Jon Stewart + Bernard Goldberg =
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, MediaI just watched a great, reasoned interview about Bernard’s newest sermon:
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.
Stewart immediately points out that a large majority of the people on Bernard’s list are liberals, with few conservatives on the list. Bernard doesn’t really have much of a comeback for this, aside from the reasoning that he’s focusing more on the pop culturistas who rap to our kids and use profane language, instead of those who make policy.
However, Infoblink.org breaks down an interesting part of the interview where Bernie throws a few profanities of his own out there.
While discussing bigotry on television, Goldberg began spewing a list of hateful slang against Hispanics (spics), Jews (kikes), and Gays (faggots). It was only until he made an example of Blacks did he choose the phrase “you know what[s]�. Disbelief was experienced by every member of Stewart’s audience, letting out a shocked “oh� as the words left Goldberg’s lips.
In fairness, he was talking about escalation and what if this cultural tsunami (my words, not his) got so strong that we had a “Bigot Channel” on television. But still, I find it odd that he thinks it’s okay to say the first three, but not the fourth.
Anyway, I urge you to watch the interview. Stewart is polite but assertive, and I completely agree with his point that the people in Washington are the ones who exert the most power over the culture, not celebrities who vocally disagree with the President like Barbara Streisand and Tim Robbins.
Pick Quicktime or Windows Media.
This entry was posted on Saturday, July 16th, 2005 and is filed under General Politics, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 16th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
I have to agree with Stewart. People in Washington, deciding what to do with a 2 Trillion dollar federal budget, making decisions about how we (the people) make money, invest, have kids, decide to die, medicate ourselves have far, far, far more influence on our daily lives. I think most people see people like Michael Moore and Barbara Streisand as having much influence because the are media creations and in the public eye. If we get too focused on these people we are really “taking our eye off the ball” so to speak. The people who need to be watched like a hawk are our senators, congressmen and presidents. I don’t much care what’s going on in their pants (sex scandals, affairs, etc). I do care when they start telling us what should be going on in our pants.
July 17th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Rick Santorum has more control over “the culture” than Eminem? Huh? I stopped watching TV in 1994, so maybe I’m missing something. Gee, things really have changed.
July 17th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Why is it that “Infoblink” considers that “the biggest shocker was Goldberg’s lack of sensitivity and political correct-ness” when he also claims “Goldberg’s book is just another right-winged attempt to blame the media and celebrities for the demoralization of the United States.”
I thought political correctness and hyper-sensitivity were the fetishes of the left. Why does it “shock” the left when the mean-spirited right doesn’t sing to the left’s tunes?
And do you really think it’s surprising that someone like Goldberg would hesitate at the “N” word? Is there any more certain career-killer for a public figure in the U.S. than the utterance of that word (Robert Byrd seems immune, however)? After all, you can get fired for saying “niggardly” in conversation.
“Stewart argues that it is “the people who are in powerâ€Â? that are the ones causing problems, and that there are bigger concerns than Barbara [sic] Streisand.”
Which dismisses Goldberg not because his book is wrong, but because, in Stewart’s opinion, he wrote the wrong book. Goldberg chose to focus on media and entertainment figures. Stewart and “Infoblink” want him to write about political power.
But what do you think they’d be whining about if the liberals controlled the White House and the conservatives ruled the media and the university faculties? I don’t recall many comments out of the left to the effect that Rush Limbaugh or “The Passion of the Christ” don’t matter because they’re just media/entertainment.
And what’s with giving “Infoblink” a pass for taking Goldberg’s quote completely out of its context, the better to skewer him? Isn’t that a perfect illustration of exactly the kind of tactic — selective exaggeration — that people like Stewart and “Infoblink” claim to reject when people like Goldberg do it?
July 17th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
This has nothing to do with political correctness. I think the guy getting fired for using the word “niggardly” was dumb. I think there’s too much senstivity around these words, but do I understand why? Of course.
No, this is not about PC. This is simply about balance, fairness and centrism. Goldberg is taking a very biased view of who is “screwing up” America and trying to pass it off as balanced. That’s why I have a problem with it. This is not a centrist’s view. This is a moralistic, right-wing view that is written to appeal to fans of the echo chamber.
And when Goldberg lists somebody like Paul Begala but not Robert Novak, and Bob Shrum, but not Karl Rove, it’s obvious that he has a decidedly different view of what fuels the degredation of American culture than those in the center of the spectrum. Al Franken but not Rush Limbaugh? Come on. Limbaugh’s drug abuse hypocrisy alone should have placed him on this list.
And by the way, I don’t think Infoblink took the quote out of context. Goldberg showed a clear lack of restraint for some epithets and not so for others. I understood his point, and that’s why I caveated it, but he was extremely clumsy for somebody who just wrote a book about people who are “screwing up” America.
July 17th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
What we were trying to make a point of, was not the political correctness, or sensitivity, or even the fact that he avoided the taboo word “nigger”. As Justin said, he was “extremely clumsy”. This has nothing to do with being left, or right, it has to do with the fact that it was a bad move on Goldberg’s part.
Ignoring the, as Callimachus calls it, “fetishes” of the liberals, and making an example of Blacks by using the phrase “you know what’s”, on what he knew was a Liberal show, was a clumsy move. Unless, of course, he went on the Daily Show to specifically attack liberals (which I wouldn’t doubt). But even then, it wasn’t a very effective attack.
As far as what we would “whine” about if the Liberals controlled the White House, I have no idea. We haven’t had a liberal in the White House since 2000, so it’s hard to say. I personally always have issues with the people in the White House, I was no fan of Bill Clinton. We like to “whine”, so we’ll find something, I’m sure. But until then, we just have to use what Bush gives us.
Considering the power of FOX, I believe the conservatives have a pretty strong, if not majority position in the media. I seriously doubt the liberals control the media.
My last point is that we are not attacking Goldberg for focusing on the media, but for focusing on the Liberal media. As Justin says “Al Franken but not Rush Limbaugh?” And yes, I would have preferred reading something from Goldberg about people who make decisions that can make, or destroy our economy, and not about how Barbara Streisdand is ruining society.
July 17th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
Uhm, was the purpose of this article really just to point out that someone was afraid to use the N word on TV?
I guess I just don’t get it. So what?
July 17th, 2005 at 8:00 pm
I guess I should listen to the interviewif I’m going to comment on this (boring) topic. But, frankly, I’m not sure I agree that washington controls our culture. The market controls our culture, advertizers control our culture, owners of media outlets (even bloggers) have control over the culture, hell to the small extent politicians control the culture you gotta remember that voters have them on a leash.
July 17th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
Obviously it is the media - Hollywood, network TV, cable TV, and talk radio - that controls the culture.
But the title of Goldberg’s book is “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America” not “100 People Who Are Screwing Up American Culture”. So the real question is, who has the most potential to “screw up” America herself? To me, the answer is obvious - it is those in control of the government, not people like Begala and Franken or even Rush.
The fact that Goldberg thinks that these left-leaning minor celebrities are “screwing up America” simply shows how out of touch he is with reality. He clearly is in touch with the likes of Santorum, who view liberalism as the main threat facing America today (not Islamic fundamentalism, or record high deficits, or paralyzing partisanship, etc.)
July 17th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
1. I think turning, “Joe said, ‘What if — and this would be horrible — someone said XYZ on TV?’ ” into “Joe said, ‘XYZ’ ” is taking something out of context.
2. The point you completely agreed with was “the people in Washington are the ones who exert the most power over the culture, not celebrities who vocally disagree with the President.”
It wasn’t a question of including Garofalo but not Limbaugh. [I don't ever listen to either, though I'm aware of a sort of deliberate element of self-parody in Limbaugh that I don't think Garofalo is capable of.] It was a question of whether entertainment/media types make more difference to the national culture than political leaders.
3. “lack of restraint” with insult-words. If my guess is correct and Goldberg is Jewish, is he allowed to use Jewish slur words in his act, like Lenny Bruce did. Like Richard Pryor used the “N” word? If so, why?
4. “I believe the conservatives have a pretty strong, if not majority position in the media. I seriously doubt the liberals control the media.” Excuse me while I pick up my jaw. I’d invite anyone who seriously thinks this to come spend a week at the newspaper where I work, where quotations from Nichael Moore hang on the walls like quotations from Chairman Mao at a Red China re-education camp.
I say “would invite,” because my (Bush-hating) bosses have threatened to fire me after they caught me writing criticisms of Kerry online before the election. I don’t know what their state of mind is now, and I am not inclined to push their buttons to find out. Not with a new roof to pay for.
So in lieu of inviting you in, I’ll refer you to a Pew Research Center survey reported in “Editor & Publisher,” the official publication of the U.S. news media, which noted that the proportion of self-defined “liberals” in newsrooms is increasing much faster than that of self-defined “conservatives,” and the ratio is well out of proportion to the nation as a whole.
At national organizations (which includes print, TV and radio), the numbers break down like this: 34% liberal, 7% conservative. At local outlets: 23% liberal, 12% conservative. At Web sites: 27% call themselves liberals, 13% conservatives.
This contrasts with the self-assessment of the general public: 20% liberal, 33% conservative.
Pew found that, over time, not only is the media more polarized, but the liberal voices are more numerous. Since 1995, at national outlets, the liberal segment has climbed from 22% to 34% while conservatives have inched up from 5% to 7%
This is a self-assessment. Most of the journalists, like many Americans, describe themselves as “moderate.” But from my experience, the majority of journalists who describe themselves as “moderates” actually break toward the left on most issues. If you consider the schism between newsrooms and the rest of the U.S., it’s not surprising that a “moderate” in the subculture will be a “liberal” in the larger culture.
And when the fury of partisan politics, and the vision of a world being led by George W. Bush into hellish ruin, converge in the minds of the media, as they have in so many anti-Bush/anti-war/anti-American people I see and read in the media, then the desire to change the future through the “medium” of the present becomes an active force in the thousand little daily decisions that define news coverage.
My newsroom is a sea of conversations in which my co-workers sit at their desks talking about how much they hate Bush, how wonderful it would be if he died, how many people they saw at the latest anti-war rally they marched in, how criminal the Iraq war is, how “evil” the U.S. administration is, how brilliant and important Michael Moore is, how stupid Christians are.
These things are not even considered controversial. They’re presented as things too obvious to require proof, and too universally known to be questioned. And at the same time these conversations are underway the same people are assembling newspaper pages. They do this with the same minds, the same world-views, that they bring to their conversations.
July 17th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
Fair enough on all points you make. Let me address them.
1) I understand your point, and I think his use of the word “against” can be seen as framing it incorrectly. However, Goldberg wrote a whole book. Infoblink wrote a post. Who’s doing more damager here Callimachus. I mean, come on…
2) I’m still not clear on why this is a point. I stand by what I said.
3) Sure, Goldberg is “allowed” to use Jewish slurs, but there were two others he’s not “allowed” to use. I thought you could make the jump with me on this one.
4) It sucks that the people you work with are like that. Personally, I think those people are contributing to the problem, not the solution. However, I will say that when Fox started, they took a “stance” by saying they were “fair and balanced.” It was brilliant marketing because it basically said “…and everybody else isn’t.” And while this is just my opinion, regardless of the politics of the journalists covering the stories I think that entire networks even themselves out and churn out fairly consistent “balanced” coverage. But since Fox took a stance they’re inherently not “fair and balanced” from the get go.
Anyway, good points from everybody. Let the debate continue.
July 17th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
#2 is a crux of the issue. The criticism of Goldberg keeps slipping back and forth between two things. Either it’s that he wrote a book principally about entertainers/media, when politicians are the real problem with America, or that he wrote a book about entertainers/media and didn’t include enough conservatives.
The problem is, this is whisper down the lane: What is said in a book I have neither time nor inclination to read, what is said about it on a TV show I have no interest in ever watching, which is reported on some snarky liberal’s blog, which is picked up here. I can’t get a focus on what is supposed to be wrong here, except some guy didn’t say the “N” word on TV and he either wrote about bad media types when bad politicians are the problem, or else bad media types are the problem but he picked on the ones some people like.
July 18th, 2005 at 12:59 am
My point is that Goldberg is pointing at a majority from one stripe AND he’s focusing on people who he thinks influence the culture. We simply have a different opinion about who has that control. It’s understandable that you think the media and celebs make more of an impact. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I do have a different opinion and I’ll argue passionately for it.
And again, concerning Goldberg’s supposed gaff, it’s not that he didn’t just say one racial ephitet. He said others from cultures he doesn’t belong to and then didn’t say “the bad one.” That was just a weird thing both myself and that “snarky liberal’s blog” noticed after watching it.
What it boils down to is I think Goldberg isn’t being honest. That’s all.
July 18th, 2005 at 1:10 am
Joshua Scholar got it right. We control popular culture. If there’s one thing left the government doesn’t control, that’s it. Otherwise, Howard Stern would be locked up in Gitmo (though it does rather seem like his kind of scene). Media has a lot more control of politics than politics has of media.
July 18th, 2005 at 1:25 am
I also think it’s absurd to say that you can only insult your own race/religion/culture and nobody else’s. That gets into a level of ritual and taboo that quickly twists itself into absurd knots. Let anyone say what he pleases and face the societal consequences. It doesn’t sound like Mr. Goldberg lost any friends in the John Stewart crew for the way he said what he said. It sounds like he had none there to begin with.
July 18th, 2005 at 1:36 am
Well, personally, I’m glad we don’t live under a fascist regime. That’s why I say what I do. This is concerning the Stern comment, which is a bit extreme.
And respectfully, I don’t think it’s absurd…or knotted. Expecting somebody who wrote a book that lists the top 100 people who make America worse and then saying something as odd as he did is simply, well…odd. That’s all. I expected better, both in content and character.
And I agree that he probably didn’t lose any “friends” in the audience. But he certainly got some attention. ;-)
July 18th, 2005 at 2:23 am
first off i am flattered at the debate my article has caused. second off, i would like to insist to Callimachus that when i first saw Stewart and Goldberg’s debate, and Goldberg mentioned those slurs, i became furiously hurt and angry (me myself being jewish and bisexual). but i also knew that Goldberg was trying to prove a point and i was ready to hear him out. i did not shut my ears off to Goldberg, i just found his arguments clumsy (as my fellow infoblinker, james, and justin said) and having no concrete logic. i also pin pointed the tremble in Goldberg’s voice when he said “you know what[s]“, he knew he made a mistake, Stewart knew he made a mistake, the audience knew he made a mistake. and thats that, it was just not planned out and was a poor decision on Goldberg’s part. period. moving on: one of the people Goldberg blamed, as you mentioned, was Eminem. What angered me was that Goldberg was so pro-censorship to artists like him, that he forgets that half a century ago there were arguments that Chuck Berry and Elvis were too sexual and Rock n Roll music was the devil. Relevant to my arguement or not(because i know for every opinion, there is an argument. its un-avoidable) there is an undeniable evolution to entertainment and the media. blaming it for the downfall of our country is not going to stop it. saying we control pop culture is saying we all agree with our culture, and that is not true. there are plenty of people, like yourself, Callimachus, who decide to turn off the tv. i myself stray against all aspects of television, except cartoons (i am a geek after all). Callimachus, you kept on mentioning my “stuck-ness” on Goldberg’s accidental loose lips, when james, justin, and myself have told you many times it was his clumsiness that got our goats. there was no sensible arguement from Goldberg. as much as i hate to tell myself this, i see that Goldberg is just one of the few desolate jewish republicans with the most semitic name. thats all i could see him as because not one of his arguements was valid in my opinion. i wouldn’t be surprised if he was just handed a publisher to improve right wing - jewish relations in the public eye. then again i’m a huge skeptic, a huge skeptic geek on a computer geek website. again, thank you for your opinion. thank you to everyone. and keep on checking http://infoblink.org for more rants from me, james and john.
July 18th, 2005 at 3:24 am
Sarah,
Interesting points, but remember, you can break thoughts into paragraphs.
And no need to link to your site twice. Your name serves the purpose enough.
July 18th, 2005 at 5:06 am
oops, sorry! by the way you have converted me into an addict of donklephant! keep up the excellent work
July 18th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Trying to stay in the middle of things means not making any assumptions about either side and providing ample evidence when making any statements of “fact” or opinion concerning one side of the fence or another. So, a statement that compares Rush Limbaugh to Janine Garafolo becomes suspect to me for several reasons (two of which I shall mention briefly): (A) First, the comparative size of each of their audiences is just not the same. Nor is the period of time that each has had a similar “soap box”. (B) You claim that Rush parodizes himself. Really and would that be noticed by his core audience. The only parodies I notice from Rush are of the bleeding heart type, i.e. parodying his opponents.
I think the moderates and centrists must be very careful in how they characterize either side of the debate. And protestations of which side is more or less tolerant of heresy is one of the debates that is neither fruitful to any rational discourse nor capable of objective measurement.
To take the example right in front of us (or below):
“Liberal” criticism of Goldberg centers around a substantive point: presenting one-sided bias toward liberal media mavens, without mentioning any culpability of more conservative perveyors of media slop.
“Conservative” criticism of Goldberg cares not a whit for the substance and only is concerned about the evil effects of using the word “Screwing” in the title of any book.
So here is the cut-the-baby-in-half $64,000 question.
Can one maintain one’s centrism and still conflate the two types of criticism?
Do this lead to a journalistic patina of objectivism that is content with “he
said, she said” discussions?
I think not. I will not pre-judge (although I am troubled by off-handed statement like “It’s a perfect example of how the liberal core or “baseâ€Â? has devolved into an exclusive bitchy little high school clique.”
I suppose you should have at least countered this statement that “It’s a perfect example of how the conservative core or base has devolved into East German children turning their parents in for any coarse language.”
Yes, words do have meanings.
July 20th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Honestly eddie, I don’t know that I can answer your questions right now. Perhaps in a few months. Being this is a new blog “centered” around a new idea in the blogosphere, we’re playing it fast and loose and trying our best.
Also, I think Michael pointed out something important in his post. Could he have made the point in a less terse manner? Sure. But I didn’t counter it because there weren’t any conservative blogs that denounced Donklephant the way the liberal ones did. It honestly surprised me, but that’s the reality of the situation so I’m dealing with it.
I also think it had something to do with how they felt about Michael personally, since he’s left their ranks to join the center. It’s understandable, but it doesn’t make it any less personal. If I were in Michael’s situation, I might have done the exact same thing. Who knows?
However, I’ll maintain that the level of discourse on this blog will hopefully get better as we continue to try to discuss issues like this and others.
Thanks for the note.
December 26th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Conservatives seem so set on this point. That liberals control the media. Okay I, who am annoyed by both liberals and conservatives and anybody who labels themselves, will grant them this point( although I’d say it’s about equal). Lets say liberals control the media so they in turn influence the culture more than the policy makers in Washington do. However policy makers in washington manipulate the media, something Jon Stewart always points out that I agree with unlike some other things he says. And corporations control the media. And I think the two forces that have more power in this country than any individual person or viewpoint are corporations and policymakers and they go hand in hand usually.
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