Like Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show has been the television voice-of-reason for my formative years, from junior high to current day. I still watch The Daily Show at 11pm every night, just like I did 15 years ago. With the news of Stewart stepping down, now I know how my parents felt when Johnny Carson went off the air.
A lot will be written over the next few months about Jon Stewart retiring from The Daily Show. His legacy is a great one, lampooning the whimsey of the 24-hour broadcast news cycle. He encouraged us to stop taking the news so goddamn seriously, really, which paved the way for sites like BroBible and many others to exist. His comedy and his format was pioneering and changed media for the better.
Many will remember Stewart for his humorous coverage of dry political news, exposés of quirky news in the non-Twitter era, and wonderful ways of diminishing Bill O’Reilly to a chirp with a laugh. Over the years Stewart has had some wonderful takedowns of media figures who are employed by broadcast networks to squawk on their soapbox. Fox News might be enemy #1 in Stewart’s sights over the years, but he’s had many-a perfect takedown of HLN’s Nancy Grace. This was especially clear back in 2007, when Grace was hoisting her pitchfork and leading media charge in the Duke Lacrosse rape case. Stewart oh-so-perfectly destroyed her on the day the day all charges in the case were dropped.
It is truly a moment of zen.
Stewart actually hinted at this a year prior when the charges were first filed and the media frenzy began. Note the stupidity on Nancy Grace’s show at the very end:
This wasn’t the only time it happened, either. There have been MANY Jon Stewart takedowns of Grace over the years, like this more recent one during the Jodi Arias trial:
Or this one in CNN’s parking lot:
What a beautiful, beautiful comeuppance. These takedowns belong in the Smithsonian for future generations of Americans to realize that there were noble media knights who set out to slay the trolls.
We’ll miss you, Jon.