Satire TV
Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era
Edited by Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Jones and Ethan Thompson
New York University Press
ISBN: 978-0-8147-3199-4
Buy at Amazon
File Under: Non-Fiction, Media Studies

Certainly for a new generation of informed citizens a good portion of your news is now coming through satire and comedy programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. So it is interesting to get together various essays addressing the history of this phenomenon and how it affects modern politics (and vice versa).

Of course this sort of thing is not new in American politics and this book does a nice job of tracing some of the history including a nice piece on fake candidates that includes Pat Paulsen from the Smothers Brothers comedy show. The United States also is not the only country that has seen a rise of satirical news programming and several essays cover Rick Mercer from Canada and other satirist from around the world.

To me the most interesting essays in this book are the ones that really explore the similarities between these "comedy" shows and the "serious" news shows. In her essay on Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, Joan Morreale focuses on Stewart's famous appearance on Crossfire where basically he calls the "serious" host clowns and the "serious" host call him too somber for a comedian. The lines between comedy, entertainment and news have perhaps been permanently blurred and while I watch the Daily Show and Colbert almost daily, I am not sure this is a good thing.

To me the fact that this book has me questioning whether this is a good thing or not tells me that the book has succeeded. It made me think outside the points made by the various essayist. It made me think about how I now consume the news. That has to be a good thing doesn't it?

Post Script:
For the record, I do have my own theory about how The O'Reilly Factor is really satire and that the whole crew is in on it except Bill O'Reilly. Kind of like a real life Truman Show, just much more sad because lots of folks in the audience are not in on it.

Read Excerpts from Satire TV