Jon Stewart's ridicule of North Korean madman Kim Jong Un's effort to "ratchet up tensions" with the U.S. received a whopping 2.8M views on China's web portal and tens of thousands of supporting comments.
That's the second most viewed video for the host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," trailing a 2008 clip of a bit about Fox News' coverage of Sarah Palin's vice presidential run. On The Daily Show's site, video mocking Kim received 102K views for the first-half and 58K for the second half.
The Washington Post speculated today that the popularity of Stewart's takedown of Kim "may have hit on the growing frustration among Chinese citizens, particularly middle-class urbanites, with their misbehaving ally."
China's is North Korea's economic and political patron, but a new generation of leadership wants their country to take center stage on the world's stage.
Backing the unstable Kim, who claims to have a plan to incinerate Austin, Texas, is not a winning global PR hand for China. [Stewart joked that nuking liberal Austin may be Kim's effort to "get the rest of Texas on his side.]
China's new leadership is getting the message. President Xi Jinping sent a warning to Kim by saying, "No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains." Perhaps he's a fan of Stewart.
Last week, the champion of "fake news" made more news on the international affairs front. He criticized real Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi for the arrest of satirist Bassem Youssef, the Jon Stewart of Egypt, for allegedly insulting the president during his TV program.
Said Stewart: "What are you worried about? "You're the president of Egypt; you have an army. [Youssef] has puns and a show, you have tanks and planes. We should know; we still have the receipts." The piece went viral in Egypt and was front page news on opposition newspapers.
A Cairo court on April 6 dismissed the charges against Youssef.
Jon Stewart and social media: international power brokers.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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