Jon Stewart Started A Really Cool Program To Help Veterans Break Into Show Biz

Ask anyone who has “made it” in the entertainment industry and they’ll all agree: Show biz is a BITCH to break into. Like success in many facets of life, it’s a perfect combination of luck, talent, timing, and networking with influential people who can help you break through. It takes years and is often a long, grueling process with more failures than successes. It doesn’t have an easy barrier to entry like, say, blogging, where any idiot with an English degree from a state school can jerk off words about whatever on any given day.

No one knows this more than the beloved host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart. If you need another reason to love Stewart, the New York Times has a fantastic story about how Stewart started a “secret” program to help introduce more veterans from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan into the TV industry:

The Daily Show developed the program over the last three years without publicizing it, but now, because Mr. Stewart is preparing to leave the show, he has taken it into the open, urging other shows to develop their own programs to bring more veterans into the industry.

“This is ready to franchise. Please steal our idea,” Mr. Stewart said in an interview at his Manhattan studio recently. “It isn’t charity. To be good in this business you have to bring in different voices from different places, and we have this wealth of experience that just wasn’t being tapped.”

And it’s working, too, as the New York Times illustrates via the success story of Nathan Witmer, who led troops during the Iraq surge of 2008:

“It was actually inspirational,” said Mr. Witmer, who went on to work at Fox News and then found a job as a “Daily Show” associate field segment producer. “We hear ‘Thank you for your service’ all the time, but here was concrete action, people working to really make a difference. And it changed lives. I’m proof of that.”

What a Bro move. The media is an industry that could use more veteran talent.

This might come as a surprise to conservatives. But anyone who knows a thing or two about Jon Stewart knows that he’s PASSIONATE about getting veterans jobs after coming out of the service. Back during the 2012 election, this issue was explored at length with two former service members who just returned home but couldn’t find work. Watch it below:

Nice to see Stewart do his part and put his money where his mouth is about veteran economic reintegration. That’s as Bro as it gets.

Brandon Wenerd is BroBible's publisher, writing on this site since 2009. He writes about sports, music, men's fashion, outdoor gear, traveling, skiing, and epic adventures. Based in Los Angeles, he also enjoys interviewing athletes and entertainers. Proud Penn State alum, former New Yorker. Email: brandon@brobible.com