The Detour's Jason Jones Says Detoxing From Fox News 'Was Great for My Soul'

Specs Age 42 Claim to fame Star and creator of The Detour on TBS (premieres April 11); former Daily Show correspondent Base New York Twitter @jonesinforjason Adweek: What's the first information you consume in the morning? Jason Jones: My Twitter newsfeed. Who do you follow? For news, I follow The New York Times, The New Yorker and ProPublica. For entertainment, I like The A.V. Club and The Onion. Any favorite apps? You've [hit on] my bugaboo with this technology stuff. I don't really have any apps! [Laughs] Oh, you know what I love is CudaSign. It's an app where you can sign papers. It's made my life so much easier because I would always get all these contracts, and now I just swipe my finger and it's done. What TV shows do you watch? OK, now we're on common ground. [Laughs] There's a show I just watched called Black Mirror. It's beyond great. It's one of the most insightful, visionary shows I've seen in so, so long. It's like a really twisted Twilight Zone where each episode is freestanding. If you watch the first one where the prime minister of Great Britain is forced to have sex with a pig on camera and think, "This is amazing," you will love the entire series. It's just so bonkers. I also watch The Walking Dead, even though I don't really want to be watching it anymore. I'm just too far in to give up. When it started, I really loved it, but now I'm just like, "Eh, there's another guy who died who I barely knew." The killings have grown tiresome. Now that you're not on The Daily Show, do you feel less obligated to keep up with the news cycle? Well, I did, and it was really nice. I left The Daily Show in March of last year, so for six months, I stopped trying to follow all the politics. I hadn't watched Fox News since leaving the show, which was great for my soul. But then I started working with [wife Samantha Bee] on her show [Full Frontal on TBS], and I just got right back into it. I think I actually kind of missed it. What's on your reading list? I have a very short attention span, so books have never been my thing. My favorite website to go to is Longform.org where they link to the greatest long-form articles. That's about my attention span—a good 20-minute read. The other night I read this story on Longform about a pig farmer ["Death of a Pig" by E.B. White]—I think it was from The Atlantic—and how he became bonded with this one pig that got sick and died but wasn't butchered. And then the very next article will be something from The New Yorker about a helium-filled airship that can carry things to places that trucks can't even reach. So that's really my go-to reading source, other than my local newspapers. One of these days, I hope to get back to books [laughs]. Do you subscribe to any magazines, too? I get The New Yorker, and I'm usually about three issues behind. But I do catch up. The problem is that it always seems like homework, but then you start reading it and go, "Why am I not doing this all the time? These are such great stories!" But, yeah, that stack gets so big and dense. This story first appeared in the April 4 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Brand Marketing

The Detour's Jason Jones Says Detoxing From Fox News 'Was Great for My Soul'

Daily Show alum talks media obsessions

Emma Bazilian

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Emma Bazilian