Stewart Burns Fox on Political Standing
Saturday, February 6, 2010
John Stewart, known for bashing media personalities, gives toughest criticism of Fox New than ever before seen on Fox News.
Fox News has always been criticized for being a part of the conservative movement by many on the left. "cyclonic perpetual emotion machine" that has "taken reasonable concerns about this president and this economy and turned it into a full-fledged panic about the next coming of Chairman Mao," said Stewart to Bill O'Reilly.
The interview was shown on Bill O'Reilly's show, The O'Reilly Factor, Fox's most popular show. However, much of the interview was cut out, in particular the parts where Stewart had a lot more to say.
Stewart has been known to stray from his Comedy Central comedy into more serious political media and gained a lot of attention for it. For example, In 2004 on CNN's "Crossfire" Stewart claimed the left right debate format was "hurting America," three months before the program was canceled.
Also Stewart took a jab at Jim Carmer, host of "Mad Money" from CNBC for being Wall Street cheerleaders, and that "the financial news industry is not just guilty of a sin of omission but a sin of commission," said Stewart.
Mr. O'Reilly defended Fox but citing a poll from last month by the Public Policy Polling organization that Fox was more widely trusted than any other television news organization. Also Fox News is the most-watched cable news channel and caused a lot of controversy and high ratings in the first year of the Obama administration by appearing to be the network of the opposition.
Mr. O'Reilly said Thursday: "It was interesting to hear Mr. Stewart put forth that Fox News is in business to help Republicans. I rebutted that, and you can decide who had the stronger argument."
