Parody as a Legitimate Form of Media

FOX News is easily the one member of the media that is the most guilty of what may be considered poor journalism. They have been known to use tactics of silencing guests by yelling over them as well as bringing in their own conservative opinions into the news. Instead of reporting the news, they analyze it and spit it back with a strong conservative twist. The Republican president of the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, has even gone as far as to force the reporters to cover certain stories and leave others untouched.

But even with Murdoch’s constant abuse of his position in the media, there is another that arguably takes advantage of his time slot more. This “talking head” as my high school Government teacher would call him is Glenn Beck. His show is home to some of the worst logic and reporting on television, yet people still listen to him and take him as truth. In order to combat him, there are the obvious routes such as watching less biased news or reading the more trustworthy citizen journalism but there is one that has been used more effectively in recent years: parody.

Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show is one of the most watched shows on television and is a prime example of the new media. He and his colleague Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report have been known to point out the fallacies of the mainline media. A few months ago, I was lucky enough to tune into the The Daily Show for the broadcast of one of the best skits featured to date. It was his parody of Glenn Beck which has since effectively hurt Beck’s “good” reputation. This is just another success story of the New Media. You can see the parody HERE