If you haven’t watched the final episode of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” you might want to devote an hour of your day to do so.
While Stewart’s departure from the show is soul-crushing as is, it is vital to understand the legacy he has created during the last 16 years.
Too often we accept what we see as fact, especially when it comes to the Internet, the media and the news.
But Stewart has challenged journalism by asking the hard questions we ourselves might be too afraid to think about.
To say the lines between the news and entertainment have been blurred is an understatement.
However, this continues to go without question or acknowledgement.
But that’s where Stewart reminds us to take a big step back and take a second, more critical look.
We forget to ask questions and to think critically.
Everyday, we are bombarded with new information, and one might be surprised by how much of it is either entirely false or skewed somehow.
The Washington Post even prints a weekly breakdown of Internet falsification in “What was fake on the Internet this week,” because so much information is.
The amount of catastrophic celebrity deaths I’ve seen on Twitter is getting absurd, to be frank.
That’s where Stewart steps in once again.
While the news was “phony,” his message couldn’t be clearer.
His show became so much more than cracking jokes at blundering public officials or Fox News — it created a forum for discussion and an opportunity to instigate change.
For 16 years, Stewart unapologetically called out politicians for their two-facedness and hypocrisy.
He has fueled the minds of young Americans to become more diligent in how they receive and analyze information.
In the finale, Stewart urged his viewers never to accept misinformation.
He delivered his final monologue with a ferocity and straightforwardness that could not be interpreted as a gag, but rather as a lesson.
“Bullshit is everywhere,” Stewart said, and proceeded to break it down into three categories.
There is the premeditated, institutionalized misinformation, in which bad things are made to sound like a good thing.
Stewart listed the Patriot Act as an example.
Next comes hiding the bad things under “mountains of bullshit,” followed by the misinformation of infinite possibility.
But Stewart told his audience not to worry — misinformers have become pretty lazy, and their work is easily detectable.
The best defense is vigilance, he said.
“So if you smell something, say something,” Stewart said.
“The Daily Show” has provided not only comedic relief to counteract the senseless tragedies our world has seen, but it has also become a medium for information distribution, especially for young people.
And that is so important.
Stewart is the most authentic and honest “fake newsman” America has ever encountered.
He was the watchdog that we truly needed.
nrowthor@indiana.edu
