Jimmy Fallon is taking a lot of flack for his interview with Donald Trump, in which he ruffled Trump's hair, asked him a bunch of softball questions, and generally made him look like a regular human being. That might not seem fair, given that he hosts a talk show, and a fairly light-hearted one at that. But at the same time, in our Post-Stewart world, the lines between satire and news reporting have been blurred, and we're used to the idea that humourists often say the things that reporters are afraid to.
But there's a bigger issue here, and that is that politicians and voters have blurred the lines between entertaining and campaigning. As this American election keeps proving, most people vote based on feelings rather than anything logical. An oft-used test is that people are looking for the candidate they'd most like to have a beer with. When you look at it that way, you realize that even a relaxed talk show appearance is image construction. It's more important to the candidate as any hard-hitting interview with a journalist, because it has more of an impact on what the public cares about. So really, even entertainers like Fallon have to consider the political impact of politicians on the show, since the candidates are considering the impact of the show on their campaign.
Another campaign media development got people talking, though this was in the more traditional news media. It was a New York Times report on the now-infamous press conference in which Donald Trump relented on the Birther issue, but then tried to pin it all on Hilary Clinton and take credit for putting an end to the controversy. As you hopefully know, Clinton has never had anything to do with the Birther concept, so that was a brazen lie, even by Trump's standards.
What was interesting in the Times' coverage was that they just came right out and said, in their coverage on the front page, that it was a lie. That's unusual, because the way journalism has operated recently is that the media reports what both sides say, without any implication as to who is right, except perhaps on the op-ed page or some other in-depth reporting deep within the paper. It was only a small thing, but it represented quite a philosophical shift, so this could be a big turning point for the paper, if not all of journalism.
And now let's put together those two topics of talk shows handling the election and the discarding of journalism's misguided attempt at neutrality. Often is seems as though late night hosts are having the same struggles as journalists: they're trying to be even-handed, joking about both sides equally. For one thing, that's proving difficult. For all her imperfections, Hilary Clinton isn't a goldmine of comedy, as David Letterman's interminable pantsuit jokes proved.
But the other problem is the same one journalists face, that it's hard to hit both sides when one is a whole lot crazier than the other. It's interesting to see how they handle it. The venerable Daily Show hasn't always handled it well. Of course, they've gone after Trump far more often, but they tend to stick to the idea that this is just a weird election. Compare that to their alumni Samantha Bee and John Oliver, who take an approach that's more like, "I can't believe this is happening, am I the last sane person in America?"
Not to speak ill of the dead, but I was really turned-off of The Nightly Show in its final months as they struggled to find a position on the election. Their writers and cast were firmly in the Bernie Sanders camp, and it often seemed like they were working harder against Clinton than against Trump. And speaking of Daily Alumni, Stephen Colbert seems a bit undecided about how to approach this election. At times he seems to be able to put together the clever critiques that made him famous, and you can really feel how he's feeling more comfortable with the material than he is trying to do light chatting with the band leader. But at other times, Colbert tries to walk the line and appeal to everyone. He tries desperately to channel Jay Leno, but it just isn't him, nor is it what we need right now.
The big pleasant surprise has been Seth Meyers. For one thing, it's surprising because he's at NBC, which is also the home of the aforementioned Fallon, and fellow Trump pawns, Saturday Night Live.
It's also surprising because I had thought he was a bit of a lightweight contender in this golden age of televised political satire. But he's often the most effective voice when it comes to calling Trump on his antics. That's in terms of both humour and in drawing out precisely what is wrong with that day's controversies. It makes me sorry about the post last year when I accused him of nerd-self-hatred.
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