' Producers, Writers Say They're Serious about Media Criticism

http://mediachannel.org/blog/2009/11/daily-show-producers-writers-say-theyre-serious-about-media-criticism/

[excerpt]

"Daily Show" producer Ramin Hedayati spends his morning flipping back and
forth between the "Today Show" and "The Early Show," glancing at major
news sites and political blogs and reading The New York Times. When he
gets into the office, he scans through news shows recorded on the office's
13 TiVos and looks for glaring inconsistencies, misleading reports and
humorous soundbites.

While watching Sean Hannity's coverage of an anti-health-care-reform rally
at the Capitol last week, he knew something wasn't quite right. "I
remember saying to myself …'There couldn't be a more beautiful day for
this rally.' Then all of a sudden it went to cloudy footage," said
Hedayati. "Hannity used footage from Glenn Beck's 9/12 rally to make his
rally look bigger … We were surprised that no one else caught it."

Hannity responded last week to the show's uncovering of the inconsistency,
saying the video switch-up was an "inadvertent mistake."

While its touts itself as a comedy show first and foremost, "The Daily
Show" is also an unabashed media critic and ombudsman of sorts that
exposes journalists' wrongdoings and shortcomings.

No comments: