Includes shout-outs to Tumblr, Vimeo, bit.ly, YouTube, Groupon:

Bonus: You can see a bit of the way the Daily Show’s comedy sausage gets made, via a shot of Oliver’s script/marching orders that Dan Frommer at Business Insider grabbed.

Another (small) bonus: If you have very sharp eyes, and a lot of time on your hands, you’ll be able to spot two brief glimpses of me and Ina Fried at the Verizon presser. Technically, the back of our heads. But still, we get to say we were on the Daily Show, which is pretty cool, right?

“I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.

But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.

If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate–just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more. The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything we actually get sicker–and perhaps eczema.

And yet, with that being said, I feel good–strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin and one eyeball.

So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is–on the brink of catastrophe–torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!

The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do–often something they do not want to do–but they do it–impossible things every day that are only made possible through the little reasonable compromises we all make.

Look on the screen. This is where we are. This is who we are. [points to the Jumbotron screen which shows traffic merging into a tunnel]. These cars–that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car, swinging, I don’t even know if you can see it–the lady’s in the NRA and she loves Oprah. There’s another car–an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear–often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay–you go and then I’ll go.

And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.

Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together. And the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.

If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted.

Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you.”

*Note that this isn’t coming from the most obvious sources: Viacom’s own Daily Show site, which carried a live stream of the event but doesn’t have any record of it anymore, or C-SPAN, which is running a loop of the rally, but doesn’t have a handy way to excerpt the three-hour event. Too bad Hulu can’t help here….

[Image credit: Cliff1066]

As everyone knows, the back-and-forth between Rick Sanchez and “Daily Show” mocker-in-chief Jon Stewart turned serious after some controversial remarks on a radio show from the CNN personality got him fired.

Sanchez was taking aim at Stewart when he shot himself in the foot, which is why it is so compelling to see Stewart handle the situation with admirable restraint in this video from the comedy television program.

Enjoy:

The Internet likes to spoof on politicians who make digital faux pas, such as former Vice President Al “I invented the Internet” Gore and Internets-loving former President George W. Bush.

And former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who was tragically killed in a small airplane accident Monday, was no exception, never able to shake a speech in which he called the Web a “series of tubes.”

Said Stevens at a hearing in Congress in 2006:

“The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”

The death of the hard-charging 86-year-old Republican pol, of course, revived the many online videos of him related to this non-geek malapropism, and “series of tubes” made it as a trending topic on Twitter.

Here is one of the more famous videos from Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show,” and another rap based on Stevens’ speech:

In practice, not that much. Particularly in the near term.

The shows are big draws for Hulu, but the site’s audience is growing very fast, and I’ll be surprised if you can detect a notable drop in its numbers this spring. And online viewers can still watch the shows at Comedy Central’s two sites, though its player is vastly inferior to Hulu’s.

But the move does illustrate the difficulty with Hulu’s business model: It is trying to build a business around other people’s content.

Hulu gets the ability to sell against network TV shows from its network TV owners–News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC and Disney’s (DIS) ABC–but it can only keep 30 percent of the revenue. It generally gets better terms from other content providers, but it’s harder to get the really good stuff from them, particularly from cable TV, where programmers need to protect their existing revenue streams.

If the cable TV guys get their way and the world shifts to a “TV Everywhere” model–pay for cable TV, and you can watch all those shows on the Web, too–procuring shows will get much easier for Hulu. Because that conflict should go away.

But in a TV Everywhere world, the use case for Hulu sort of goes away too. Because in that model, you don’t really need a central hub for TV on the Web.

Meanwhile, Viacom (VIA) has now retreated from the Web’s two most popular video portals. You haven’t been able to watch Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube since the two companies went to court, and that conflict has been dragging on for nearly three years.

And the Microsoft (MSFT) founder did much, much better than on his first visit to the show in January 2007–a strained conversation capped off by Gates’s abrupt/awkward departure from the set.

This makes plenty of sense: Last time, Gates was promoting Windows Vista, a task that would make anyone nervous.

This time out, Gates was talking about his foundation work, along with some esoterica like his recent foray into Twitter. He also handled Stewart’s obligatory iPhone barb fairly well.

Here are last night’s seven minutes, followed by the last half of Gates’s first attempt. If you watch the latter, make sure to catch the last couple seconds.

Alas, you’ve got no choice but to remember that last part. It has disappeared from the Web, apparently at the behest of Major League Baseball.

Stewart dissected the media hubhub about Obama’s pitch–and in particular Fox News’s analysis of it–on his July 15 show. But if you watch the archived version of that show at Viacom’s (VIA) “Daily Show” Web site, you’ll find that the bit has been cut out of his opening monologue. It once ran for two minutes and 43 seconds, but now the archive stops short at the 55-second mark.

And if you try to watch that episode on Hulu, the Web site owned by News Corp. (NWS), GE’s (GE) NBC and Disney (DIS), you’ll find that it’s gone altogether, replaced by a message blaming “rights issues” (click image to enlarge):

What happened? The story, via Viacom officials, is that pro baseball officials contacted them this week and told them to take down the Obama footage, which it owns.

The argument, I’m told, is that the MLB was fine with Stewart (and every other TV show in the country) using the clip under “fair use” terms–the footage itself was a news story, and Stewart was adding value via his commentary, etc. But it balked at the notion of the footage remaining in Viacom’s archives, and circulating on the Web, forever.

None of that makes any sense, of course: There’s no reason that Stewart’s use of the clip should be okay, but only for a limited time. And if Viacom wanted to spend time fighting MLB on this, it certainly could have.

But presumably, the company figures it wants to use its legal resources elsewhere–like fighting the never-ending copyright lawsuit it filed against Google (GOOG) and YouTube. Remember that one?

In any case, I’ve reached out to MLB to make sure I’m not missing anything here. And of course, you can still find all sorts of footage of the pitch, along with other anchors making fun of it, all over the Web. Like this one:

Here’s an edited version of the beginning of the July 15 episode of the “Daily Show.” Before you click on it, note the title of the clip, and it’s original running time.

I’m told that an edited version of the show will show up on Hulu again later tonight or on Thursday.

Of course, it’s a decent bet that if you’re reading this site, you’ve already heard of iFart. And perhaps the iFart v. Pull My Finger lawsuit. And maybe the entire array of flatulence apps now available for iPhone users.

Which is, actually, a serious story for Apple (AAPL): At some point it risks having the App store, and thus the iPhone, defined by novelty items.

The issue came up during the company’s earnings call yesterday, when Needham and Co. analyst Charles Wolf worried about a “race to the bottom” at the App store, and wondered if there was a way to “enable consumers to separate quality apps from the garbage.”

Apple COO Tim Cook’s response: “We realize there’s opportunity there for further improvement and are working on that.”

In the meantime, here are all of Apple’s fart apps in one handy link.

Meantime, check out this excellent “Daily Show” clip (via Hulu) from Monday, where Jon Stewart skewers mainstream media’s clumsy attempts–OK, Time Warner’s (TWX) CNN, specifically–to augment its product with some of that newfangled social media we’ve heard about. Facebook? Check. Twitter? Of course! Wisdom of crowds? Hard to discern, sometimes.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090610/cnn-embraces-social-media-a-bit-too-fondly/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090306/video-jon-stewart-bangs-the-cnbc-drum-again/ http://allthingsd.com/20090306/video-jon-stewart-bangs-the-cnbc-drum-again/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:46:02 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=4982 Can’t get enough of Jon Stewart’s CNBC rant from earlier this week? CBS hopes not: It had Stewart on David Letterman’s show last night, and was lucky enough to get “The Daily Show” host to riff on the topic yet again.

And kudos to CBS (CBS) for getting the bit on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, where it will get in front of many more eyeballs than the network’s own sites alone. And double kudos for allowing the likes of us to embed the clip, so we can promote the show for them (see, music dudes?).

Truth in advertising: The CNBC stuff only comprises a couple seconds of this clip. But what the heck–the whole thing is barely a couple minutes long. It’s the end of a long week. You can spare the time.

Here are two very funny online videos making the viral rounds of late.

The first is from “The Daily Show” earlier this week, in which Samantha Bee perfectly mocks products from iRobot (IRBT)–best known for the automatic vacuum called the Roomba–as killerbots.

In the second, local Chicago anchors from WGN News, Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange, do a very impressive Las Vegas-style routine during the commercial break. It is hard to look away.

Here are the videos:

Future Shock–Roombas of Doom

What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks