≡ Menu

Jon Stewart, Brian Williams and the Power of Authenticity

Ed note: I wrote this post the day David Carr’s analysis of Brian Williams and Jon Stewart’s contrasting approaches and situations (referenced in the post) came out. Shockingly, David Carr collapsed that night in the New York Times newsroom and died. The piece he wrote, and I referenced here, was his very last. I’m posting this piece as I wrote it, but I will follow up with more, not just on the reminder Carr’s untimely death offers about the importance of grabbing hold of life with gusto, but of Carr’s philosophy that evidently lay behind pieces like the one I found worth discussing here.

One of the central themes you will hear explored and repeated on this site is the importance and power of finding your own unique, authentic voice and then bringing that voice into the world. Of being your authentic self, instead of what you think the world will find appealing. There is a divine satisfaction that comes from being an integrated, authentic person. But there is also a power that comes with that; a power that is unshakable and persuasive because it is rooted in the very core of who you are. You can be knocked off of any pedestal the external world puts you on. But you can’t be knocked off of your own foundation. And that strength comes through, even if others can’t quite put their finger on why they find you so persuasive, trustworthy, or solid.

Living from the “inside out,” as I sometimes put it, is vastly different than a defensive, insecure, or closed-minded person sticking stubbornly to their view of the world. It requires being at peace with who you are, instead of constantly working to protect an image, or angrily defending against perceived slights or criticisms from others. And it requires distancing yourself, at least on some basic level, from caring too much about the external rewards of money, acceptance, power, or status that others have the power to confer. So many people have trouble achieving it.

But as if to illustrate this point, television watchers (and computer streamers) found themselves with an almost-too-perfect-to-make-up example (and cautionary tale) of the consequences of these “inside out” and “outside in” approaches last week, juxtaposed in an uncanny coincidence of timing.

Brian Williams, the NBC anchor and king of the network evening news, was suspended for six months without pay, and may even find his career permanently damaged or truncated, because of the discovery that he made up–and publicly disseminated–a story about being in a helicopter shot down in Iraq. The truth was, he was in a different helicopter and arrived on the scene later. Once that came out, network executives also began to question how he’d characterized his reporting of other events, including Hurricane Katrina, in appearances he’d made outside his newscasts.

On the same day as Williams’ suspension was made public, Jon Stewart, the host of the comedy news program The Daily Show, announced that he was leaving the show after 17 years, of his own accord, because it was time to move on and do something different. That, and because he thought it might be nice to spend some more time with his family. Ironically, despite the show’s foundations in comedy, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show had become one of the most trusted sources for news, especially among young adults.

Other media outlets and writers have already written and produced side-by-side comparisons of the two “kings” and the stark difference in their departures and fortunes. But the relevance of their stories here is not the stark contrast in their fortunes, but in their contrasting motivations, and the consequences those differences led to. David Carr, a columnist at The New York Times, wrote an interesting comparison of both Williams and Stewart that touched on this point.

Stewart, Carr pointed out, is at heart “an idealist,” who used time off last summer to make a movie about an Iranian  journalist who was imprisoned in Iran, shortly after appearing on The Daily Show, for “in essence … the act of free speech.” Carr also noted that Stewart’s need for the rewards and status of being a television personality “has diminished over time,” and that Stewart might be “that odd celebrity who says he is taking time off to spend with his family and actually means it.”

In contrast, Carr said, Williams “made the source of his happiness plain.” Williams once told Carr, pointing at a huge television in Williams’ apartment, ‘That is where I am. I am a creature of live television.” And yet, Carr wrote, even being top of the news kingdom wasn’t enough for Williams. So the famous anchorman started making appearances elsewhere, including late-night talk shows and comedy shows. Ironically, it was some of his embellished stories and comments on those other outlets that contributed to NBC’s decision to suspend him.

It’s a sad tale, but also–sadly–not an uncommon one. Williams, it would appear, got his validation from external sources: from being that image on TV; from being a celebrity. He had “arrived,” because he had status, money, and fame: people knew him, watched him, and were impressed by him. The problem with external validation is two-fold: first, no matter how successful or famous you are, there’s always someone who has more. And because you’re looking to the outside for verification, you notice everyone else higher on the ladder. So nothing you have is ever quite enough.

Surely, for example, being a journalist in a war zone should be sufficiently exciting/frightening enough without embellishing the facts. But if you’re always looking at yourself from the outside, dependent on crowd approval, you notice that another journalist was in a war zone and actually got shot down. You’ve now been bested. And then you talk to the people involved and get the story. You feel as if it could have happened to you. You need it to have happened to you. So maybe you tell the story wrong once, and then it’s hard to go back. Or you’ve gotten too good at not looking too hard at authentic disconnects in yourself to even recognize that you got it wrong.

Which illustrates the second problem with externally-driven validation: it keeps you too dependent on crowd approval to be authentically yourself. You are what you think the crowd and world requires, not what you believe and care about most at your core. Over time, you may not even know what that core “you” is, anymore. Williams was able to fall so far, so fast, because his credibility (evidently) wasn’t tied to a deeply authentic self and beliefs, at the core. It was a face he put on for the crowd. A cautionary tale if there ever was one.

Jon Stewart, on the other hand, had power, despite the comedic tone of his delivery, because viewers sensed that he really believed this stuff. He would pillory people of both parties when they failed to be what he believed they could and should be. And that authenticity is why he was respected, even by people who disagreed with him.

In short, if Brian Williams is a cautionary tale of the hazards of an externally motivated life and sense of self, Stewart appears to be the opposite: a role model of the rewards that come from having a clear sense of your authentic voice and being motivated “from the inside out.” The Daily Show may have been a wonderful vehicle for bringing Stewart’s voice into the world in a meaningful way, but it isn’t the only option or avenue for doing that. And Stewart knows that. He also, clearly, is able to separate who he is from what he does (another characteristic of people connected to, and motivated by, their true, authentic voices). And that is both why he was able to have such impact on the show … and why he can be at peace with walking away.

{ 1 comment… add one }

Leave a Comment