Hear it YOURSELF — What Rick Really Said During the Interview

To read the headlines, Rick’s interview with Pete Dominick was a “meltdown” or some conspiracy theory filled diatribe.  In fact, it was none of those things.

But that’s how it got reported.  It’s what happens when an hour-long interview gets hacked up into soundbites.  People listen to portions, sometimes selectively (and unfairly) spliced together.  Things get taken out of context.  One media outlet or newswire characterizes (even editorializes) an event, and then others follow that same meme.  And like a bad version of the children’s game of telephone, one incorrect headline just leads to another and another and another…

It was wrong for Rick to allow the interviewer to steer this into a discussion about Jewish-Americans, allowing him to make the false argument that minorities, simply by virtue of being minorities, can’t be prejudiced.  It was wrong because Rick’s broader point was lost.  That point was about minorities and the obstacles they face. The point was about race. It was about socio-economic background.  It was about insider versus outsider, privileged versus disadvantaged, it was about liberalism versus conservatism. 

It was about Rick having experienced subtle forms of discrimination throughout his career and that despite his success, many looked down on him and viewed him as someone “who belongs in the second tier.” 

That story—the story of minorities in the media, of whether a “glass ceiling” exists that keeps prime time cable news minority-free—has been largely ignored and lost.  But it needs to be told.

If people truly question the point Rick was trying to make, how he said it or how Jon Stewart’s religion was injected into the interview, then do what so many journalists apparently failed to do: listen to the interview yourself.  We have included a 4-minute clip as well as a longer 20-minute clip so that you can judge for yourself.

The 4-minute clip, courtesy of The Daily Beast:

The 20-minute clip, courtesy of Mediaite: