James Franci2 - Francis 1 James Francis RWS100 Diana...

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James Francis
RWS100
Diana Ferrell
December 14, 2009
An Essay Concerning the Understanding of Modern Media
The Daily Show , is an aptly titled comedic program on the conveniently named Comedy
Central TV channel. In the article “ The Daily Show : Discursive Integration and the Reinvention
of Political Journalism,” by Geoffrey Baym, he explains why, even when this show is at its
silliest, it is still important to the way we learn about the worlds news. Geoffrey Baym is an
associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the department of media
studies. Geoffrey Baym has worked many times as a journalist, news writer, and reporter. This
article was intended to demonstrate the validity of The Daily Show to the general public. In order
to better explain Baym’s ideas and examples I will be examining The Colbert Report , probably
the most popular spinoff of The Daily Show , with the same lens that Geoffrey Baym used in his
article. I will be showing how The Colbert Report uses satire to interrogate power, uses parody to
critique the news, and how the title of “fake news” applies to this show just as it applies to The
Daily Show . For sake of comfort and ease, I will only use one episode of The Colbert Report and
the episode I will be using aired on November 11 th , 2009 and featured stories about Michelle
Obama and Sesame Street.
One of the central ideas presented in Baym’s article is the idea of using satire to
interrogate power. To understand exactly what Baym is trying to say we have to first understand
what the individual words in the phrase mean. We’ll start with satire, satire means using irony,
sarcasm, and wit to expose a vice or folly. So to use satire to interrogate power simply means to

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use comedy and humor to point out the wrong things in sources of power such as the government
or big business. Baym uses The Daily Show to convey this idea to his readers. In his article
Baym points out an instance when this concept was used in an episode of The Daily Show . In
this scene Jon Stewart is mocking then President George W. Bush:
Bush : George Tenet is uh ... is ... a . . .
Stewart : Um, a convenient fall guy ... um ... liability to our intelligence operation.
Bush : the kind of public service, uh, servant, you like to work with.