John Stewart and the 24x7 Multi-channel Mediasphere

Complain all you like about the shortcomings of today's 24x7 multi-channel mediasphere, nobody can deny there are times when it provides political insights that might have been missed in a less media-centric world.

A good example of this are the Jon Stewart [Daily Show] montages of news clips. He has several standard play books for these. One is the "spin detector" which shows a group of allied politicians and administration officials all using the same word or phrase to affirm or deny something, in other words, reading the party line from a spin doctor's script.

Another effective Stewart tactic is "compile and contrast." Here is a brilliant skewering of a politician with his own words.

You'd have to do some heavy dial spinning of your own to catch all of these clips, but the 24x7 multi-channel mediasphere makes it possible (BTW, it would be interesting to know how many people who watch TV today actually used a dial to change channels on a TV).

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