“If I want, I could make you say ‘I . . . like . . . altar . . . boys.’ ”
June 10, 2010 6:03 AM   Subscribe

 
I'm sympathetic - those interviews, while sometimes funny, are always completely unfair - but anyone who goes into a Daily Show shoot expecting any sort of control over what gets aired is being foolish. They always go in excited and come out embarrassed. Let's hope the "mostly young staff" at the Freedom From Religion Foundation who encouraged the interview learned something.
posted by mediareport at 6:11 AM on June 10, 2010




It's fascinating to get a behind-the-scenes look at the process from someone who went into it knowing it would be unfair and not really minding it. I'm always interested in reading detailed accounts of "behind the scenes" things like this, but with most people I think I would feel that I couldn't trust their version of the story because they'd be too antagonistic to what TDS is trying to do. Whereas here, the interviewee obviously had a sense of humor about it and knew what he was getting into. FFRF does come off looking pretty good, I think.
posted by marginaliana at 6:18 AM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


mediareport: did you read the article? They knew what they were getting into, and at the end the guy says that he's happy with how it turned out, and he realizes that comedy is comedy. The any publicity is good publicity idea, and the fact that most viewers understand the nature of the interview, are both working in their favor
posted by codacorolla at 6:25 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'm convinced . . . about the conspiracy.
posted by oddman at 6:36 AM on June 10, 2010


I'm with codacorolla. This was by no means an ambush. The article says "He and I both know that FFRF would have wanted a more serious airing of the issues, but we also know that comedy is comedy."

The genius of the Daily Show is that they cover serious issues and deliver messages with passion and compassion (cf Jon Stewarts various pleas to Obama to just "do things right" ) in a way a News program never would (or could) and whenever they get criticised they just say, "What do you expect? We're a comedy show".
posted by jontyjago at 6:44 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


I really don't like those ambush segments, even when they ridicule the "right" people. They always feel so mean-spirited that I can rarely watch one to the end.
posted by ts;dr at 6:47 AM on June 10, 2010 [13 favorites]


Nobody watching the Daily Show can really think the interviews are legit, can they?
posted by empath at 6:51 AM on June 10, 2010


Stewart, if you are going to ridicule me, then you need to send Samantha Bee or I take off this lapel mike, drop it and walk.
posted by Danf at 7:00 AM on June 10, 2010


Barker comes off to me not so much as regretting his entire participation in the damn thing, but really more that he wishes there had been more interview and less wacky skit. Which is a fair issue to have -- everyone thinks they're going to get the gravitas treatment where Jon Stewart is basically respectful, makes a few jokes, and plugs the book. No one ever thinks they're insane enough to be the guy who wants to power the world with squirrel treadmills. But I guess that's the second lesson (after "They will make fun of you") -- if you're not in the main studio in front of the audience with Jon, then you're the Squirrel Treadmill Guy or you're an excuse for Wacky Skit Antics.
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Nobody watching the Daily Show can really think the interviews are legit, can they?

Samantha Bee said on Fresh Air last week that they are always completely honest about who they are and who they work for, even including the Comedy Central name.
posted by something something at 7:07 AM on June 10, 2010


I really don't like those ambush segments, even when they ridicule the "right" people. They always feel so mean-spirited that I can rarely watch one to the end.

This. Those interview segments have made me feel sympathetic toward some pretty odious people...

...hey...wait...[shakes fist] STEWART??!?
posted by straight at 7:42 AM on June 10, 2010


I love it. This is great!
posted by istandb4u at 7:45 AM on June 10, 2010


I was more amazed at the amount of time they took to put together a three minute segment. Two and a half hours in front of the camera, and then some more time out on the street to film some wacky bits? Craziness!
posted by backseatpilot at 7:54 AM on June 10, 2010


I really don't like those ambush segments, even when they ridicule the "right" people. They always feel so mean-spirited that I can rarely watch one to the end.

As we don't have much in the way of real journalism on network television, the Daily show has stood in for honest political commentary for a decade. The show is well aware of its role, and the perception of it. That makes intellectual dishonesty on their part propaganda. Hiding behind the rubric of "comedy" is not an out for them at this point.

You can be hilarious and honest at the same time. They don't deserve a pass on this.
posted by clarknova at 7:58 AM on June 10, 2010 [3 favorites]


The Daily Show is great for the first segment. Then it's time to switch the channel.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:05 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Nobody watching the Daily Show can really think the interviews are legit, can they?

Think how many people don't get that the Colbert Report ain't 100% serious, then ask yourself this question again
posted by jtron at 8:11 AM on June 10, 2010


I'd love to see Jason Jones take on Christopher Hitchens on Mother Theresa.
posted by photoslob at 8:15 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


It's interesting to me that while he understands that he has to sacrifice issues for comedy when going on TDS, he doesn't get that the fall guy in most of their ambush segments is usually the reporter. Jason Jones acts like an ass, asks ignorant bullish questions, and always takes the wrong side of an issue because he's the guy we're laughing at.

Same for all the other correspondents. Same for the entirety of the Colbert Report. Unless of course, they actually get somebody saying idiotic things in their interview. Then the reporter wholeheartedly agrees with them, usually.
posted by fungible at 8:26 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Nobody watching the Daily Show can really think the interviews are legit, can they?

I dunno, some people think Fox News is legit... *shrug*
posted by xedrik at 8:58 AM on June 10, 2010 [3 favorites]


This guy knew what he was in for, and it sounds like it worked out surprisingly well for him. I thought he was very well-spoken in the article. In the end, his strategy did work: I had never heard those things about Mother Theresa, and while I won't take them at face value off a single online article, I'm interested in verification. So yes, his strategy of getting publicity totally worked out in my case.

And you've got to be very, very silly to expect sympathy in a Daily Show interview. You either know you have a reasonable case or not, and gamble accordingly -- or just don't go on.

Former Senator Larry Craig's recent interview was hilarious -- both because he came off as totally oblivious to how he was being made fun of, and conversely how it was obvious that he was baiting & taunting John Oliver by continually bringing up air travel. He knew exactly what he was doing.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:21 AM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


I've wondered whether they film some shots of the interviewers separately and edit them in later (since their reactions are often over-the-top), but from this it sounds like the interviewee is there the whole time.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:33 AM on June 10, 2010


Samantha Bee said on Fresh Air last week that they are always completely honest about who they are and who they work for, even including the Comedy Central name.

They do.

I was approached by them once to interview one of my clients.

I watch the show and like it. Sat in the audience for a taping three years ago. The show can often be tedious and unfunny, (much like SNL,) but when they do hit their mark the results are excellent.

Anyway, many years ago, one of their producers called and asked if one of our clients would be interested being interviewed on-air about a new medical "breakthrough" fountain-of-youth treatment which was currently in the news at the time. This particular client had been quoted in article which had appeared that day in the New York Times. He'd called the treatment pseudo-scientific garbage.

I asked the producer a bunch of questions. The interviewer would be Stephen Colbert. (This was quite a few years ago, when he was still on the DS staff and hadn't yet been given his own show,) I said I'd check with my client and call him back.

Called the client and explained the situation to him. Advised him very strongly not to do the interview. Explained that the show is a parody airing on Comedy Central and that in non-Stewart interviews they deliberately make people look like idiots.

He still wanted to do it. No surprise. He knew the show was popular and could reach an audience demographic he was interested in. I made my case a second time, cursing the man's ego. But he was adamant. He'd had media training and was convinced that he could handle any questions that might arise. I tried to explain that the questions being asked were not the issue; he'd be deliberately edited in post to look like an idiot. Was told in no uncertain terms to set up the interview.

Most publicists worth their salt will tell you that the old adage about publicity really isn't true. There is most certainly such thing as bad publicity -- some stories can't be spun or reframed in a positive light. So part of crisis communications is assessing whether the outcome of a published or aired story will have a positive impact on your client, their message and their brand down the road. A Daily Show interview that made this guy look like an idiot would have been disastrous for him.

Client gives me the "Any publicity is good publicity!" line and hangs up.

So I wrote him a lengthy email explaining my concerns about the show and what they were proposing. Found a third-party website that had several archived interviews as quicktime files, and sent him links. (At the time, Comedy Central wasn't streaming the show's content online.)

Received the following back as a reply: "I'm looking forward to it. Let me know when you set it up."

Crap.

Called the producer. He'll do it. In my head, I'm envisioning the guy rubbing his hands together with evil glee. We set up a brief phone interview. Done. Taping is scheduled for the following day. I'm already trying to come up with ideas to minimize the damage the man is about to do to his own reputation.

The next morning, I get a phone call. Client boasted to his twelve year old son and eight year old daughter that he was going on the Daily Show to talk about said treatment. They were horrified. Talked him out of it. "Daddy, they'll make a fool out of you on tv and don't you know the whole world watches that show." Professional pride takes a back seat to not wanting to look like an idiot to his children. Cancels the interview.

The show is up front with people about who they are and what they do. But never underestimate the power of overconfidence to override common sense. FFRF came across well here. Most DS interviewees don't. I assume that's just because they don't have kids at home to bring them back to reality. ;)
posted by zarq at 9:46 AM on June 10, 2010 [29 favorites]


The trouble -- if it is that, it may also be brilliance -- of The Daily Show interviews is that they present the presenters and editors as incompetent, leading the audience to laugh at them and sympathize with the people being misrepresented and harassed in the interview. Unfortunately, the presenter lulz are obvious, while the editing lulz are not, and as a result a lot of media-unsavvy people do assume the edited interviews, while jokey, is also an honest representation of the interview.

You have to be media savvy to get it intuitively, and so non-savvy viewers end up in the same position as the interviewer is purported to be, that of someone who just doesn't get it, and who truly believes the point of view being espoused by the interviewer and the editing. These folks become the equivalent of The Colbert Report's viewership of right-leaning folks who don't realize the joke is on them, but in a more subtle and insidious way that can actually have a negative impact on a person's or organization's public image.
posted by davejay at 9:52 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Schadenfreude?
posted by Cranberry at 10:03 AM on June 10, 2010


I've always found it interesting, given the nature of their work, that Jon Stewart took the ACORN video slanders at face value.
posted by dirigibleman at 10:08 AM on June 10, 2010 [4 favorites]


Some of the "ambush" segments are mean-spirited and pointless, some just don't work at all, and I also begin to wonder about the fact of diminishing returns (although as some have indicated here, there are some interviewees who still either don't know or don't care that they're going to be ambushed). The segments were clever and punchy when there were still relatively few people who didn't know (or whose publicists didn't know) that they were going to be ambushed or ridiculed, but by now Colbert's 578th segment of his Congressional district series is so tired that even he knows it and barely bothers to do it anymore, and the few people that they do find anymore who are genuinely clueless end up coming off like the kinds of people who were even more savagely ripped to shreds in "Borat" and "Brüno."

Really, what bothers me more are the usually fawning interviews at the end of "The Daily Show" and "Colbert" with people shilling their books. The subjects who are supposedly antagonists end up sitting through the whole thing with smirks on their faces, the ones who are friendly or heroes to Stewart and Colbert are just smarmy lovefests, and it's fairly nauseating to watch.
posted by blucevalo at 10:38 AM on June 10, 2010


I've always found it interesting, given the nature of their work, that Jon Stewart took the ACORN video slanders at face value.

I honestly think that was a case of the show's producers (Stewart included) jumping a bit too eagerly at the chance to prove they could give just as good to the left as they do to the right. They've always rankled at accusations of liberal bias (e.g. "We're just a comedy show. Laughter has no political affiliations.") and I think, occasionally, they're so desperate to show their non-partisan bona fides that they err on the side of recklessness, at least with regard to gaffes coming from the left. (Which isn't to say there haven't been plenty of times when they've deserved it. See: ongoing coverage of the Democratic Congressional leadership.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:01 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


That's a silly hill to defend. So what if the nuns were secretly "baptizing" patients.

It's affront, and extremely disrespectful. I object to the conversions because they're being done to people who have no way to speak up for themselves and announce their desire to not be converted. Just like Mormon posthumous conversions by proxy.

Forced conversions / conversion against someone's will is simply wrong, whether it's done at the point of a sword or covertly.
posted by zarq at 11:04 AM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


The trouble -- if it is that, it may also be brilliance -- of The Daily Show interviews is that they present the presenters and editors as incompetent

Yeah, I think a big part of the joke is that you're supposed to feel uncomfortable for these people who are obviously being ambushed, and you're supposed to realize that this is just an exaggerated version of what every news organization always does to interviewees.

The real target of these segments is CNN, FOX, NPR, and every other news organization that uses editing to make people say what they want them to say, to fit the narrative of their story.
posted by straight at 11:14 AM on June 10, 2010 [3 favorites]


Gosh, all this handwringing over a Daily Show bit.
posted by Xoebe at 11:32 AM on June 10, 2010


Interesting piece, thanks for sharing it. I don't agree that the interviews by The Daily Show are hatchet jobs or ambushes simply because they're so obviously fake. The interviewers often spout completely ridiculous positions and opinions that they obviously do not believe. They ask inane questions and often go for the cheap joke. The back and forth between the participants is sometimes so disjointed that I'd have been surprised to find out it's a two camera job.

Annie Laurie loaded me down with FFRF T-shirts, books, bumper stickers, hats and magnets. When I showed these to the writer and producer (Miles Kahn and Asaf Kastner), I asked if there were any ethical concerns with the media accepting gifts.

Are these even considered gifts? I'd call them promotional materials.

I had a nice talk with Jon Stewart. Well, not a talk. We didn’t even meet. Jon said “Hi, guys!” as he passed quickly through the lunch room where we were talking. He was probably too nervous to meet me in person. So I’m counting that as a talk.

I can't quite decipher this paragraph. The only messages I'm getting out of it are "I didn't talk to Jon Stewart" and "I'm humourously self-effacing."

Overall though, it was well written and a neat look into the process. He seemed to know exactly what would happen and what would air. I'm sure he got a bunch of people wondering about Mother Teresa at the very least. It probably takes a lot of guts to come out expressing any sort of opinion that would be seen as against her.

On preview: what handwringing?
posted by ODiV at 11:36 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'd have been surprised to find out it's a two camera job if it weren't for the budget.

There we go.
posted by ODiV at 11:38 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


...and as a result a lot of media-unsavvy people do assume the edited interviews, while jokey, is also an honest representation of the interview.

Source?
posted by coolguymichael at 12:22 PM on June 10, 2010


Burhanistan: It's not a non-issue for a couple of reasons. First, it's a demonstration of profound bias and contempt by a religious organization that until quite recently had more than enough political clout to make that bias a matter of policy in many parts of the world. It doesn't really reflect well on the Catholic church when its humanitarian and charity services come with substantial strings attached.

Second, such deathbed "conversions" are often claimed as evidence of effective missionary work when those missionaries raise funds.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:34 PM on June 10, 2010


Again, I don't think that God works in that way where you can give secretly convert someone without their knowledge--it's meaningless fluff in the face of them getting some palliative care.

I'm going to assume you're an atheist or close to it. Yes, from the outside these things seem meaningless. On the other hand, if they're so meaningless, then why do them at all?
posted by Etrigan at 12:47 PM on June 10, 2010


Well, I suppose my point was that "secret" conversions are so ineffectual as to be non-issues.

But it's still extremely offensive ... to someone who is dying. If you are a non-believer, who gives a fuck. But let's say you believed that baptism would prevent you from entering your own vision of an afterlife. Wouldn't you be a little pissed?

I agree that it's a minor detail, but I don't think it's a silly hill to defend. MT's work against contraception and abortion are much more shameful, imo.

I've wondered whether they film some shots of the interviewers separately and edit them in later (since their reactions are often over-the-top), but from this it sounds like the interviewee is there the whole time.

He explains that at the end, I think. They have the interviewee sit there silently, while they re-film the interviewer's takes, then splice in the re-takes from the interviewer with the original responses from the interviewee. So, it's basically the first situation you describe. They just use the interviewee as backdrop for the re-takes.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:53 PM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Expecting the Catholic Church to operate without strings is quite naive.

I think this may be what the Church means by calling it charity.
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:56 PM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


People do them because they believe that religion is magic that you can use to influence others, whereas I believe it is something else between one human and God.

The reason why people object isn't because they think that deathbed and posthumous baptisms are theologically meaningful or effective.

It's because doing so a particularly egregious example of ethnocentrism, bias, and disrespect. What it says is that I don't think your beliefs are worthy of respect and consideration. It says that your beliefs are trivial and can be ignored.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:05 PM on June 10, 2010 [3 favorites]


Burhanistan, perhaps being Jewish gives me a different perspective. You see, we've spent two millennia fighting to maintain our own, distinct identity from Christians, who have seemed hell-bent on co-opting our faith and religious tradition for their own purposes. It seems as if every generation or so, there has been some sort of Christian Crusade to forcibly convert us. If we didn't renounce our religion and accept the Gospel of Jesus, we were killed. Christians aren't the only group who have committed atrocities against us -- but many of them do continue to preach our conversion.

As a people, we have a long memory. We remember the Inquisition, the Crusades and the Pogroms. We remember Blood Libel. We remember that our Jewish ancestors were killed by Christians for the declared crime of deicide. We remember that throughout history Christian missionaries weren't just preachers, but rather judges and executioners. We're aware of how recent Vatican II is, and that there are still Christian groups that reject it. We're aware of the many Christian groups who still to this day aggressively refuse to respect our religious beliefs, like the Mormons, who pray that our dead find Jesus in heaven, or the evangelical movement, who have established a mythos in which Jews must be converted to Christianity for them to be Saved. We are also aware of the Conversos.

I don't think this is an ineffectual act. On the contrary, I think it's just another footnote to a history of profound, offensive disrespect for the beliefs of others which has been perpetuated by people who have self-identified as "Christian" for centuries.
posted by zarq at 1:20 PM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


I meant to be clear about this, but wasn't. The Pogroms were not Christian-sourced persecution.
posted by zarq at 1:27 PM on June 10, 2010


Burhanistan: there are reasons some people might not be all that keen on Mother Teresa that are based in this world rather than on any religious reason. Previously.
On principle, strong painkillers are even in hard cases not given. According to Mother Teresa's bizarre philosophy, it is "the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ". Once she tried to comfort a screaming sufferer: "You are suffering, that means Jesus is kissing you!" The man got furious and screamed back: "Then tell your Jesus to stop kissing."
posted by jtron at 1:51 PM on June 10, 2010 [6 favorites]


I was going to mention the withholding of painkillers, but I see jtron has beat me to it. Mother Theresa was involved in some pretty merciless stuff in the name of "mercy."
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:11 PM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


"how many of those things did i lick?"

i'm sorry, but if this is what gets someone to repudiate 'any publicity is good publicity,' then they are missing out.

i could not stop laughing and, honestly, the guy from FFRF was just a sidelight. his thoughts on the process are wonderful, but he really isn't there in any semiotically meaningful way (^^). the guy figures as a mere touchstone.

I LONG TO BE A TOUCHSTONE IN THE DAILY SHOW'S EDIFICE.
posted by artof.mulata at 2:33 PM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Muslim actually. People do them because they believe that religion is magic that you can use to influence others, whereas I believe it is something else between one human and God.

I'm Jewish, and I appreciate the distinction you've drawn here. I believe as you do, myself.

Zarq, you are on the money about what you say from a Jewish point of view, I think, but I'd add that forced conversion is something plenty of adherents of Islam have suffered from as well, notoriously to name one set of instances, at the time of the Crusades.
posted by bearwife at 2:52 PM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


Some secret conversions are far from ineffectual.
cf. Edgardo Mortara

(But that was a long time ago. And good ol' pope JP2 said he was sorry! So nothing like that could ever happen again.)
posted by hexatron at 4:41 PM on June 10, 2010


Zarq, you are on the money about what you say from a Jewish point of view, I think, but I'd add that forced conversion is something plenty of adherents of Islam have suffered from as well, notoriously to name one set of instances, at the time of the Crusades.

Very true.

But....

I hadn't planned on mentioning this because it's become a fearmongering topic for neocons and heaven knows we don't need to feed *that fire, but throughout history Muslims have also forced conversions to Islam on unwilling groups. Indian Hindus have been converted by the millions. This, despite an unequivocal directive within religious scripture against forced conversion.
posted by zarq at 7:13 PM on June 10, 2010


The article in question isn't loading for me. Anyone have an alternate link?
posted by Captain Cardanthian! at 7:49 PM on June 10, 2010


It's affront, and extremely disrespectful. I object to the conversions because they're being done to people who have no way to speak up for themselves and announce their desire to not be converted.

As a child growing up in the Roman Catholic church, we were taught that we (meaning the laity) were allowed to do baptisms in extreme circumstances, like an impending death. However, it was stressed to us that we had to ask the person in question and they had to consent to the baptism. No consent, no baptism. Seriously, they taught us this in the 1st - 3rd grade (ages 6 - 8).

The thought that someone would do that to a non-consenting person is a severe violation of everything I was raised to believe in. Disgusting.
posted by echolalia67 at 11:59 PM on June 10, 2010


I've wondered whether they film some shots of the interviewers separately and edit them in later

No, you're thinking of 60 Minutes.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 4:27 AM on June 11, 2010


echolalia67: as with much else involving institutionalized systems of power and belief teachings can vary drastically based on differing positions in space-time and in relation to the power structure. glad you ended up on the compassionate and humane side of things!
posted by jtron at 6:02 PM on June 15, 2010




>

Dagnabit.
posted by homunculus at 12:10 PM on June 23, 2010




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