FoxNews: 1/2 Hour News Hour

As I mentioned in the last post's comments, the FoxNews channel briefly had a satire show called the "1/2 Hour News Hour," which was, in the words of creator Joel Surnow, meant to be a sort of "Daily Show for conservatives." So I looked up the show online to see what it was actually about and see how it and the Daily Show compare. I found a couple of clips for you to look at; I chose these based on what I could find on Youtube and won't take up too much of your time.

This first one is about Barack Obama.

As you can see, the show gets humor by mentioning things like his drug use as a teenager, a Marion Berry reference, making up a nickname "Gassy," his middle name Hussein, his initials BO, etc. The Daily Show also makes fun of stupid things, like Condoleezza Rice's name ("a starchy side dish often served with beans"). However, the Daily Show also regularly makes fun of Democrats, and recent examples include Hillary Clinton and Edward Kennedy. I have yet to see a single criticism of conservatives on this FoxNews show. Once again, this is based on a small sample of clips that I've seen.

The Daily Show and Colbert Report frequently have real conservatives on their shows and press them to defend their opinions and actions. John McCain and Bill Kristol are two of the most frequent Daily Show guests. I haven't seen any real people defend their beliefs on the "1/2 Hour News Hour," only actors. The only "guests" seem to be caricatures of liberal opinions.



I think that this show could have done a much better job by actually interviewing a gun control activist and trying to find holes in his argument.

Here is another, similar example:


The Daily Show or Colbert Report would actually interview real authors, both conservatives and liberals.

Although I don't find these clips particularly entertaining or funny, I do think that it is valuable to see them. As I watch them, I can pick out tons of things I disagree with or think are plain irrelevant or irreverent. Being able to recognize this issues can help you to look at The Daily Show with a more critical eye. Not all that Jon Stewart says is perfect and not everything they make fun of is deserving of criticism. For instance, making fun of CNN's Election Center and all of their fancy television screens and floating pie charts isn't very useful, nor is it funny. Sure, CNN may be a little proud of their fancy studio, but that doesn't mean they're doing a bad job of reporting. In the next post, I'll directly compare a couple of clips from The Daily Show and 1/2 Hour News Hour.