Jon Stewart Will Leave ‘The Daily Show’ on a Career High Note
By DAVE ITZKOFF NY TIMES
Jon Stewart, who turned Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show" into a sharp-edged commentary on current events, delivering the news in layers of silliness and mockery, said on Tuesday that he would step down after more than 16 years as its anchor.
Mr. Stewart, whose contract with Comedy Central ends in September, disclosed his plans during a taping of the program on Tuesday. Saying that "in my heart, I know it is time for someone else" to have the opportunity he had, Mr. Stewart told his audience that he was still working out the details of his departure, which "might be December, might be July."
"I don’t have any specific plans," Mr. Stewart said, addressing the camera at the end of his show, at times seeming close to tears. "Got a lot of ideas. I got a lot of things in my head. I’m going to have dinner on a school night with my family, who I have heard from multiple sources are lovely people."
"I’m not going anywhere tomorrow," Mr. Stewart added, "but this show doesn’t deserve an even slightly restless host, and neither do you." Comedy Central did not elaborate on the future of the show, except to say that it "will endure for years to come."
In becoming the nation’s satirist in chief, Mr. Stewart imbued the program with a personal sense of justice, even indignation. For a segment of the audience that had lost its faith in broadcast and print news outlets or never regarded them as sacrosanct in the first place, Mr. Stewart emerged a figure as trusted as Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow.
Mr. Stewart, 52, became the host of "The Daily Show" in 1999, entering with the identity of a hard-working standup, if not necessarily an astute political commentator.
A decade and a half later, his satirical sensibility helped turn "The Daily Show," where he also serves as an executive producer, into an influential platform for news and media commentary, both in the United States and around the world. The program — which averaged a respectable 2.2 million viewers a night last year — has been a humorous release valve for politically frustrated (often left-leaning) viewers and a bête noire of (often right-leaning) critics who saw him as a member of the liberal media elite.
As recently as Monday night on the show, Mr. Stewart had been taking aim at the recent scandal that has engulfed the NBC news anchor Brian Williams, a frequent "Daily Show" guest who on Tuesday was suspended without pay for six months. Mr. Stewart cast him as a journalist with a propensity for personal exaggeration and commented on the failure of the news media to thoroughly question the underpinnings of the Iraq War.
Speaking of Mr. Williams, Mr. Stewart said, "See, I see the problem. We got us a case here of infotainment confusion syndrome."
Noting the widespread media coverage of Mr. Williams’s woes, Mr. Stewart wryly added, "Finally someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War."
Created by Lizz Winstead and Madeleine Smithberg, "The Daily Show" had its debut in 1996 with Craig Kilborn, the former "SportsCenter" anchor, gaining buzz for its mixture of "Weekend Update"-style, news-driven comedy and Mr. Kilborn’s sarcastic celebrity interviews.
Under Mr. Stewart, "The Daily Show" made Comedy Central a formidable player in late-night entertainment, a field that had largely belonged to the broadcast networks and programs like David Letterman’s "Late Show" (on CBS) and Jay Leno’s "Tonight Show" (on NBC).
Jon Stewart at a benefit for victims of Hurricane Sandy. His reports were the main source of news for some of his viewers disenchanted with American politics. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
During Mr. Stewart’s tenure, "The Daily Show" won 20 Emmy Awards, including numerous trophies for outstanding variety series and outstanding writing of a variety series. The program also became remarkable for its success rate in boosting the careers of other comedic talents, who generally started out as on-air correspondents on "The Daily Show." Stephen Colbert used "The Daily Show" to refine his persona as a blowhard commentator and parlay it into his own companion series on Comedy Central, "The Colbert Report." In April, CBS announced that Mr. Colbert would succeed Mr. Letterman as the host of its "Late Show."
Steve Carell, who went on to become the lead actor of NBC’s "The Office" and an Academy Award-nominated star of "Foxcatcher," broke through as a "Daily Show" correspondent under Mr. Stewart. So did John Oliver, now the host of HBO’s news satire program "Last Week Tonight," and Larry Wilmore, who now hosts Comedy Central’s "Nightly Show," following "The Daily Show."
For a generation of television viewers, Mr. Stewart and his "Indecision" coverage of presidential and congressional elections became the satirical prism through which they viewed the American political process. Mr. Stewart spoke for audience members who became jaded about electoral democracy (some before they were old enough to vote) and was often cited as a primary source of information for a viewership that had given up on the staid evening-news programs of the broadcast networks and the shouting-match arenas of cable television.
Whether or not they shared Mr. Stewart’s viewpoints, guests from across the political and media spectrums frequently appeared on "The Daily Show" to promote projects and discuss current events. President Obama gave interviews to Mr. Stewart (including one in October 2012, with that year’s presidential campaign in full swing). So too did former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; Hillary Rodham Clinton; John McCain; Mike Huckabee; and Nancy Pelosi.
Bill O’Reilly, the host of "The O’Reilly Factor" on Fox News and a frequent critic of Mr. Stewart’s, was nonetheless a willing and able sparring partner, and often appeared on "The Daily Show" or invited Mr. Stewart onto his show for boisterous debates.
Mr. Stewart saw no need to pretend to be a neutral host, and sometimes confronted his targets on their home turf.
During an October 2004 appearance on the CNN program "Crossfire," Mr. Stewart criticized its hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson as "partisan hacks" who were participating in mere "theater," and said to them: "Stop hurting America." In the summer of 2013, Mr. Stewart took a hiatus from "The Daily Show" to direct a movie, "Rosewater," adapted from a memoir by Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-born journalist who had been held prisoner in Iran for 118 days after reporting on its disputed 2009 election.
Speaking about why he pursued the "Rosewater" project, Mr. Stewart told The New York Times that his desire to celebrate journalists like Mr. Bahari was no different from his impulse to make fun of others on "The Daily Show."
"The only reason you mock something is when it doesn’t live up to the ideal," Mr. Stewart said. "There’s a huge difference between what these journalists are doing on the ground, and the perversion of it that is the 24-hour news networks."
Brian Williams Suspended From NBC for 6 Months Without Pay
Brian Williams, the embattled NBC news anchor whose credibility plummeted after he acknowledged exaggerating his role in a helicopter episode in Iraq, has been suspended for six months without pay, the network said on Tuesday night.
"This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian’s position," Deborah Turness, the president of NBC News, said in a memo. Lester Holt, who stepped in for Mr. Williams this week, will continue as the substitute, the network said.
The suspension culminated a rapid and startling fall for Mr. Williams, who at age 55 was not only the head of the No. 1 evening news show, but also one of NBC’s biggest stars, a frequent celebrity guest on "Saturday Night Live," "30 Rock" and the late-night talk show circuit.
Mr. Williams has been drawing 9.3 million viewers a night, and his position seemed unassailable. Even as the stature of the nightly newscast faded in the face of real-time digital news, Mr. Williams was one of the most trusted names in America and commanded the respect accorded predecessors like Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings.
But his embellishment of his helicopter journey and questions about his other reporting undermined the trust viewers placed in him. In the six days since he admitted his mistake, he was pilloried relentlessly online, with Twitter feeds mocking him and amateur truth squads investigating his past reporting. Almost none of his peers in the news business came to his support.
Six months is a long time to disappear from the television landscape, and analysts said it would be difficult for him to re-establish himself as a viable nightly presence.
"I don’t know how he can ever read the news with a straight face, or how the public will respond if he does," said Mark Feldstein, a broadcast journalism professor at the University of Maryland. On the other hand, he added, "Maybe they’re hoping that with a six-month cooling-off period, he’s got a loyal fan base."
Mr. Williams was informed of his punishment Tuesday morning when he went to the Upper West Side apartment of Stephen P. Burke, the chief executive of NBCUniversal. Only the two men were present, according to a person briefed on the meeting, and Mr. Burke informed Mr. Williams that NBC had decided to suspend him. The "Nightly News" staff learned about it in a meeting after the evening broadcast.
"By his actions, Brian has jeopardized the trust millions of Americans place in NBC News," Mr. Burke said in a statement. "His actions are inexcusable and this suspension is severe and appropriate."
Mr. Burke said that Mr. Williams "has shared his deep remorse with me, and he is committed to winning back everyone’s trust." He added, "He deserves a second chance, and we are rooting for him."
NBC did not make its top executives available for comment, and Mr. Williams did not respond to phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment. A friend who spoke to Mr. Williams on Tuesday described him as "shattered."
For NBC, the suspension provides at least a temporary solution to the crisis that has engulfed the network since Mr. Williams admitted last week that he had misled the public with the helicopter story, and apologized. The episode has called into question not only the credibility of Mr. Williams but also the ethics and culture at NBC News. It is not clear whether other people at NBC were aware of Mr. Williams’s version of events.
Ms. Turness said in a memo to NBC News staff that executives decided to suspend Mr. Williams because he misrepresented the Iraq episode on the "Nightly News" broadcast. She said that executives also were concerned about the way he portrayed his reporting away from his newscasts. That includes his descriptions of reporting on Hurricane Katrina as well as other coverage.
"We have concerns about comments that occurred outside NBC News while Brian was talking about his experiences in the field," she said.
On Saturday, three days after he apologized on his newscast, Mr. Williams announced that he was temporarily stepping aside from his show because he had become "too much a part of the news." A day earlier, NBC started an investigation into Mr. Williams and his reporting. That investigation is continuing.
"This has been a painful period for all concerned, and we appreciate your patience while we gathered the available facts," Mr. Burke said
Mr. Williams’s departure further diminishes the vaunted standing of the nightly network news anchor; last year ABC News chose to keep its chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos, as the co-host of "Good Morning America," and elevate David Muir to the evening anchor chair. And Mr. Holt, 55, while widely respected, is not as famous a figure at NBC as Matt Lauer, the co-host of the "Today" Show.
The scandal is also a stinging blow for the NBC news division under its new chief, Ms. Turness, and Pat Fili-Krushel, chairwoman of NBCUniversal News Group. When Comcast acquired NBC Universal in 2011, Brian Roberts, Comcast’s chief executive, called the news division "the crown jewel" of his giant media group. At the time, "Nightly News," the "Today" show and "Meet the Press" all ranked at the top of the ratings charts. Since then, "Today" has fallen behind its ABC rival "Good Morning America," "Meet the Press" has suffered severe ratings declines, and now the network’s evening newscast is in disarray.
Mr. Williams, who succeeded Mr. Brokaw in 2004, transcended the news division, and had ambitions beyond the anchor chair. About five years ago, as NBC was contemplating who would eventually replace Jay Leno as host of "The Tonight Show," he told top NBC executives that he was interested in becoming a late-night host, possibly succeeding Mr. Leno. They called the idea ridiculous, telling him that he was a journalist, not a comedian, and to stick to the news department, according to two industry executives with knowledge of the discussions.
That did not suppress his enthusiasm for the late-night circuit. It was an appearance on David Letterman’s show in 2013 — during which he exaggerated the account of being on a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq — that helped put him at the precipice of losing his job.
If Mr. Williams does not return, finding a permanent successor will be a major problem for the network, which was not anticipating having to replace him. In December, Mr. Williams signed a new five-year contract reported to be worth $10 million a year. Mr. Holt, who had been the weekend anchor for NBC, was not previously considered a likely replacement.
Mr. Williams’s downfall began when he appeared at a New York Rangers game with an Iraq veteran in a tribute to a retiring command sergeant major. Mr. Williams subsequently suggested on his newscast that the sergeant had protected him from a dangerous situation in Iraq, when "the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an R.P.G.," referring to a rocket-propelled grenade. "Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry," he said.
The military publication Stars and Stripes was tipped off that the account was inaccurate and contacted Mr. Williams, who admitted that he was not on the helicopter that was forced down. "I would not have chosen to make this mistake," Mr. Williams told Stars and Stripes. "I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another."
Travis J. Tritten, the Stars and Stripes reporter who broke the story about Mr. Williams’s exaggeration, said he did not get any satisfaction from seeing Mr. Williams suspended. "Like the vets I spoke with," he wrote in a Twitter post after the suspension was announced, "I just wanted to set the record straight."
David Carr contributed reporting.
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