Jon Stewart admits media 'squandered' trust with Trump-Russia collusion hype, other claims

"The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart argued on his podcast Wednesday that the media may have "squandered" audience trust after creating a "hype machine" around stories such as the President Donald Trump-Russia collusion investigation.

While speaking with MS NOW host Ali Velshi on "The Weekly Show," Stewart told his guest: "I think within the media, it gets back to — you talked about it earlier — you said, 'It's about what you earn with your audience.' And I wonder if, in media, they've squandered some of that based on those incentives."

"So, for instance, we'll go back to, like — there's always that rush of, like, 'Now we've got Trump, and the Mueller report, and it's Mueller time,' and all these things. And the hype machine that generates that, whether it was for action in Iraq or accountability through these special counsels — that it raises an expectation of its audience," he continued.

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In 2019, then-Attorney General William Barr released the conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. It did not establish a link by Trump or his campaign to conspire with Russia to sway the 2016 election. 

Velshi added that the hype generated by the media around stories like the Mueller report acts as a "dopamine rush" for audiences.

Aside from raising expectations, Stewart said such coverage also leads audiences to expect those involved to face consequences for their reported actions — which may never come.

"The more you run on that hamster wheel, or gerbil wheel … I wonder if that begins to numb your audience to consequence. And is that where the trust has been lost?" he asked. "That not only is it about holding to account, but it's about tempering their expectation."

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Velshi agreed, saying that the media could present themselves differently.

He added that while it's fine to add "a little dressing" to news coverage to grab the audience, it's also important to relay the "important stories."

"It can't all be the world's on fire all the time, because then nobody thinks there's a fire. It can't all be breaking news, because then nothing is breaking news," the MS NOW host said. "It can't all be about this is the thing that's going to take Trump down, because, actually, your goal needs to be more important and more sustaining than taking Trump down. It needs to be fixing our society as it relates to incentives in media, as it relates to poverty, as it relates to healthcare."

He noted that the issues he listed "are not actually terribly hard fixes," and are all "things that the world can do" given the technology we have today.

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Velshi then returned to warning about the "real danger" that comes from "associating everything with Trump." 

"There's a real danger in associating everything with Trump, because Trump will go away," he said. "And you'll still have all these problems. And you'll still have this movement of 35% of Americans who trust nothing and want to tear it all down. We have to fix the system. And that means people understanding the system and understanding their role and their agency."