{"id":458,"date":"2010-09-25T13:46:10","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T19:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=458"},"modified":"2010-09-25T13:46:10","modified_gmt":"2010-09-25T19:46:10","slug":"mocking-the-legislative-process-or-just-having-a-little-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/mocking-the-legislative-process-or-just-having-a-little-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Mocking the legislative process, or just having a little fun?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Fake news shows on Comedy Central, e.g. The Daily Show<\/em> and The Colbert\u00a0Report<\/em>, have a history of poking fun at news-makers, politicians, the media, and the whole news-as-entertainment phenomenon. But when Stephen Colbert testified before the House Judiciary Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law yesterday, some saw it as mockery of an institution that should be above the cheap laughs and clever word-play that are standard fare\u00a0for comedians.<\/p>\n

Colbert, who stayed in character for his entire testimony, spoke about the difficult working conditions that migrant farm workers endure. Allegedly Colbert testified from personal experience after spending a day working in the fields beside migrant workers. But with his typical dead-pan delivery of a script that was clearly more about laughs than substance, few in the room seemed prepared to take his testimony seriously. You can watch a news clip of his testimony here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This led some critics to call the appearance, “a huge waste of taxpayer time and money” and others to call it an embarrassment. But\u00a0apparently\u00a0this is not the first time that a committee hearing featured an entertainer who was invited to entertain. Sesame Street<\/em>‘s Elmo excepted, most celebrity witnesses testify from an area of expertise. What do you think? Does one day in a bean field give Colbert the kind of credibility necessary for an\u00a0appearance\u00a0on Capitol Hill?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fake news shows on Comedy Central, e.g. The Daily Show and The Colbert\u00a0Report, have a history of poking fun at news-makers, politicians, the media, and the whole news-as-entertainment phenomenon. But when Stephen Colbert testified before the House Judiciary Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law yesterday, some saw it as mockery … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mocking the legislative process, or just having a little fun?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-media-industry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}