America (The Book), the satire by Jon Stewart and the staff of The Daily Show, was the hottest book in the four weeks before Christmas, according to sales data collected for USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books. In the five weeks after Thanksgiving, Stewart’s parody of a textbook outsold Bill Clinton’s memoir, My Life, 7 to 1.
For further evidence of the power of fake news, USA TODAY reports that Jonathan Klein, who was appointed in late November as chief executive of CNN’s U.S. network has decided to can Crossfire and its bow-tie wearing conservative pundit, Tucker Carlson. Carlson got into an on-air tussle last fall with comic Jon Stewart, who has been critical of cable political programs that devolve into shoutfests.
“I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp,” Klein told The Associated Press. Klein said he wants more substantive programming that is still compelling. “I doubt that when the president sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues,” he said. “I don’t know why we don’t treat the audience with the same respect.”