Jon Stewart Laughs At Newspaper Woes: "What's Black And White And Completely Over?"

With major newspapers companies in turmoil, Jon Stewart dedicated his "Clusterf#@k to the Poor House" segment to newspapers.

"What's black and white and completely over?" he joked. "Give up? It's newspapers."

Stewart dramatically declared that "THE INTERNET!" — specifically Craigslist — has brought about the industry's demise.

"Online ads are cheaper, they receive wider distribution, and, perhaps most importantly, many newspapers still stubbornly refuse to post classified ads like, '57 Year Old Man looking for No-Strings-Attached Shemale Scat Gang Bang."

Watch:

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Comments

[Ozarks]

Just look at what happened to Zell and The Tribune. It and apparently 5 or 6 other"news' oligarchies (such as Disney and Redman) were created with the help of FCC's "KGB like" chairman , Martin. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Zell, Redmen, Disney went into debt up to their armpits to acquire mulitple newspapers, radio and TV stations and create these oligarchies so they could publish propaganda instead of news. People quit buying yellow propaganda sheets and went to the internet. The only one holding out so far is Murdock's Fox , NYPost and WSJ. Hope Murdock buys the NYT while Martin is still FCC chairman. It will be nice to see all these "big boys" lose their shirts and with them the Comedian Rush Limbaugh, Billo the Clown, Beck and Hannity big contracts will go in the tank for starters.

[DontJustFollow]

The great thing about Americans though is that once these giant debt laden conglomerates crash and burn, someone will come along and fill the void.

Maybe someday we can get back to local papers, local TV stations, local radio, etc.???

[SaulBloodworth]

Who is Redmen?

[StewartIsnotfunnyanymore]

Remember is was the Boston Herald who broke the story about the Catholic Church sexual abuse of children. How many kids did they save? Good journalism costs money. I hate to rely on the Daily Show and a few bloggers for my news. God help us!

PS Stewart is no longer funny.....

[bostongreen]

first of all, it was the boston globe that broke that story. they won a pulitzer for it. second of all, newspapers are dead because journalist can now forge their own reputations without being bogged down by the corporate whip. traditional news sources are dead because they screw up every single story that matters, from the war in iraq to iran, not because of the blogosphere.

[UberReaganite]

WOW the Pulitzer! Thats like your Mom giving you a blue ribbon for wiping your own butt after toilette time now isn't it? Some P award winners are very deserving but you failed to even acknowledge that what I said was TRUE.

The only pulitzer that should have gone out on the Church abuse story was to the paper that had the headline

"How the American Media Failed Our Children - The Cover Up Of the Catholic Chuch Sexual Abuse Scandal for DECADES"

Sorry if the truth hurts man butI'm just on the outside looking in and the window is kinda dirty.

[UberReaganite]

No offense to the Boston Herald that did the right thing but how many times was this PROBLEM of chuch abuse brought to the attention of DOZENS of American papers and was quietly hushed? Why did it take DECADES for teh American peope to get an idea of the scope oof this atrocity and why was it covered up for so long. I hate to hurt your feelings but the american media dropped the ball on that problem for DECADES and why? Because each local paper and even the conglomerates of media are biased and protect local institutions like the clergy. you cant deny this, the facts are there for all to see now. The papers and otehr media covered up this atrocity for DECADES so congratulations on your BREAKING NEWS that was decades or even centuries too late!

[SaulBloodworth]

Where, do you think, does the Daily Show get its news from?

[UberReaganite]

For local news I prefer the paper but for world news and commentary the Net is the only way to go. Most newspapers do nothing but regurgitate the same information in every paper with mush less detail, much less timely news and much more bias than the internet does. For instance Huff Post. Its a little left of center, some right wing crazies would say far left, but I see both sides fairly represented in the blogs and its always current. Fox News on the other hand is just crazyville. They should change their name to Pravda the way they tout the party line right or wrong and fail in presenting or considering opposing views.

You buy a paper and you bought a single point of view, you surf the web and in less time you can get many different and more detailed points of view and for people seeking fact and not opinion, that is important.

[grantlingel]

Jon Stewart is a legend.. I was lucky enough to go to a taping of The Daily Show this past summer and it was an absolute riot! He is the man.
http://www.vagabondstory.com

[FreedomAgain]

Its all about non-censored media. If there were good uncensored news stations on TV, then we would gravitate towards them as well. Most have a huge bias and don't want to say anything to upset companies that place commercials on their stations.

[tylonius]

It's sort of ironic that there's a big NYT ad on the front page of the HuffPo site with button that says "collapse."

I'm just saying.

[Chironomid]

Isn't it the truth? I still get my local paper and, in a rare fit of having time to read it before work, I open to the opinion page to see David Brooks' column with a completely mentally lazy treatment of economic stimulus projects in the works -- how they're old school and don't work etc. You can argue that point, but his approach was clearly all supposition and no real knowledge of what's being proposed.

Traditional journalists have all gotten fat and lazy, and are riding the coattails laid down in decades past. There's no real information in traditional outlets anymore -- it's all surficial and unchallenging. At best, it's irritating -- that's at least some kind of reaction.

[GaiaTerra7]

Stewart is brilliant!

[Amennyc]

No wonder we see Bush dancing. What Blago did is nothing compared to getting the USA into a war with Iraq based on lies. Thousands on both sides dead, families destroyed, money wasted on nothing.... Yet Blago is more of a criminal than Bush? We all know what Bush did and all have turned a blind eye to it. The newspapers who were enablers to this war have yet to put "Bush" and the word "lied" in the same sentence on their cover. Until that happens all is a manipulated joke. They deserve to tank.

[ouroborous]

Shhh, it's "off the table."

Remember, we're a "post-partisan" world now. Meaning, there are no consequences for anything that doesn't involve sex (preferably kinky sex), ever.

Can't we all just get along and quit investigating lawbreakers?

[TheBlackCat]

Video didn't kill the radio star, but the internet did kill the newspaper.

I like newspapers, I subscribe to my local. I like actually having something in my hand and sharing it with my husband over morning coffee. Unfortunately, progress will always leave victims in its wake. I hope books aren't next. I'd hate to see all books in electronic form, just downloading them on portable devices. I really love books as they are.

What do people think is going to happen to network television? I see them facing the same crisis in advertising as newspapers. More and more people are watching shows commercial free via Tivo or On Demand, or watching tv shows online. Also, fewer and fewer sporting events are being featured on network instead of cable. It's got to be getting increasingly difficult to sell network ad space. I wonder if we will see the end of free TV in the near future, with everything moving to cable? And if that happens, what about public television?

[agandia]

Tom Friedman is making all of this money writing books about how to save the world and he can't even help figure out how to save the newspaper where he works.

[ajruck]

Newspapers really should give it up. It's a digital world now and if they don't accept this soon they will be gone forever. http://www.canipleasejustsay.com/2008/12/hey-newspapers-give-it-up-seriously.html

[LiberalBuzz]

Really?

So you think Every newspaper in America should IMMEDIATELY shut down, say Jan 1 and, first, put tens of thousands of people out of work.

Then......

Well what then/

You said they should give it up.

So tell us about all those people who don't have computers to keep up with the latest news?

What about local advertising?

What about all those people who report the news? Tell them to go home as well?

Do you really have any idea of what you are saying or just trolling?

[ajruck]

I would say that they definitely need to figure something out soon. If you haven't noticed, tons of newspapers are already shutting down and laying off thousands of workers. There will come a day when they will all shut down IF they don't do something more to keep up with innovation in media.

The reason the papers aren't making money is because they have such large staffs and the readership is consistently going down. People are finding free and more interactive ways of consuming the news (like HuffingtonPost) and are ditching the papers because of it. So yes, it would not be logical to keep paying large staffs if no one is reading and no money is coming in, just for the sake of letting them keep their jobs.

[stefiz]

i use my newspaper in my wood burning stove!!

[Chavez08]

The status-quo of elitist, pro-slavery propagandists and liars wonder why the slaves are no longer buying their news print in the Internet age....


Gee!

[quantumspin]

The New York Times sold the Iraq war, held back stories on NSA wiretapping of the public to help Bush get elected, hired a bogus reporter, and gave Bill Kristol an op-ed slot. Instead of accurate, insightful reporting, they give us fluff and Bill Clinton hate pieces on page 1.

Why would any thinking person want to shell out cash for lies in print? I can get lied to for free from Fox News, CNN, "NPR News," and numerous blogs.