My media worlds collided a bit on Thursday when Jon Stewart of The Daily Show blasted Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and Air America by comparing her statements on the disastrous Haiti earthquake to those made by Rush Limbaugh and the Reverend Pat Robertson:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Pat Robertson blamed the earthquake on the Haitians themselves. Rush Limbaugh said the death of tens of thousands was "made to order" for Obama to shore up his credibility among "both the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country."
Rachel Maddow, in contrast, highlighted the effective response of USAID. Below is the original segment as aired by Rachel Maddow on January 14th. I definitely suggest you watch it all the way through, as it provides an in-depth explanation of an under-covered government agency. In-depth explanations of this nature are an example of the media at its best.
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When a government agency or program functions effectively and is able to provide assistance to thousands of people, there is nothing controversial in reporting it. Even more so when that organization has repeatedly been subject to Republican attempts to decrease it's funding and scope.
If a government policy or program results in the prevention of a terrorist attack, would it be wrong to point out its success, and also criticize attempts to make it ineffective? Republicans are doing just that when they argue for torture, keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open, and the denial of access to the courts for terror suspects.
Last night, Rachel Maddow politely fired back at Stewart and refused to apologize:
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While I love both The Daily Show AND The Rachel Maddow Show, I think Jon Stewart is way off base this time around. Government *IS* politics. Having a discussion about anything related to the government without a discussion of the politics involved is inherently incomplete. Stewart seems to think that the media should relegate itself to showing footage of the death and destruction in Haiti without even a cursory explanation of precisely how America is able to help. Perhaps if more attention was drawn to FEMA before its failure after Hurricane Katrina, it would have been in a better position to respond. Instead, it fell out of the news, lost funding, and lost its cabinet-level post.
Covering the government is a good thing for the media to do, no matter what The Daily Show says.
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