Steven Colbert became famous this week when he gave a speech to the White House Correspondent Association Dinner. With President George Bush just two seats away, Colbert said everything many of us wished someone would say to our ridiculous leader. For 20 minutes, he roasted Bush and many members of the audience. The audience was mainly silent and stunned.
Here is the video:
The interesting thing is the coverage of the event. Most of the press either ignored him…or said he bombed. As it reads on Wikipedia…
According to Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post,
a majority of the mainstream media omitted Colbert’s performance in
their description of the event, choosing to focus upon an earlier bit
where Bush was joined on-stage by a Bush impersonator.[11] The New York Times[12], Reuters[13] , and Chicago Tribune[14]
all published articles on the dinner that did not mention Colbert’s
name, even though Colbert was the featured entertainer for the evening.
Media Matters for America compared the blackout to the extensive coverage of Don Imus‘s controversial roasting of Bill Clinton in 1996[15].
Froomkin believes that the media went from ignoring the incident to
declaring Colbert’s performance unfunny in response to allegations of a
blackout because they were also targets of Colbert’s comedic barbs.[16]
Columbia School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin remarked on the
alleged blackout of Colbert’s performance, "It’s too hot to handle.
[Colbert] was scathing toward Bush and it was absolutely devastating.
They [the mainstream media] don’t know how to handle such a pointed and
aggressive criticism."[17]
You check out the video.
The jokes are not "laugh out loud"….it was more just the simple truth.
If we didnt have this ability to distribute video online, no one would have seen this rare event.
Steven Colbert knew exactly who he was talking to: us.
Things are changing.
