Jon Stewart Drops a Ten Ton Mega Bomb on Roger Ailes and Fox News

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 01:58 pm

Jon Stewart responded to Roger Ailes’ claim that he is a socialist by calling Fox News a fiefdom of victimhood and conservative propaganda juggernaut disguised as a news network.

Here is the video from The Daily Show:

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Part 2 of the segment:

Stewart replied to Roger Ailes’ claim that he is an admitted socialist by saying, “Why didn’t Roger Ailes mention what he admitted to me before? Which was, and obviously it has been a lot of years so I’m paraphrasing, but I think what Roger said to me one was, oh, Jon did I ever tell you that I, Roger Ailes plan to undermine the role of independent press by constantly whining that any reportage that deviates from a staunch conservative narrative is biased, while at the same time, filling the editorial vacuum that that creates by building a conservative propaganda juggernaut in the guise of a news organization, and then he said to me, he goes Jon, I’m going to call the organization Fox News and its tagline will be you’re going to love this, a fanatically micromanaged media fiefdom where my own far right agenda and personal sense of victim hood drive every aspect of the operation, and balanced.”

In response to Ailes calling Stewart a socialist, The Daily Show host called the Fox News honcho a fanatic micromanager who is running a propaganda machine that is fueled by his own sense of victim hood and far right agenda. Oh, and for good measure, Stewart pointed out that Ailes’ goal is to undermine the independent press.

Do you think Stewart was just a little ticked at being thrown into the Fox News propaganda machine? The attacks and allegations between Jon Stewart and Fox News have been getting more pointed for about a year. What was once a friendly little cooperative PR venture between Stewart and Fox News has turned more heated, ever since Fox News edited Jon Stewart’s answers during an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor. Stewart always called out Fox News’ bias, but until he experienced the depth of their operation for himself, he didn’t seem to understand how far Fox News will go attack and discredit someone.

Besides selectively editing him, Fox News has called Stewart a racist, a secret Democratic operative, and a socialist. Ailes is desperate to discredit Jon Stewart, because The Daily Show trounces Fox News in terms of average ratings. Stewart is educating an entire generation or two, or three about exactly what Fox News is and what it does.

Jon Stewart could have responded to Ailes with something personal. Instead, he used Ailes’ attack on him as another teaching moment to education his millions of viewers about the Fox News operation.

These sorts of tactics are exactly why Jon Stewart is the biggest threat to the future of Fox News.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association