The Fox News Channel has decided to fight fire with fire and give Jon Stewart a run for his money by airing a right-wing "Daily Show-like" program on Saturday nights beginning in late January. The cable news network has only committed to airing two episodes, but if successful in its initial outing, the series would continue with a weekly broadcast.Originally titled This Just In, the show is being produced by Joel Surnow and Manny Cota of 24. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Surnow said that the show would take aim at "the scared cows of the left" and "play more to the Fox News audience than the Michael Moore channel."
Later in the same article, Surnow changed his tune saying that the show was "not going to hit you over the head with partisan politics" and would not be "strictly conservative" but "more in the spirit of the old and rebellious Saturday Night Live."
Most political comedians, even Bill Maher or Jon Stewart, will tell you that they are equal opportunity offenders. They are comedians, not journalists. Their job is to entertain viewers by deflating the pompous and the powerful regardless of party affiliation. That's why their shows are on Comedy Central and HBO - not MSNBC and CNN. Does any "news" channel, even if it is "fair and balanced" Fox, have any business getting into satirical news programming? The entire conceit of The Colbert Report is that networks like Fox are a satire of themselves anyway. Seriously, can Fox bring the funny... intentionally?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-20-2006 @ 10:43AM
B said...
Well, if they get a camera to follow John Kerry around, they ought to have 30 minutes of comedy a day. Of course, the jokes will be rather repetitive.
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11-20-2006 @ 10:59AM
Dwacon said...
Does the right wing even appreciate humor?
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dwacon
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11-20-2006 @ 11:11AM
J-Spot said...
Fox is forgetting the fact that conservatives aren't funny. Humor definitely has a liberal-bias.
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11-20-2006 @ 11:17AM
corbett said...
Wow. I can hear the punchline to every joke now... "It's Clinton's fault"
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11-20-2006 @ 11:47AM
Dean said...
I guess that's why all the liberal political books (Michael Moore, Al Franken, etc) are all in the Humor section, right?
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11-20-2006 @ 12:16PM
SJ said...
Fox News is funny.
But never intentionally.
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11-20-2006 @ 1:02PM
Eligio J Rosa said...
Seriously, can Fox bring the funny intentionally?
No. This is just a misguided attempt to try to get people to see a network that rapidly losing viewers and companies. How the mighty have fallen.
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11-20-2006 @ 1:24PM
Vito said...
Will never work. Daily Show doesn't have a liberal bias, it has a progressive bias. It champions honesty and straightforwardness above all else. They were a big fan of John McCain until he started selling out his values.
But FOX News has a strong conservative bias. And so does Ned Rice, the guy credited as the creator. There's a reason Air America never took off. People don't want to hear satire with a particular spin, they want to be told the truth. It just happens to be that if you look at the world and politics objectively, the truth falls considerably to the left of the right.
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11-20-2006 @ 1:37PM
Jimmy said...
"Scared cows of the left"? Hhhmmm, who lost control of Congress a couple weeks ago? It wasn't the "scared cows of the left." By the way, it's Manny Coto, not Coata. Exactly how are two people known for writing over-the-top drama going to create a satirical news program? I can't see this working, especially if their intent is to be utterly anti-Liberal in the humor. What makes the likes of Jon Stewart funny, in his own way, is that he doesn't care what party the person is in before he decides to slice into them. More than a few liberals have been on the receiving end of his biting humor.
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11-20-2006 @ 1:58PM
DrGuinness said...
Wow. What a bad idea and yes, conservatives have a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at ourselves. We have to. With that said having a "conservative Daily Show" on a (whether you like it or not) legitimate news outlet is in itself a joke.
Wasn't there an animated show on Spike called "This Just In" that was about a conservative blogger?
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11-20-2006 @ 2:32PM
Bryce said...
Sounds like Fox News is getting their first openly bias show.
Who here wants to bet that it has just as journalistic qaulity than any other Fox News program?
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11-20-2006 @ 3:04PM
Mike said...
i can see this show as being made fun of on Snl for the two weeks it is on
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11-20-2006 @ 3:04PM
Jim said...
"What exactly are the "sacred cows of the left"? Part of the left's problem is that it doesn't really have any."
You're joking, right? Let me take a stab...
Abortion
Gun control
Abortion
Universal health care
Abortion
Redistribution of private wealth
And maybe something about reproductive rights
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11-20-2006 @ 3:06PM
Trond M. said...
A right wing version of the Daily Show? I thought that was the entire idea behind Fox News in the first place.
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11-20-2006 @ 3:19PM
Vito said...
Even assuming that those issues are sacred cows (though I don't really think they are), that only proves the point that there's not much to make fun of. This kind of thing has been TRIED before. PJ O'Rourke has been around for decades, Dennis Miller has been conservative for a few years. But there's nothing funny about abortion, poor people unable to pay for medical treatment, or kids from a Colorado high school buying an entire arsenal of guns without raising eyebrows.
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11-20-2006 @ 3:47PM
Tammy said...
More power to them if they think it will work. Personally, I think Fox News is most successful when it uses scare tactics. It might be difficult to spend the day telling people who and what they should fear, and then turn around and make fun of those same people and issues in a comedy show.
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11-20-2006 @ 3:59PM
RuDee said...
Yeah, Eligio, Sure they've fallen. You wish.
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11-20-2006 @ 4:24PM
SJ said...
You can't really make jokes on abortion, gun control and universal health care.
Admit it, Fox News sucks big time, and this show will bomb. They won't make fun of the current administration. The Daily Show makes fun of just about everything.
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11-20-2006 @ 5:45PM
JDub said...
What exactly are the "sacred cows of the left"? Part of the left's problem is that it doesn't really have any. I'm sure Ann Coulter will come up with a few. She'd be perfect for this new show, if she weren't so damn scary.
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11-20-2006 @ 5:56PM
malren said...
"19. You can't really make jokes on abortion, gun control and universal health care."
Family Guy and American Dad do it all the time, from both political angles, and it's almost always funny.
I know for a fact you can write these jokes. I did it, and no, I won't say where. The trick is not to be mean and angry, but to be like Stewart and Colbert - self-deprecating and point out hypocrisy. EVERYONE in politics is a hypocrite, so it should be pretty easy.
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