I missed this:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2104473/But after the commercial break, something unforeseeable happened on Nightline: an anchorman showdown! What began as a casual media-on-the-media puff piece turned into a fascinating five-minute referendum on old and new ways of looking at the meaning and purpose of television news. In a one-on-one chat on the deserted convention floor after the day's festivities had ended, Koppel, in his low-key, dignified, What-Me-Worry way, got medieval on Stewart's ass.
From the start, Koppel made no secret of his distaste for Stewart's show: "A lot of television viewers—more, quite frankly, than I am comfortable with—get their news from <…> The Daily Show." His first challenge to Stewart: "You say that
is like a product launch." "Not like a product launch—it is a product launch," Stewart replied, and proceeded to outline his take on Kerry's nomination as the result of a year-long process of corporate branding: "John Kerry: now with lemon!" A pretty standard line of argument for those of Stewart's generation, reconciled as we are to our postmodern condition as the constant targets of marketing and spin, but to Koppel, it must have sounded like the sheerest nihilism. As the interview proceeded, it became clear what a gulf lay between Stewart's and Koppel's views of the world, and it was heartbreaking to watch, like eavesdropping on your cool brother and your nice uncle as they pursue some hopeless ideological argument over Thanksgiving dinner.
"Unexpected things used to happen in the world. They don't happen anymore," continued Stewart matter-of-factly. Parried an impatient Koppel, "Oh, sure they do." Stewart was careful to separate The Daily Show's mandate from that of "real" television journalism: "I know my role. I am the dancing monkey." But that dodge didn't satisfy his broadcast-news interlocuter: "The reality of it is—and this is no joke—there are a lot of people out there who do turn to you." "Not for news," Stewart countered, and they were off again.
What was at stake in this debate between two men, a generation apart in age (Stewart is 42, Koppel 64), both of whom host some version of a late-night daily talk show on current events? Clearly, Koppel's beef went far beyond the question of whether most folks who watch The Daily Show do so for yuks. (As a long-term viewer, I would contend that of course they do, and that anyone who can't tell the difference between Stewart's out-there satire and actual investigative reporting is too dumb to understand the "real" news anyway.) No, the battle of the network anchors was about nothing less than the future of TV journalism.
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