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August 11th, 2013
01:14 PM ET

Jon vs. John

Guest host Brian Stelter shares his thoughts on who's better host of The Daily Show: Jon Stewart or John Oliver?


Filed under: John Oliver • Jon Stewart • Reliable Sources
June 16th, 2013
01:02 PM ET

A New Fake News Star

After John Oliver’s first week in the Daily Show anchor chair, James Poniewozik joins Howard Kurtz to assess his performance.


Filed under: Blog • Comedy • Jon Stewart • TV
What we're reading this week
April 4th, 2013
06:03 PM ET

What we're reading this week

By Becky Perlow, CNN

Jay Leno is leaving the historic Tonight show, Roger Ebert has passed away after a long battle with cancer and the media's obsession with Hilary's supposed 2016 run has hit an all-time high. If that's not enough news for you, though, take a look at what the Reliable Sources staff is reading this week:

Social media slight: Jon Stewart's political tirades are both long and legendary, so it's no surprise that he dedicated an entire 10-minute segment of one of his shows to mocking Egyptian President Morsi after the Egyptian leader arrested Stewart's Middle-Eastern comedic counterpart, Bassem Youssef (seen in the picture above).  The diatribe might have ended there, if not for one worker at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, who decided to send out a link to Stewart's segment via the U.S. Embassy's Twitter account. Morsi's office quickly complained via its own official Twitter feed, saying that "It's inappropriate for a diplomatic mission to engage in such negative political propaganda." In response, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson ordered that the embassy's Twitter be shut down, according to State Department officials.

Radio road trip:  While you might not have heard of Tim Westergren, we bet you've heard (and even listened to) his musical creation called Pandora. Westergren, founder of the online radio service, is currently knee-deep in a bitter battle with the music industry over the price Pandora pays for each song played on its radio, as compared to the lower costs per song that satellite and cable radio pay. But "when you’re Tim Westergren, and you’ve got more than 69 million active users listening to more than 1.5 billion of hours of music in a month and your product is embedded into the dashboard of 80 or so new car models, you don’t have to confine legislative lobbying to Washington (and political fund-raisers). Instead you go on the road, where his company forged an unusually intimate bond with its customers, hundreds of whom show up for each of his town halls," explains an article in The Washington Post.

Say Bye-bye to Bill: (Adair that is.) The Washington bureau chief for the Tampa Bay Times is reportedly trading in his pencils and notepads for textbooks and lecture halls. Adair, who has worked for the paper for more than 24 years, will be leaving for Duke University this summer to become the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy. While he will technically leave the paper, he says he'll continue to contribute to his Pulitzer prize winning fact-checking machine, Politifact.

The Time Warner of the streets: Founded originally as a free magazine by Shane Smith in the mid '90s, Vice media has evolved to a multi-platform news organization, known for its gonzo reporting style and in-your-face stories. Despite its avid fans, though, Vice has been unable to attract a wide audience... until now. With a new documentary series set to debut tomorrow on HBO, Vice's popularity is finally gaining traction in the mainstream media, and, according to Smith, can achieve the same scale [like CNN] by selling its content piecemeal to other companies—to YouTube, through its original-content program, and to TV channels."

So do you think Vice could become the next CNN? And what are you reading this week?

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Filed under: Jay Leno • Jon Stewart • Morsi • Politifact • Reliable Sources • Tampa Bay Times • What we're reading
March 10th, 2013
12:54 PM ET

Jon Stewart getting serious

Gail Shister, Marisa Guthrie and Howard Kurtz assess what the late night funnyman’s summer hiatus from The Daily Show will mean for him and the program.


Filed under: Blog • Comedy • Jon Stewart • Reliable Sources
What we're reading this week...
February 1st, 2013
01:20 PM ET

What we're reading this week...

By Becky Perlow, CNN 

Reliable Sources digs into media coverage this week – but here’s a look at some of the other stories that caught our attention:

Answering on Al Jazeera: Falling victim to The Daily Show's comedic wrath is a rite of passage for most politicians and Al Gore was no exception. Reported by Mediaite, Jon Stewart questioned Gore about the climate control activist's decision to sell Current TV to Al Jazeera, a news operation owned by the Middle Eastern country Qatar, which makes its money on oil and gas. Stewart called it an "odd move" because Gore preaches about climate change, and according to him, what's a major cause of climate change? Oh, that's right: oil and gas.

Netflix and Networks: Netflix, well-known for its DVD delivery service, is aiming to make itself equally renowned for its online streaming and change the way viewers watch TV. It hopes to accomplish this in 2013 with new original programming that's only available via Netflix, with no other major network involvement. Debuting tonight will be one of these new series called "House of Cards," a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey as (what else?) a sociopath. Here's the kicker: instead of releasing one-episode per week like its network competitors, Netflix is debuting all 13 episodes in one sitting. (Now would be a good time to cancel your Friday plans and figure out what you want for dinner because you'll be ordering in tonight.)

Twitter's gone rogue: The Week's Matt Lewis says he's no Manti Te'o, but he "did meet a lot of virtual friends" via Twitter. The Conservative writer has been tweeting since 2008, long before Twitter became another outlet for news. Four years later, though, Lewis says "The social sharing tool [that] was once a vision [is now] a prison."

Bloggers vs. Reporters: According to BuzzFeed, you shouldn't confuse the two, or you might just end up on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's bad side. Note: You would be joining the company of Senator Jim Inhofe, who quoted conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin during Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing earlier today. Except he called her a reporter, and Chandrasekaran apparently took great offense.

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Filed under: Al Gore • Al Jazeera • Al Jazeera English • Blog • Blogging • Jon Stewart • Kevin Spacey • Netflix • Reliable Sources • Washington Post • What we're reading
May 20th, 2012
12:16 PM ET

"The Daily Show": Guilty Pleasure

Former "Daily Show" producer Mike Rubens talks to Howard Kurtz about his experiences working for the late-night comedy show.

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Filed under: Comedy • Jon Stewart • Reliable Sources
June 26th, 2011
04:00 PM ET

Jon Stewart: media critic or comedian?

Howard Kurtz debates Jon Stewart's recent spat with Fox News with Aaron Barnhart, Glynnis MacNicol and David Zurawik.


Filed under: Comedy • Fox News • Jon Stewart • Media • Politics