Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show is a favourite on this site. His comments during January’s Gaza war were a rare Jewish voice of sanity during the madness.
Sojourners magazine asks whether he’s also a prophet:
It may be true that the Hebrew prophets used humor in that regard, to create social change, but it was also used by Borscht Belt social directors. We’ve got a lot more in common with them than the prophets. Everyone here has a lot of respect for activists and an appreciation for what it takes to be an activist. For most of us, writing jokes, playing a little Guitar Hero in the afternoon, and calling it a day seems to be the way to go. Because we’re in the public eye, maybe people project onto us their desires for that type of activism coming from us, but just knowing the process here as I do, our show is maybe the antithesis of activism, and that is a relatively selfish pursuit. The targets we choose, the way we go about it—it’s got more of a personal venting aspect than a socially conscious aspect.
Stewart isn’t a prophet, he’s just a naughty boy playing in a conformist media landscape.