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On The Daily Show, President Obama blamed Republicans for the IRS scandal: “You’ve got this back office, and they’re going after the Tea Party. Well, it turned out, no, Congress had passed a crummy law that didn’t give people guidance in terms of what it was they were trying to do. They did it poorly and stupidly. The truth of the matter is that there was not some big conspiracy there. They were trying to sort out these conflicting demands. You don’t want all this money pouring through non-for- profits, but you also want to make sure everybody is being...

Veteran programmer Rob Barnett recently attended a breakfast meeting of television executives where the talk turned, as it almost always does these days, to “disruption,” the industry buzzword for the way new technology is upsetting the TV applecart. From somewhere down the table, he heard a question: “Has anybody here cut the cord?” — that is, dropped cable service in favor of just watching TV through the Internet? Barnett shrugged and raised his hand. “Mine was the only one,” he recalls. “But when it went up, I saw beads of sweat break out on the foreheads of some of the...

TV Land celebrates election day with election-themed episodes from 8-12:30AM ET.

You know, it's bad enough that a percentage of Americans admit to getting "the news" from Comedy Central's Daily Show and host Jon Stewart. But when a legal affairs correspondent from National Public Radio starts citing highly-edited videos created by this comedy show to bash presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney while defending President Obama, citizens should be tremendously concerned about their tax dollars funding this media outlet (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo): Nina Totenberg Cites Highly-Edited Jon Stewart Video to Bash Romney and Defend Obama CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Because it captures the essence of Obama’s view of...

California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. But one wouldn’t know that going to the firing range these days. AR-15s and AK-47s are the must-have guns of choice. How can that be? Every time California tightens up the assault weapons ban, the gun industry finds a way around it. The latest example involves a tiny device...

MTV is now trying to lure young viewers with a saucy sex show in the "advice" category. They didn't reach for Dr. Drew or God forbid Dr. Ruth or an actual doctor of anything. They turned to filthy sex columnist and gay activist Dan Savage. The new show is called "Savage U," and it documents Savage touring college campuses to offer snarky/smutty advice to college students. This is MTV's libertine ideology pitched right at children, and Savage is blunt about how he'll be going around the parents. Savage explained to the Los Angeles Times that, "The idea is we're going...

This guy keeps scratching bottom (literally) lower and lower. Once again, monitoring this lowest and most disgusting of progressive "comics" leads to some shock, as you have to employ Urban Dictionary and rigged google searches to even know what the heck he's talking about. But of course, his audience is fresh from some stomache-turning romps of their own, and actually "get" his "jokes." I keep an eye on this guy, and advise that we all do. He can motivate the stoner Trustafarians, the hookers, the drug-addled to vote. I don't watch him, I just do regular searches on him. You...

You might think the British press holds a monopoly on media controversy this month, with the shuttering of a 168-year-old tabloid over a phone-hacking scandal. Still, at least one Yank media concern has won recent unwelcome notoriety--fittingly enough, for airing misleading video footage on the national holiday commemorating American independence from the British crown. CBS has been caught doctoring Fourth of July footage after Bostonians realized Thursday that the network's images of fireworks over various city landmarks were not only breathtaking, but also fake. An area research scientist appears to have been among the first to point out the discrepancy...

After weeks of widespread speculation about her future, Katie Couric is finally ready to go on the record. "I have decided to step down from the CBS Evening News," Couric tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I'm really proud of the talented team on the CBS Evening News and the award-winning work we've been able to do in the past five years in addition to the reporting I've done for 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning. In making the decision to move on, I know the Evening News will be in great hands, but I am excited about the future." What's next for...

The smug certainty with which leftists insist that they're better people than conservatives has always been an interesting phenomenon. We’re asked to believe that our opponents are more moral, more responsible, more enlightened, and more sensitive than we are one minute…and one of our betters turns around and asks what the big deal is about some outrageous case of moral degeneracy the next. Such is the case of the latest pontifications from The View co-host Joy Behar. In a discussion of Skins, the new MTV show which might have broken child pornography laws by filming actors as young as 15...

In case Arianna Huffington plotting to spend an estimated quarter-million dollars on buses to the liberal Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally didn’t paint it as an Obama event, how about Oprah Winfrey? The Obama-endorsing, Obama-campaign-stumping Winfrey appeared via satellite on Thursday night’s episode of The Daily Show to announce that she was going to fly Stewart’s audience to Washington, D.C., for the so-called Stewart half, the “Rally to Restore Sanity." "I know that you've got this huge event coming up, and I'm really excited about it, because I think that we need a bit more sanity in the world," she said....

Jon Stewart is a smart and funny guy. As any regular visitor to Mediaite knows, we are big fans of his incisive and entertaining commentary on the often absurd intersection of media and politics. But that doesn’t mean we always agree with his point-of-view; take for example his take down of MSNBC’s new campaign to re-brand themselves with the phrase “Lean Forward.” In the following segment, Mr. Stewart makes a lot funny jokes, but perhaps its a little early to dismiss an entire ad campaign.

F-bombs and Women Kissing at the MTV Movie Awards By Noel Sheppard Created 06/07/2010 - 12:30 As I walked into the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios Sunday evening, I had no idea the level of vulgarity I was in store for. Attending my first MTV Movie Awards, I was immediately stunned by the number of F-words in the opening video clip of Tom Cruise recreating his movie executive roll in the film "Tropic Thunder." Little did I know that the evening would be filled with F-bombs from a number of Hollywoodans, so much so that the man that accepted the...

NEW YORK--Conservative and religious groups that have long complained about the irreverent treatment of Christianity on Comedy Central have a new target: an animated series about Jesus Christ living in modern-day New York. It's unclear whether the show — one of 28 projects the network listed last month on its slate of potential programs for the coming season — will ever make it out of script development. But that hasn't stopped a coalition of media watchdog groups from launching an effort to persuade advertisers to boycott the project, if it ever comes to fruition. Here's a description of the show...

Comedy Central might censor every image of the Prophet Muhammad on "South Park," yet the network is developing a whole animated series around Jesus Christ. Jesus-south-park As part of the network's upfront presentation to advertisers (full slate here), the network is set to announce "JC," a half-hour show about Christ wanting to escape the shadow of his "powerful but apathetic father" and live a regular life in New York City. In the show, God is preoccupied with playing video games while Christ, "the ultimate fish out of water," tries to adjust to life in the big city. "In general,...

Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central's Daily Show, has been not-so-quietly waging war with Fox News for years -- and recently he's been turning up the heat. His most recent battle with the News Corp. (NWS)-owned network hinged on an airing of Fox & Friends, which two weeks ago asked (more than once) whether the crescent-moon shaped logo that the White House used during a nuclear security summit was some sort of Islamic image. As the New York Times recently reported, Stewart had his staff call the White House to ask just that, and lo and behold, discovered that...

NEW YORK (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama is getting attention from the Nickelodeon kids' television network — and it has nothing to do with green slime. Nickelodeon said Thursday it will honor Obama at the Kids' Choice Awards with its "Big Help" award for her "Let's Move" campaign to help cut down on childhood obesity. She has taped a message for Saturday's show. "For once we will see all the forces aligning — not just to place blame, but in paving the way forward," said Marva Smalls, chief of staff for the MTV Networks and Nickelodeon Kids and Family...

On Tuesday, FNC's The O'Reilly Factor hosted FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg as the former CBS News correspondent highlighted a story recently posted on his Web site, BernardGoldberg.com, in which he complains of how little mainstream media attention was given to the fact that former President George W. Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam as part of his service in the Texas Air National Guard, but that he was turned down because other pilots were more experienced, and that CBS News producer Mary Mapes, even though she knew this part of the story before the report aired, did not include...

Meghan McCain was again provided with a national outlet for her "moderate" Republican views with her appearance on "The Colbert Report" on May 18. Host Stephen Colbert said to her, "You're more liberal than President Obama. Is that how you see the future of Republican Party going?" "I'm liberal on social issues," McCain responded Later in the interview McCain explained her views: "All I'm trying to say is it can be a party for a 24-year-old pro-sex woman. It can be. I just think that we have people that are in this party that are hijacking it and - trying...

On Tuesday, Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, continued the family’s air assault on Obama that began shortly after he became the nation’s first African-American president. Speaking to FOX News, Liz took her father’s criticism of Obama a step further, saying that it appears the president is actually siding with terrorists. The insult was in response to the Obama administration’s decision to release photographs alleged to show abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration. "I think it is really appalling that the administration is taking this step," she said in the...