The Impudence of Being Earnest: Jon Stewart and the Boundaries of Discursive Responsibility

Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The Impudence of Being Earnest: Jon Stewartand the Boundaries of DiscursiveResponsibilityMatt Carlson1 & Jason T. Peifer2

1 Department of Communication, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA2 School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

In late 2010, Jon Stewart attracted considerable news media attention by organizing theRally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear and, later, pressuring lawmakers to pass legislationproviding health care to 9/11 responders. The events renewed an interpretive strugglesurrounding Stewart in which journalists understood his activity as signaling a shift inhis cultural role. Using the concept of boundary maintenance to qualitatively analyzejournalists’ interpretations, this study connects journalistic discourse surrounding Stewartto questions of epistemic authority, the role of earnestness in public discourse, and theresponsibility of discursive agents. These evaluations of Stewart illuminate the contestationof appropriate norms and practices within the mediated public sphere during an era ofcomplex cultural, economic, and technological change.

doi:10.1111/jcom.12019

‘‘I know there are boundaries for a comedian/pundit talker guy, and I’m sure I’llfind out tomorrow how I have violated them.’’

—Jon Stewart at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

In any democracy, the sight of a massive political rally before a hotly contestedgeneral election would not be unusual. Yet on October 30, 2010, thousands gatheredin Washington D.C. to witness a rally led not by politicians or political parties,but by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The Rally to Restore Sanityand/or Fear drew a mix of praise, scorn, and bafflement from the news media(Jones, 2011). Weeks later, Stewart received a similar response after his blunt andopen support for the so-called Zadroga Bill, a program to provide health care to9/11 responders that had stalled in the U.S. Senate. The U.S. journalistic commu-nity has long struggled to make sense of Stewart’s satire within political discourse

Corresponding author: Matt Carlson; e-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Communication (2013) © 2013 International Communication Association 1

The Impudence of Being Earnest M. Carlson & J. Peifer

(Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2009), and his move away from his nightly comedic perfor-mance into advocacy (Jones, Baym, & Day, 2012) prompted journalists to considernew—and largely uncomfortable—modes of public discourse operating contratraditional journalism’s institutionalized norms. More than mere musings over acomedian’s doings, journalists’ responses confronted the emerging heterogeneity ofmediated voices participating in the public sphere.

Journalists have long occupied a privileged cultural position as a producer of publicknowledge. Throughout the 20th century, journalists laid claim to ‘‘the right to inter-pret everyday occurrences to citizens and other professionals alike’’ by portraying newsas ‘‘a product of professionalism’’ (Tuchman, 1978, p. 5). Journalism came to base itsepistemic authority on institutionalized norms associated with objectivity, neutrality,and detachment (Schudson, 1978) and a set of routine practices (Tuchman, 1978).The widespread acceptance of this paradigm solidified journalism’s hold on publicdiscourse while transforming the political sphere (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999). Yetthe paradigm appears increasingly fractured in a contemporary media environmentrife with discursive forms demonstrating a wider array of norms and practices. Jour-nalism faces not only shifting economic and technological grounds, but also a crisisof authority (Gitlin, 2011) within an increasingly diverse-mediated public sphere.

The theoretical domain of boundary maintenance (Gieryn, 1999) provides ananalytical framework connecting discussions of Stewart to deeper contestation overthe shape of public discourse. Journalists seek to preserve their jurisdiction (Abbott,1988; Schudson & Anderson, 2010), or the social position from which their workderives. Certainly Stewart’s satire has long challenged journalism’s epistemic authorityby endlessly lampooning its failures and excesses (for overviews, see Baym, 2005;Jones, 2010). However, Stewart’s involvement with the rally and the Zadroga Billstirred up journalists’ concerns over paradigmatic boundaries in two related senses.First, Stewart’s turn toward advocacy raised questions about the role of earnestnessin public discourse. Earnestness, defined as forthright allegiance to convictions andideals, operates differently than the detached neutrality associated with the journalisticparadigm. Second, Stewart’s involvement in the political sphere led journalists toquestion the normative obligations of political satirists within public discourse. Bothof these concerns connect to a deeper assessment of the responsibility of discursiveagents operating in the public sphere.

Drawing on textual analysis, this study asks how journalists publicly legitimizedor delegitimized Stewart’s actions in 2010. That is, in what ways are boundaries ofacceptable public discourse made meaningful through discussions of Stewart? Thesequestions move us beyond the singular case of Jon Stewart to get to the heart ofWilliams and Delli Carpini’s (2011) concern over how to analyze emerging formsof public discourse: ‘‘what rules and norms might one use for guiding, assessing,and criticizing sources of political information that lie outside the profession ofjournalism?’’ (p. 309). The attention here falls to the contestation running throughthe formation of rules and norms. The findings reveal a process in which journalistsnegotiate questions of responsible public discourse.

2 Journal of Communication (2013) © 2013 International Communication Association

M. Carlson & J. Peifer The Impudence of Being Earnest

Jon Stewart and political discourse

The significant body of academic research on Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central program,The Daily Show, concentrates on the peculiar discursive form of humorously engagingpolitical and media issues. The show’s departure from the journalistic modesof public discourse normally associated with this terrain has led researchers toquestion its impact on audience’s understandings and attitudes toward the politicalsphere. Effects-based research on The Daily Show—generally employing experimentsand surveys—addresses issues related to Stewart’s influence on viewer cynicism(Baumgartner & Morris, 2006), viewer perceptions of The Daily Show (Polk, Young,& Holbert, 2009), information processing (Kim & Vishak, 2008), and political learning(Feldman & Young, 2008; Xenos & Becker, 2009). Such research suggests potentialeffects and the possibility of gaining political knowledge via The Daily Show. Incontrast, other researchers concentrate on the content of The Daily Show. While someof the interest in content has employed quantitative content analysis (Fox, Koloen,& Sahin, 2007), much of the work on content examines the unique role of Stewartin contemporary political discourse. Critical and culturally oriented scholarship, forexample, examines how The Daily Show has become ‘‘a serious (though humorous)arena for interrogating power’’ (Jones, 2010, p. xi). Baym (2005) argues that TheDaily Show combines news, politics, entertainment, and marketing ‘‘into previouslyunimagined combinations’’ (p. 262). Viewed as representing a new form of journalism(Baym, 2007; Young, 2008), Stewart draws consideration for his ability to articulatecritiques of contemporary political discourse and its shortcomings through a blend ofthe mimetic and political nonfiction (Day, 2011). Beyond politics, Stewart provides anadditional role as a news media critic (Borden & Tew, 2007; Painter & Hodges, 2010).Predicated on the assumption that The Daily Show provides a venue for significantpolitical debate and engagement (e.g., Gray, Jones, & Thompson, 2009; Baym, 2010),these approaches have in common a desire to extend an understanding of Stewart’srole beyond providing entertainment to encompass his larger political and culturalsignificance.

Beyond effects and content, a less-explored perspective considers how journalistsrespond to the changing shape of public discourse signaled by Stewart and The DailyShow. Feldman (2007) found journalists struggled with the epistemic unfamiliarityof the program’s mix of humor with political commentary. In failing to be whollyentertainment or information-based, The Daily Show ‘‘renders the journalisticallyingrained impulse to distinguish between the two largely ineffectual’’ (p. 414).This inability to place Stewart within public discourse led journalists to confrontprofessional constraints and increased challenges to their role as legitimate producersof public knowledge. Tenenboim-Weinblatt (2009) traced the progression of Stewartfrom invisibility to cultural authority, or ‘‘an important player in the cultural andmedia scene, and as a point of reference through which journalists make sense ofvarious social phenomena’’ (p. 430). Tenenboim-Weinblatt shows that this was notan uncontested progression but one in which journalists slowly came to terms with



Stewart operating on the margins of public discourse while amassing a growingaudience and increased influence both culturally and politically.

Previous studies portray the complex position Jon Stewart occupies in both thepolitical and journalistic realms. Although Stewart denies the mantle of journalism,research has made clear his influence within public discourse about current affairs.He has emerged as an important cultural figure, albeit one who does not fit easily inexisting categories. This singularity elicits questions surrounding his responsibility asa political satirist, questions which became more acute following his activities at theend of 2010.

Epistemic authority

Stewart’s cultural ascendency, and particularly his involvement with the Rally toRestore Sanity and his advocacy for the Zadroga Bill analyzed below, raises deeperissues that move beyond Stewart to speak to the transformation of epistemicauthority within public discourse. Ekstrom (2002) provides a theoretical frameworkdefining epistemology as ‘‘the rules, routines and institutionalized procedures thatoperate within a social setting and decide the form of the knowledge produced andthe knowledge claims expressed’’ (p. 260). Knowledge-producing practices becomepowerful when institutions attain cultural authority over ‘‘the construction of realitythrough definitions of fact and value’’ (Starr, 1982, p. 13). Despite an array of forms,journalists in the United States regularly base arguments for epistemic authority on acommitment to objectivity norms (Hackett, 1984; Schudson, 1978), a foundationalpolitical role as ‘‘a constitutive institution in a democratic society’’ (Ekstrom, 2002, p.260), and adherence to a set of standardized routines (Tuchman, 1978). Journalisticauthority arises from claims situating journalists within a privileged cultural role toproduce and distribute legitimate public knowledge about the world unmatched byother forms of public discourse (Zelizer, 1992). For many years, journalists’ hold onthe jurisdiction of public discourse to the exclusion of other communities (Abbott,1988) also owed to its structural position over the means of mass communicationwith high barriers to entry preventing alternative discursive forms from gainingrecognition.

Treating journalistic authority as epistemic supplants notions of authority ascoercion with authority as cultural assent. This recognition foregrounds contextwhen analyzing struggles among competing epistemic communities (Knorr Cetina,1999; Zelizer, 1993) to establish their authority: ‘‘Epistemic authority does not exist asan omnipresent ether, but rather is enacted as people debate (and ultimately decide)where to locate the legitimate jurisdiction’’ of social institutions (Gieryn, 1999, p.15). Questions of journalism’s epistemic authority become particularly acute in thecontemporary media environment. The proliferation of media outlets and growth ofnetworked computing technologies have transformed participation in the mediatedpublic sphere (Gillmor, 2004; Jenkins, 2006). This is not merely a quantitativeextension of voices, but a qualitative shift introducing a more diverse range of voices.



Journalism exists alongside other media forms with their own claims to epistemicauthority (Robinson, 2011). This shift coincides with other tensions stemming fromdeclining audiences for traditional news sources along with shrinking revenues(Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2011) and questions about journalism’s value(Gitlin, 2011). The ongoing upheaval of the news paradigm compels journalists topublicly delineate appropriate discursive practices within the mediated public sphere.These efforts occur less out of an impulse toward reflexivity than as a bid to erectboundaries separating their work from those deemed to be outside of journalism.

What was notable about the negotiation of discursive forms emerging in responseto Stewart’s organization of the Rally to Restore Sanity and support for the ZadrogaBill was journalists’ engagement with the concept of earnestness. As a whole, thenotion of earnestness has garnered limited consideration among media scholars.Everyday usage of the term is commonly associated with being serious and intenseabout some matter or activity—a striking descriptor when talking about a comedianknown for jokes and lightheartedness. To address this gap, this present analysis offers adefinition of earnestness as a perceived trait of authenticity and sincerity, undergirdedby strong convictions and serious intention. We contend that earnestness is a keyconcept for understanding public discourse regarding Stewart’s role with the rallyand the Zadroga Bill. In each case, Stewart’s support for specific positions—the callfor civility and the passage of a congressional bill, respectively—was not carried outthrough detached humorousness but an active—and quite impassioned—call foraction. This departure from his regular satire, not to mention its dissimilarity withjournalistic norms of detached objectivity, propels the need to reconsider modesof epistemic authority underpinning public discourse. The qualities of earnestnessdiverge normatively from dominant forms within the mediated public sphere, whichsuggests the extension of authoritative forms in new directions, as we will see below.

Method

This study takes a constructionist view of journalism that accents the discursiveprocess by which journalists and others publicly compete to define what journalismis and ought to be (Dahlgren, 1992). While all institutions seek legitimacy (Abbott,1988), journalists occupy a role as cultural producers to continuously comment onand evaluate their profession. Bishop (1999) notes how ‘‘journalists now do muchof their reflecting—and boundary building—in front of readers and viewers’’ (p.91). This study extends this focus from journalists’ self-examinations to encompasscommentary on Jon Stewart as indicating a larger effort to construct appropriatenorms and practices for operating in the mediated public sphere.

To examine how journalists constructed symbolic boundaries in reaction to JonStewart’s actions, we examined journalistic discourse encompassing the two eventsat the center of this study: the October 30, 2010, Rally to Restore Sanity and/orFear and the December 16, 2010, episode of The Daily Show featuring a panel of9/11 responders. Using the LexisNexis database, we collected texts from major U.S.



newspaper and wire services, magazine articles, and television and radio broadcasttranscripts over two periods: October 16 to November 13, 2010, and December 2,2010, to January 6, 2011. During the first period, the search terms ‘‘Jon Stewart’’and ‘‘rally’’ rendered a return of 214 texts (126 newspaper and wire stories, 78broadcast transcripts, and 10 magazine stories). For the second period, ‘‘Jon Stewart’’yielded 105 texts in total (40 newspaper and wire stories, 37 broadcast transcripts,and 28 magazine articles). Across both events, Cable News Network (CNN) notablyconstituted the most broadcast coverage in the analysis, accounting for 46 texts in thesample, while MSNBC tallied 26 stories and National Public Radio (NPR) produced17. Among the newspaper and news wire coverage of both events, the WashingtonPost (15 stories), the Associated Press (13 stories), and the New York Times (11stories) reportage emerged most frequently. Only U.S. press sources are used in thisstudy, which limits the overall analysis to the U.S. media and political landscape.

The authors conducted a qualitative textual analysis using open and axial codingtechniques (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) to identify the principal conceptual boundariesjournalists employed in making sense of Jon Stewart’s Washington rally and legislativeadvocacy. Through close readings of the texts, the authors continuously categorizedjournalists’ interpretations of Stewart. Comparison and grouping of these emergentcategories led to the dimensionalization of constructs (Lindof & Taylor, 2011).Although these constructs emerge from the sample, this analysis is interpretive itselfbecause of our active categorization of the discourse. Journalists rarely invoke thedirect language of boundary work in their assessments, although general spatialreferences to movement are prevalent. Instead, we divide the discourse according toemergent dimensions journalists call upon to interpret Stewart. These dimensionsin turn reveal patterned responses that can be ordered within larger conceptualboundaries.

Findings

The raft of news stories surrounding Stewart in response to the Rally to Restore Sanityand the Zadroga Bill indicates no shortage of attention to the comedian’s doings.After several years of lampooning politics and the news media, journalists had largelybecome comfortable with Stewart’s particular discursive role as a political satirist(Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2009). However, journalists began to reevaluate whetherthis discursive position was in flux following the rally and his support for 9/11 firstresponders. Lacking a unified understanding of these incidents, a range of journalistsworking in different media with positions ranging from reporters to columnistspondered whether Stewart was engaged in an undefined discursive metamorphosis.The following sections analyze journalistic efforts to describe Stewart’s role changeas a form of boundary maintenance regarding appropriate forms of public discourse.

The sections below divide discussions of Stewart into three sets of boundariespertaining to arguments surrounding the appropriate discursive practices in themediated public sphere. First, with regard to tone, journalists argued that Stewart has



moved or was moving across the boundary between humor and seriousness. Second,on the issue of involvement, it was suggested that Stewart transitioned from being anunattached commentator on news and politics to a vocal advocate for specific politicalcauses. Finally, in terms of political position, journalists portrayed Stewart as movingfrom being an outsider within media and politics to being an insider. Certainly, thesethree boundaries share considerable overlap, but they point to important distinctionsregarding arguments for the epistemic authority of discursive agents.

Boundaries of political discourse: humorous/serious

Journalists interpreting Jon Stewart’s political rally and support for the ZadrogaBill commonly treated these events as indicative of the comedian’s ‘‘serious turn.’’Rather than a continuation or extension of his previous work as a political satirist,these events were made to signal the traversing of a boundary between detachedhumorousness and committed seriousness. For example, ABC Good Morning Americaanchor Dan Harris labeled the rally as marking an ‘‘evolution from comedian to kindof quasi-political figure’’ with an onscreen graphic reading ‘‘Jon Stewart: Comedy orPolitics?’’ (October 16, 2010). In this interpretation, satire gives way to earnestnessas Stewart leaves the realm of light-hearted comedy to enter the territory of seriouspolitical discourse to which journalists lay claim. Questions of Stewart’s involvementin political issues will be addressed in the following section while the current sectionanalyzes how journalists discussed Stewart in terms of boundaries between comedicand serious political discourse.

Journalists working in different media considered Stewart’s actions withina dichotomy explicitly dividing comedic and noncomedic discourse. PittsburghPost-Gazette reporter Mackenzie Carpenter (2010) invoked both seriousness andpartisanship when she asked: ‘‘So is it a political protest or just comic relief? Theliberals’ answer to Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ rally in August, or just a chance tohave a few laughs?’’ Because they deviated from his normal satiric output, the unfa-miliarity of Stewart’s actions made them hard for journalists to locate. On CNN’sReliable Sources (October 31, 2010), media critic Howard Kurtz similarly offered‘‘seriousness or satire’’ as two explanations. NPR’s David Folkenflik indicated boththe contentiousness and popularity of this dichotomy with his characterization of ‘‘afierce debate among the political classes about whether Stewart has comedy or politicsin mind’’ (All Things Considered, October 29, 2010). In framing Stewart as traversinga boundary between being humorous and being serious, these commentators impliedthese positions to be incommensurable. Humor, which is normally situated withinthe realm of entertainment, is positioned in contrast to the normative commitmentsof information-based news media (Baym, 2010; Feldman, 2007). Humor and seri-ousness became mutually exclusive tonal modes despite an increase in soft news(Baum, 2003) and the long running seriousness undergirding The Daily Show’shumor (Baym, 2008). This dichotomization suggested a discomfort with Stewart’sactions as infringing on journalism’s role in presiding over the serious realm of public



discourse about the political sphere. Even as Stewart slips into seriousness, his closeidentification with political satire makes him an unwelcome visitor to a terrain thatjournalists closely guard.

Journalists defended their role as the appropriate agents presiding over the publicdiscourse by invoking a broader concern that the mixing of entertainment andjournalistic modes has had negative consequences for journalistic authority (Winch,1997). In the New York Times—a news outlet accustomed to its role at the top of theserious U.S. news hierarchy—political reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg signaled sucha concern for preserving journalism’s authority in the domain of serious news in acommentary following Stewart’s interview of President Barack Obama prior to therally: ‘‘The lines between entertainment and news are increasingly blurred’’ (Stolberg,2010). Similarly, Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper cartoonist David Horsey (2010),whose cartoons mix humor with politics, lamented the ‘‘blended world of politics andmedia’’ in which ‘‘politicians become pundits, pundits play politics and comedians canseem more credible and sane than either one.’’ These comments indicated journalists’discomfort with the increasingly permeable boundaries separating journalists andnonjournalists. Certainly, Stewart often made serious points during The Daily Show,but by stepping outside the bounds of his Comedy Central program to hold a rallyand advocating for specific legislation he raised the ire of many in the journalisticcommunity. Instead of overlooking his occasional seriousness, these critics viewedthe comedian’s potential tonal shift into the realm of seriousness as engenderinga threat to journalism’s jurisdiction within public discourse (Abbott, 1988). As aserious commentator on public affairs, Stewart symbolized a larger—and largelyunwelcome to journalists—diversification of the mediated public sphere.

Accusations of Stewart’s ‘‘serious turn’’ often confronted Stewart not in termsof journalism, but the larger normative questions of what public discourse aboutpolitics ought to look like. Much of this criticism presenting Stewart’s actions to beanathematic to proper public discourse emerged from media and political columnistsnot bound by conventions of objectivity. Slate’s Timothy Noah chastised Stewart forthreatening to undermine politics with his involvement: ‘‘Humor has its place, andpolitics has its place. But don’t try and turn the actual process itself into a put-on.This is a serious business’’ (All Things Considered, NPR, October 29, 2010). Anothernewspaper columnist similarly alleged that ‘‘the line between politics and parody hasbeen blurred,’’ which resulted in a negative distraction since ‘‘the biggest gathering ata time of national dissension and economic decline is little more than an inside jokestaged by cable comedians’’ (Coleman, 2010). More severely, Baltimore Sun TV criticDavid Zurawik (2010) contrasted Stewart and Colbert with national symbols: ‘‘Insteadof leaders like Lincoln and King, we now come to Washington and stand in thesun by the tens of thousands to listen to fools and charlatans.’’ These commentatorslambasted Stewart for either mixing humor with seriousness or attempting to behumorous in a site reserved for seriousness. Thus, in accusing Stewart of exceedingthe bounds of his normal comedic role in a manner detrimental to public discourse,critics simultaneously constructed acceptable tonal norms for taking an active role



in public affairs. This judgment holds even though, as columnists, these journalistsdeviate from the bulk of reporters in their license to adopt an earnest commitmentto specific issues. The objections raised do not pertain to Stewart’s voicing of his ownopinion, but rather his traversal from humorousness to seriousness.

A more subtle reinforcement of the boundary between seriousness and humorarose in reaction to Stewart’s efficacy in bringing attention to the foundering ZadrogaBill. CNN’s Paul Begala critiqued Stewart’s participation in the political process byframing Stewart’s involvement as a failure of news media to bring attention to theissue: ‘‘It took a comedy show to take the political class in Washington and focustheir attention on this. He should get a lot of credit’’ (John King, CNN, December 20,2010). Columnist Margaret Carlson (2010) employed similar language: ‘‘It took TheDaily Show With Jon Stewart to do what the rest of us failed to do. In the last episodeof the year, Stewart hosted four first responders, all ill.’’ Both Begala and Carlson arepundits expected to generate opinions and call attention to issues such as the ZadrogaBill. Although on the surface laudatory toward Stewart, both comments portray thereliance on The Daily Show to drive political action forward as an embarrassmentto the political and journalistic actors charged with being legitimate originators ofsuch action. The editorial board of the New York Times—another site of earnestjournalistic advocacy—took up the issue more explicitly in an editorial about theZadroga Bill: ‘‘President Obama should stop letting Jon Stewart carry the ball, stepin and insist that Congress pass the bill’’ (An unpaid debt, 2010). In this view,Stewart’s seemingly necessary role in pushing the bill forward raises questions aboutthe efficacy of existing political and journalistic actors. Yet this did not include callsfor Stewart to move further into the domain of seriousness or to a reassessmentof satirical responsibility. Rather, these comments reinforced the boundary betweenseriousness and humor by indicating the aberrational outcome of Stewart’s advocacyfor the Zadroga Bill. The lesson that follows is not the need for more vigilant, earnestcomedic discourse but rather the better functioning of serious political commentary.

Journalists responded to the rally and the Zadroga Bill by opposing humorwith seriousness and then using this boundary to criticize Stewart. This responseunderscores the role of seriousness within the epistemic authority of journalism.Journalism presents itself as a serious practice producing truthful accounts ofimportant happenings in the world. Yet journalism’s ability to occupy this role isincreasingly threatened through competition in the mediated public sphere fromnonjournalistic voices operating under different conceptions of epistemic authority(Park, 2009). As he has gained in cultural prominence, Stewart’s authority within thepublic sphere has derived not from the detached position of an objective journalistbut as an opinioned political satirist using humor to expose the absurdities ofpolitical and media elites. Stewart’s public movement into seriousness threatenedthe boundary between humor and seriousness, a move that caused journalists towarn that weakening tonal boundaries would negatively affect the quality of publicdiscourse. This is a protective argument meant to shore up the borders of how one



should speak within the mediated public sphere in a way that boosts the epistemicauthority of journalism.

Boundaries of political commitment: commentary/advocacy

Much of the conversation on Stewart’s actions with the rally and his support of theZadroga Bill confronted the larger question of speakers’ political commitments withinthe public sphere. Despite tonal differences between humorousness and seriousness,many journalists responding to Stewart suggested that both journalists and politicalsatirists should rigidly maintain distance from the objects of their attention. Thislogic informed critics of Stewart who viewed the rally and support for the Zadroga Billas crossing from commentary to advocacy. CNN anchor Ali Velshi articulated thismovement in response to Zadroga: ‘‘He wasn’t poking fun at something, he wasn’tpointing out irony, he wasn’t making fun of people, he was getting involved to tryand get this bill passed’’ (Newsroom, December 22, 2010). The concern over whetherStewart was crossing a boundary from uninvolved to involved in the political processconnects to deeper concerns among journalists about their normative commitmentto avoid direct advocacy in their reportage. This commitment works in conjunctionwith a larger commitment to objectivity—a value constantly debated inside andoutside of journalism (Hackett, 1984). Just as journalists argue their reporting doesnot take sides, so too was it assumed that Stewart lampooned political and journalisticinadequacies on his comedy program without supporting specific positions. However,distance is incompatible with earnestness and Stewart’s adoption of positions—evenrelatively nonpartisan positions of calling for greater civility in political and mediadiscourse and securing funds for 9/11 responders—caused some journalists toreconsider their expectations of satire as a form of public discourse (Williams & DelliCarpini, 2011). This discomfort with Stewart also suggests a deeper conception ofearnestness as an alternative mode for engaging politics.

Claims of Stewart having crossed a boundary from commentator to advocatecould be seen in the labels accorded to him in coverage of both the rally and Zadroga.In covering the latter, the Associated Press repeatedly labeled Stewart as ‘‘comedianand activist’’ (Lester, 2010; Fouhy & Miga, 2010) and media critic Howard Kurtzcheekily asked: ‘‘Jon Stewart, legislative strategist?’’ (Reliable Sources, CNN, December26, 2010). Television critic Alessandra Stanley took a middle position with the labelof ‘‘semi-serious activist’’ (2010) in the New York Times following the rally. However,such boundary straddling was rejected by New York Times media reporters Bill Carterand Brian Stelter (2010): ‘‘Though he might prefer a description like ‘advocacysatire,’ what Mr. Stewart engaged in that night—and on earlier occasions when hecampaigned openly for passage of the bill—usually goes by the name ‘advocacyjournalism.’’’ The suggestion that Stewart was engaging in advocacy more so thansatire was fueled by the credit he received for bringing attention to the Zadroga Bill(which was passed shortly after Stewart took it up on his program). For example,the New York Daily News praised Stewart in an editorial: ‘‘Thanks in large part to



relentless television advocacy by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, the 9/11 bill has risenup the agenda’’ (The U.S. Senate, 2010). Both the variety of labeling and the creditgiven to Stewart indicated efforts by journalists to reassess Stewart’s role within publicdiscourse. Stewart’s move of actively inserting himself into political debates raisedquestions regarding detachment as a key norm of not only journalistic authority,but satiric authority as well. The discursive shift from satiric commentary to earnestadvocacy entailed efforts to define what Stewart was doing and evaluate these actions.

Uneasiness with Stewart’s public commitment to political positions emergedthrough charges that Stewart eroded the impartiality necessary to do effective satire.On the roundtable program Inside Washington (October 31, 2010), Newsweek’s EvanThomas deemed Stewart’s display of earnestness incompatible with detachment: ‘‘It’sa fine line between being a comic and an activist. And Stewart’s got to be carefulabout that. He should be a comic. I don’t think it works so well when he’s an activist.’’The suggestion was not merely of Stewart crossing a boundary between commentatorand advocate but that this role change imperiled Stewart. The Washington Post mediareporter Farhi (2010) put it in even starker terms after the rally: ‘‘And so, a massgathering with the stated aim of being nice. Is that a role a satirist can really play?’’These comments construct an understanding of satire as a form of political discoursedisconnected from action. While satire might be seen as an action in and of itself,it is always a reaction to events and not normally an explicit attempt to activelychange them. Stewart’s public display of earnestness in pursuit of change, whetherin organizing the rally or promoting passage of the Zadroga Bill, was posited asanathematic to norms of detachment connected to both journalists and satirists. Bytaking a position—even in a limited way—Stewart risked invalidating his role aspolitical satirist.

No one would mistake Stewart’s satire for objectivity, but journalists still suggestedthe need for him to remain unattached to be effective. Arguments trumpeting anormative commitment to detachment for journalism and political satire served tosituate both epistemic practices as operating outside of the events on which they focus.Journalists and satirists, as distinct forms of discursive agents, are similarly imaginedto be uninvolved—and therefore limited in their earnestness. Thus, Stewart crossingthe boundary of detachment to take action in places he deemed worthy of suchtraversal drew complaints based more on the desire to maintain symbolic boundariesthan confronting the actual issues raised—namely the largely uncontroversial issuesof civil political discourse and the support of 9/11 first responders.

Boundaries of political position: outsider/insider

In addition to suggestions that he had moved into advocacy, Stewart’s actions raisedquestions from journalists about his location within the media and political fields. Thepurported shift here is from the position of outsider to that of becoming an insiderwithin the circles he criticizes. Discussions of Stewart as insider or outsider connectto ongoing anxieties concerning journalists’ normative commitments to detachment



as distance from political actors—even for news commentators expected to providepolitical opinions. Traditionally, journalistic claims to epistemic authority stem frombeing an outsider to what is being covered, yet journalists face accusations of becomingpolitical insiders through their close ties with their sources (Carlson, 2009) or theiroutsized celebrity statuses (Meltzer, 2010). Moreover, new media forms diminishthe dependence of political insiders by allowing elected officials to circumvent newsmedia and reach the public independently (Grant, Moon, & Grant, 2010). Giventhis context, Stewart’s actions provided an opportunity to discuss tensions over thepositioning of speakers within the mediated public sphere in ways both specific tothe comedian and addressing wider unease among the journalistic community.

Journalists in various media expressed Stewart’s movement across the out-sider/insider boundary through suggestions of the comedian’s political influence.USA Today television critic Robert Bianco (2010) stated that with the rally, ‘‘Stewartsolidified his position as one of TV’s most influential opinion-shapers.’’ New YorkTimes media columnist David Carr (2010) went further in affirming Stewart’s grow-ing clout, writing that Stewart was assuming a ‘‘new role as a political leader, which iswhat you call somebody if he hosts a rally on the Washington Mall for over 200,000people.’’ On television, CNN political analyst Mark Preston connected this powerback to Stewart’s satire by commenting how he ‘‘really has carved out a niche as beinga very powerful figure . . . when he’s bridging politics and comedy’’ (Newsroom,CNN, October 20, 2010). And ABC News’ Jake Tapper remarked, ‘‘he has what oneWhite House official calls cultural currency. In other words, relevance, an ability toinfluence perceptions’’ (World News, October 28, 2010). These comments indicate animage of Stewart as moving from outsider status as a political satirist into the realmsof politics and journalism. But these comments must be interpreted within ongoingcrises experienced by the existing journalistic paradigm (Gitlin, 2011). Through hismix of satire and earnestness, Stewart is portrayed as redefining satiric responsibilityat a time when journalists were struggling with their own questions of responsibility.

Similar to questions commentators raised regarding Stewart’s forays into advo-cacy, suggestions that Stewart had moved from outsider to insider status raisedconcerns that this move would hamper his success as a satirist. When New YorkTimes television critic Alessandra Stanley criticized Stewart for his interview withPresident Obama on The Daily Show, her argument assumed that such access topowerful political figures weakened the satiric credibility he derives from being anindependent outsider. Stanley (2010) asserted, ‘‘a political satirist loses credibilitywhen hobnobbing with a sitting president.’’ Stewart’s ability to interview Obama, andthe limitations inherent in doing so, signaled a role change that threatened Stewart’seffectiveness as a satirist. This view of Stewart was echoed by political comedianswho appeared as sources for television and radio programs. Peter Sagal, the hostof NPR’s comedic program Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! expressed concern overStewart becoming an insider: ‘‘He’s not on anybody’s side. That’s why I love him.When he starts turning into a player on one or two sides in the political debate, I getdisappointed’’ (Weekend Edition, October 30, 2010). Similarly, comic Marc Maron



warned that comedians moving from outsiders to insiders with political power couldbe dangerous: ‘‘people should listen to comics and learn from them and get theirmind blown and maybe reveal some truth but I think we have a real problemwhen people start looking to clowns to lead them’’ (Newsroom, CNN, October 30,2010). Beyond Stewart’s actions, these comments construct a boundary for comedicpolitical discourse similar to the normative position of the journalistic outsider. Inboth domains, discursive agents are expected to maintain a detachment from theirsubjects and not to become a political actor themselves.

Journalists’ efforts to define the appropriate position of discursive agents emergedin discussions of the responsibilities of political satirists. One extreme was positedby television critic David Bianculli, who positioned Stewart not as a comic but asa journalist, and therefore beholden to the expectations placed on journalists: ‘‘heis a journalist, by my definition, and asking questions and preparing for interviewsand structuring interviews and conducting them not only as a journalist should, butas few journalists on television do. So I don’t give him a free pass by saying he’s acomic’’ (Fresh Air, NPR, December 22, 2010). In assigning the mediation of politicssquarely to the jurisdiction of journalists, Bianculli defines Stewart’s roles within theframework of journalism without allowing for competing alternatives within publicdiscourse.

In contrast, CNN reporter Pete Dominick, a comic who once warmed upaudiences for the Daily Show, heralded Stewart’s comedic freedom as an alternativediscursive form for mediating politics. Stewart’s lack of adherence to journalisticconstraints becomes a source of jealousy on the part of journalists: ‘‘Sometimes Iwonder if journalists get jealous of we, as comedians, what we’re able to do. Thefreedom that we have journalists don’t really have. So, sometimes we can do a littlebit of journalism, we can cover issues in a way and in a fashion that journalists can’tget away with, and we do that. We take advantage of that’’ (Newsroom, CNN, October28, 2010). These two viewpoints present opposing views of Stewart’s influence.The former suggests Stewart should abide by jurisdictional norms when movingfurther into the political arena while the latter commends Stewart for establishinga different set of norms for the mediation of politics. This divide indicates theimportance of boundaries to understanding epistemic authority. Journalists protecttheir jurisdiction over political discourse to the point of claiming Stewart in the caseof Bianculli. Meanwhile, an opposing view suggests the need to reinvent new groundsfor epistemic authority not beholden to strict journalistic standards.

Conclusion

When comedian Jon Stewart organized the Rally to Restore Sanity before the 2010midterm elections and then actively supported passage of the Zadroga Bill on The DailyShow, journalists from across the news media probed whether Stewart was crossing aboundary into seriousness, advocacy, and greater involvement in the political sphere.The variety of reactions recounted above range from confusion over Stewart’s role



to discomfort with his actions to outright criticism that such movement negativelyaffected political discourse. Although no consensus view emerged, these reactionsare significant for not only what they indicate about Jon Stewart, but, more broadly,what they signal about the evolution of public discourse. Legacy media journalistsaccustomed to occupying a privileged discursive role increasingly find themselves in acontested space beset by emerging discursive forms. The resulting anxiety emanatingfrom this media sea change can be understood partly as jurisdictional struggle(Abbott, 1988), particularly as journalism competes for attention and revenues. Thelarger issue, however, concerns what Dahlgren (1992) labels ‘‘discursive control’’(p. 2). A plurality of discursive agents means a plurality of discursive forms withdifferent norms and practices. A coherent, largely homogeneous orthodox vision ofjournalism is no longer assured of its discursive centrality or its ability to dictatediscursive norms.

From this vantage point of discursive control, we can better assess why journalistspaid so much attention to Stewart’s earnestness. Earnestness emerged as a mix oftonal seriousness and political commitment to enacting change. Even as Stewart’sdisplay of earnestness could arguably be interpreted as bolstering his legitimacy as anauthentic voice in political discourse, journalists responded by engaging in boundarywork to situate Stewart’s actions negatively. With regard to tonal boundaries, severaljournalists laid claim to seriousness while suggesting Stewart ought to limit himself tohumorousness. Journalists also criticized Stewart’s support of positions both general(civil political discourse) and specific (passing the Zadroga Bill) for violating normsof detachment meant to ensure distance between the discursive agent and the subject.This boundary work extended beyond journalism with suggestions that this erosionof distance and Stewart’s move from being an outsider to an insider in the politicalprocess would detract from his satiric effectiveness.

On a deeper level, Stewart’s actions raised the ire of some in the journalisticcommunity who viewed Stewart’s earnest satire as yet another threat to journal-ism’s already eroding epistemic authority in the mediated public sphere. Stewart’sadoptions of practices and norms outside traditional journalistic values threat-ened to undermine what Dahlgren calls ‘‘journalism’s self-legitimating discourses’’(p. 11). Claims to epistemic authority built on values of detachment, neutrality,and evenhandedness still provide strong orientation for much straight/hard newsreportage. In this way, concerns about and considerations of Stewart’s earnestnessalso indirectly underscored questions about the role of earnestness among jour-nalists themselves. Although Stewart eschews the label of journalist, his place inpublic discourse still managed to prompt questions about the role of personal con-victions and transparent activism among discursive agents in the mediated publicsphere.

Beyond journalism, Stewart’s earnestness highlights ongoing questions about whatresponsibilities are concomitant with participation in the mediated public sphere.There is a long tradition of considering the social responsibilities of conventionalnews media (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm, 1956) and the public’s responsibility to



be engaged and active citizens (Schudson, 1998). But in an increasingly discursivelyintegrated media landscape, questions of what constitutes political engagement andparticipation become even more complex (Jones, 2006). Does directing attentionto satirical criticisms of political discourse and attending a satirical rally count asa responsible form of citizenship in the contemporary public sphere? Furthermore,what of the responsibilities of satirists like Stewart? While Williams and Delli Carpini(2011) contend that Stewart’s power to shape public discourse warrants considerationof normative ethical responsibilities, Stewart seems to eschew suggestions of anyoverarching duties, leaving these issues open to public debate. At issue is whethersatirical responsibility is achieved through distance as a parallel to the normativedetachment practiced by traditional journalism or whether it is heightened byincreased earnestness. Journalists critical of Stewart viewed the comedian as renderedless legitimate for his earnestness, but the opposite may very well be argued notonly for Stewart but for other forms of public discourse as well. This suggestionprompts larger questions regarding whether the detached position of objectivitymakes journalism more or less legitimate as a discursive practice.

Ultimately, Stewart’s actions portray a media landscape marked by epistemicvariety. Multiple discursive agents present competing ways of producing knowledgeabout the political world. As the mediated public sphere extends to include nontra-ditional political actors, new forms for political discourse will further stretch existingparadigms and generate alternatives to traditional media forms. However, the persis-tent questions raised by journalists in this study signal the ongoing engagement withthe acceptability of these epistemic cultures. As traditional journalistic paradigmscontinue to fragment, boundary work will proliferate through discursive attemptsto construct understandings of the mediated public sphere. Questions of what isacceptable and responsible behavior are not idle but part of a contested discursiveprocess in which norms and practices of public discourse evolve.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the annual meeting of theInternational Communication Association, Phoenix, May 2012. The authors thankMalcolm Parks and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments.

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The Impudence of Being Earnest: Jon Stewart and the Boundaries of Discursive Responsibility

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