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Jon Stewart (born November 28, 1962 as Jonathan
Stuart Leibowitz) is an United States|American
comedian, actor, author, and producer, best known
as host of The Daily Show.
The popularity of this late-night show has earned
Stewart notoriety as "the most trusted name in
fake news," a sardonic reflection of his stature
as the Walter Cronkite for a younger generation.
He has also gained attention as an outspoken
critic of establishment|established news media
sources.

==Personal background==
Jon Stewart was raised in Lawrenceville, New
Jersey|Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Although he
often jokes that he dropped his last name because
people had difficulty with its pronunciation,
Stewart has implied that it was actually due to a
strained relationship with his father, a physicist
who left the family in 1971 and with whom Stewart
no longer has any contact
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/653943
3. A member of his school's band, he was one of
the only Jewish children in his town, and he has
said he was subjected to much anti-Semitic
harassment from some of his classmates.  He was
also short, still standing just 5′7″. 
He describes his high school self as "very into
Eugene Debs and a bit of a leftist."

Stewart attended the College of William and Mary
in Virginia, majoring in psychology, and played on
the men's soccer team.  An award titled the
"Leibo" was given out annually in honor of
Stewart; it is given to the member of the men's
soccer team who experiences the most personal
growth and provides the most laughs for his
teammates.

After college, Stewart held numerous jobs,
including contingency planner for the New Jersey
Department of Human Services, contract
administrator for City University of New York,
puppeteer for children with disabilities, and
bartender at the local Franklin Corner Tavern. He
was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, but
quit after six months.
http://www.nndb.com/people/222/000022156/

Stewart married long-time girlfriend Tracey
McShane in May 2000, at which time they both
legally changed their last names to "Stewart." The
couple had their first child, Nathan Thomas (named
after Stewart's grandfather) on July 3, 2004.

In 2004, Jon Stewart was the keynote speaker at
Princeton University's commencement ceremony.

In 2004, Stewart spoke at William and Mary's
commencement ceremonies, and was presented with an
Honorary degree|honorary Doctor of Arts|doctorate
of arts degree.
http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=3650
Transcript of speech

==Professional background==
With a reputation for being a funnyman even in
school, Jon Stewart moved to New York City in 1986
to try his hand at the comedy club circuit. In
1989 he began hosting Comedy Central's Short
Attention Span Theater and in 1993, due in large
part to the support of his friend David Letterman,
Stewart started hosting The Jon Stewart Show on
MTV, the first talk show on that network. Also in
1993, he had wound up a finalist to replace David
Letterman on Late Night, losing out to Conan
O'Brien.  In 1994, MTV and Paramount
Pictures|Paramount launched an hour-long
television syndication|syndicated late night
version of The Jon Stewart Show, but the show,
broadcast in unhelpful 2:00 or 3:00 AM timeslots
by some local stations, was a ratings flop and was
cancelled in June 1995. Stewart had earlier hosted
the unsuccessful You Wrote It, You Watch It on
MTV, which invited viewers to send in their
stories to be acted out.

In 1999, Stewart began hosting The Daily Show on
Comedy Central when Craig Kilborn left the show.
Since that time, he has hosted all airings of the
program save for a scant handful that have had
correspondents such as Stephen Colbert filling in
at the anchor desk.


Although best known for his work on The Daily
Show, Stewart has also had roles in several
television series and film|movies.
He makes fun of his film appearances, as they have
largely been in movies considered to be flops,
most notably Half Baked.
He has guest-starred on such television shows as
The Nanny, Spin City, and NewsRadio and hosted
Saturday Night Live in March 2002.

Stewart drew much attention thanks to an unusual,
awkward, and heated television exchange with CNN's
Tucker Carlson in October 2004. Stewart decried
the state of television journalism and referred to
both Carlson, whom he also declared to be "as big
a dick on your show as you are on any show" and
co-host Paul Begala as "partisan hacks," in
addition to asserting that their show, Crossfire
(television)|Crossfire, has failed in its
responsibility to inform and educate viewers about
politics as a serious topic
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf.
01.html (transcript). This exchange became one of
the most widely viewed Internet videos to date
(both publicly on iFilm and bootleg via
BitTorrent), and a topic of much media discussion.
In January 2005, CNN announced that it was
cancelling Crossfire. When asked about the
cancellations, CNN's incoming CEO, Jonathan Klein,
stated he "wholeheartedly agrees" with Stewart's
"overall premise."

Stewart has received the prestigious Peabody Award
twice for the coverage of the 2000 U.S.
presidential election|2000 and 2004 U.S.
presidential elections on The Daily Show. He was
also named one of the 2005 Time 100, an annual
list of 100 of the most influential people of the
year by Time Magazine. In the magazine article,
Tom Brokaw describes Stewart as one of the few
people who represents true Athenian
democracy|Athenian democratic values.

Stewart will have a small cameo appearance in the
upcoming comic Galaxy Force XIV, where he is a
low-level operative of the Evil Galactic
Confederation, under the command of Evil Captain
Spiff.
==Bibliography==
*Naked Pictures of Famous People (Rob Weisbach
Books, 1998 in literature|1998) ISBN 0688155308
*The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America
(The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy
Inaction (Warner Books, 2004 in literature|2004)
ISBN 0446532681

==External links==

*imdb name|id=0829537|name=Jon Stewart
*http://www.nndb.com/people/222/000022156/ Jon
Stewart profile, NNDB
*http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailysho
wwithjonstewart/ Official site for the Daily Show
on Comedy Central
*http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
yId=4054791 Interview with Stewart on National
Public Radio|NPR's Fresh Air (September 30, 2004)
*http://www.ifilm.com/filmdetail?ifilmid=2652831&h
tv=12&htv=12&htv=12 Stewart's appearance on
Crossfire (October 15, 2004)
*http://video.contemporaryinsanity.org/stewartcros
s.php Stewart on Crossfire, Multiple non-streaming
formats (October 15, 2004)
*http://www.c-span.org/Search/basic.asp?BasicQuery
Text=jon+stewart&SortBy=date Jon Stewart on C-SPAN
(October 25th, 2004)
*http://www.progressiveu.org/taxonomy/term/35 The
Daily Show Analysis, Commentary, and Polls on
ProgressiveU.org
*http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.
php?t=4995 Jon Stewart's ('84) Commencement
Address - 2004 graduation at the College of
William & Mary