Patrick Soon-Shiong appears on "The Daily Show." (Screen grab via Comedy Central)
On Monday night, Jon Stewart delivered a blistering monologue targeting the corporate media executives that have caved to Donald Trump in an attempt to stay in his good graces. Sitting behind "The Daily Show" desk, Stewart railed against what he described as a growing tendency among media owners to water down their content in hopes of avoiding backlash from the president. “If you believe your properties can serve gruel so flavorless that you will never again” trigger Trump, he said, “you are fucking wrong.” He accused these executives of operating out of fear of upsetting a man he described as a “fragile and vengeful president” and warned in no uncertain terms what he thought of the approach: “If you’re afraid and you protect your bottom line, I’ve got but one thing to say. Just one little phrase: Go fuck yourself.”
The monologue was a defense of Stewart’s longtime friend Stephen Colbert, whose "Late Show" was abruptly canceled last week. While Paramount, CBS’ parent company, has claimed the decision was made purely for “financial reasons,” Stewart made clear he wasn’t buying it. In Stewart’s telling, the late-night host had become the latest casualty of corporate cowardice—a high-profile sacrifice by executives more interested in appeasing power than standing up to it.
Which is precisely what made the next segment of "The Daily Show" so striking. Stewart welcomed Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong for an interview that was oddly gentle and unchallenging, particularly given the context of the fiery monologue that had preceded it. Soon-Shiong, a billionaire media owner and biotech entrepreneur, is exactly the type of figure Stewart had just spent several minutes condemning, one of the elite media titans who has overtly bent the knee to Trump. And yet, rather than pressing him on his record, Stewart conducted the interview with a surprisingly soft touch. In essence, he told people like Soon-Shiong to “go fuck yourself”—and then handed one of them a comfortable platform on national television minutes later.
Indeed, Stewart’s approach left many inside The Times newsroom perplexed and furious, according to conversations I had Tuesday with several staffers. Those at the newspaper had eagerly tuned in hoping that…
The rest of this story is for paid subscribers only.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Scoop-driven reporting and sharp-edged analysis. See why The Wall Street Journal declared Status a “must-read.”
FCC boss Brendan Carr. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Status Scoop | Carr Rips Colbert: Suffice to say, FCC Chair Brendan Carr is not hiding his feelings about Stephen Colbert’s show being cancelled. When I texted Carr on Monday evening for comment about rumblings he will approve the Paramount-Skydance merger on Friday, he replied after our deadline, writing, “Sorry. Missed your message. I was too emotional over the whole Colbert thing.” On Tuesday, when I asked if Colbert telling Donald Trump to “go fuck yourself” on “The Late Show” had impacted his calculus regarding the multi-billion dollar deal, Carr replied, “lol, no.” The pro-MAGA FCC boss then added…
The remainder of this newsletter is for paid subscribers only.
Scoop-driven reporting and sharp-edged analysis. See why thousands of industry professionals rely on Status.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
A subscription gets you full access to our nightly newsletter, which includes:
✅ Essential reporting on and analysis of the Fourth Estate, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the Information Wars, and more.
✅ Hand-curated links to the most consequential stories moving the needle in the key corridors of the industry.
✅ Unlimited access to our online archive where you can read previous editions of the newsletter.
