Even Fox News’ Shepard Smith Appreciates Jon Stewart

By Brian Flood 

As pointed out in an in-depth column in The New York Times, TV newsers are going to miss Jon Stewart. Yes, even the ones he’s made a career of mocking.

Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith has often been a target of Stewart’s mockery, once saying his new set looked like “the Apple Genius Bar had an orgasm.” But that doesn’t stop Smith from appreciating what Stewart brought to the industry, telling the Times he marveled at the way Stewart had “elevated the Arab Spring to a story that younger audiences could appreciate and understand.”

The following excerpt from The New York Times article details one of the times Stewart has touched the FNC anchor:

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Coincidentally, the two men lived in the same apartment building in Greenwich Village. And right after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Smith said he remembered Mr. Stewart describing the view of ground zero that he could see from their roof. It stuck with him for its poignancy and drove home how Mr. Stewart was always much more than a comedian.

The World Trade Center, before the attacks, had always obscured the Statue of Liberty, Mr. Smith said.

“One of his observations was,” Mr. Smith went on, describing Mr. Stewart’s monologue, “ ‘We can see Lady Liberty where we couldn’t before. There’s a smoldering heap in the middle of the view, but that’s going to go away, and freedom lives.’ That meant a lot to me.”

Check out Stewart’s classic rant about Smith’s set:

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