Larry Wilmore and Trevor Noah are first-rate comedians, but beyond that, argued Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein in a Tuesday article, Comedy Central’s choice of two black hosts to succeed Stephen Colbert and (eventually) Jon Stewart was an extremely smart business move.
Noah and Wilmore have a “particular skill for limning America's complicated, and often infuriating, racial politics,” wrote Klein, “and their takeover is a recognition of one of the lessons of Obama's presidency: American politics isn't moving past race. It's moving into it. And so, too, is the news business…[I]n the Obama years, attitudes toward politics have begun driving attitudes toward race. The result is that racial controversies are a bigger part of American politics right now than they were before Obama's election.”
Klein noted that social media, where identity issues such as race hold sway, “increasingly dominates how people get their news” and concluded that “the Stewart-and-Colbert era was tuned for post-9/11 liberalism — and the post-9/11 media. The Noah-and-Wilmore era is tuned for post-Obama liberalism — and the post-social media.”
From Klein’s piece (bolding added):
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were both responses to the Bush years. They were about the alienation liberals felt from their country at a moment when Fox News seemed the authentic expression of the American psyche…
And then liberals began winning elections. The constant crises of Obama's early presidency gave the shows plenty to work with at first, but as the sirens quieted and Washington slowly froze into gridlock, the shows began to lose steam. The disappointments of the Obama administration didn't offer the comic fodder of the outrages of the Bush administration. Colbert and Stewart became the beloved voices of the dominant political coalition; punching Fox News was punching down. Colbert announced his move to CBS. Stewart announced his retirement.
Their replacements — Trevor Noah at The Daily Show and Larry Wilmore in Colbert's slot — are responses to the Obama era. Both are talented black comedians with a particular skill for limning America's complicated, and often infuriating, racial politics…And their takeover is a recognition of one of the lessons of Obama's presidency: American politics isn't moving past race. It's moving into it. And so, too, is the news business…
Attitudes toward race have long been a driving force in attitudes toward American politics. But in the Obama years, attitudes toward politics have begun driving attitudes toward race. The result is that racial controversies are a bigger part of American politics right now than they were before Obama's election…
…[T]he internet broadly — and social media specifically — increasingly dominates how people get their news…And identity issues dominate online. If you ever wonder why there seems to be so much more coverage of identity politics these days, the answer, basically, is Facebook and Twitter, where stories that tap into people's identities dominate…
…[F]or a long time…the media was heavily biased toward stories white men thought important, and toward audiences that were well-served by publications running stories white men thought important…
…[A]udiences now have the power to send stories viral…[O]n the whole, I think this is a pretty positive development in American journalism: it's helping us realize we were systematically giving too little attention to stories that weren't of interest to the kinds of people who dominated newsrooms…
…[S]tories that touch on people's core identities — and race, gender, and sexual orientation are about as core as identities get — are going to get a lot more coverage in the coming years.
A decade ago, a police shooting in Ferguson, or a religious freedom law in Indiana, might have been regional stories at best. Today, they become national stories with ease. Satirical news shows, by their nature, follow the news. As the news changes, they need to change, too.
This was the reality The Daily Show sensed when it brought Noah and Wilmore into the stable. And it's the future being bet on by making them hosts of their own shows. The Stewart-and-Colbert era was tuned for post-9/11 liberalism — and the post-9/11 media. The Noah-and-Wilmore era is tuned for post-Obama liberalism — and the post-social media.
