Stewart: Media Is Lazy, but Fox News Is Worse

Jon Stewart appeared on Fox News for the third time ever today, and Chris Wallace gave him quite the welcome: "After months of evasion, disconnected phone numbers, and press agents saying, 'Who are you again?' it appears he finally ran out of excuses." Stewart poked back in kind, "As a viewer, I can't tell you how disappointed I am that you would sully a program of this integrity with a presence such as Jon Stewart." The main topic of the day? The media, but of course. Highlights:

• After noting that Stewart has called Fox News "a propaganda delivery system," Wallace asks him, "Where do you come up with this stuff?" Stewart smiles. "It's actually quite easy when you feel it. You gotta feel it in your soul."
• So, asks Wallace, would Stewart say the same thing about ABC, CBS, the NYT, et al? No. Why not? "I think Fox News is much more reactive." Though he thinks "MSNBC is attempting to be a more activist organization."
• "You don't think the New York Times is a liberal organization pushing a liberal agenda?" asks Wallace. Stewart: "Do I think they are liberal activists, no? I think Fox is a very special..."
• So, asks Wallace, how come the NYT and Washington Post asked readers to help review Palin's emails but not Obama's 2,000-page health care bill? "I think their bias is towards sensationalism and laziness. I wouldn't say its towards the liberal agenda. If your suggestion is that they're restlessly partisan, then why haven't they gone and backed away from Weiner? They jumped into the Weiner pool with such delight and such relish, because the bias of the mainstream media is towards sensationalism, conflict, and laziness."
• "The embarrassment," says Stewart, "is that I'm given credibility in this world because of the disappointment that the public has in what the news media does." Wallace disagrees. "I think our views think 'Finally, we're getting somebody who tells the other side of the story.'" But Fox viewers are the most "consistently" misinformed media viewers, Stewart fires back. "Consistently."

(More Jon Stewart stories.)