In June 2009, Jason Jones and field producer Tim Greenberg traveled to Tehran to have a little fun with the impending Iranian election. The three “Minarets of Menace” segments that resulted were remarkable achievements on their own—sending up the way American politicians demonized Iranians, providing an evocative glimpse of everyday life in the Islamic Republic, and crafting a moving reminder of the preciousness of democracy. But shortly after Jones left the country, the government brutally cracked down on protests and rigged the voting—and one of Jones’s interview subjects, Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari, was tossed in prison, with his Daily Show appearance part of the “evidence” used to accuse him of being a spy.
That unintended consequence was both tragic and farcical. It also transformed the lives of Maziar Bahari and Jon Stewart—and nearly put a premature end to Stewart’s run at The Daily Show.
I think it was probably originally Asaf Kastner’s idea for us to go to Iran. He’s one of our best segment producers. And Jason Jones wanted to be the correspondent. Jason is fearless. His first piece, Jason volunteered to ride naked on a horse. And he loved the foreign stories.
As Rachel Axler said, “You can’t spell ‘cojones’ without ‘Jones.’”
Jason is a tough cookie. If he sees any weakness, he will pounce. We were in Butte, Montana, doing a story about a toxic lake. Jason is supposed to kill his grandmother by pushing her into this lake. So I play the grandma and he puts me in a wheelchair, and we drive to this embankment and it’s kind of steep and I’m scared as hell. He pushes me down and I’m just supposed to flatline into the lake. We didn’t test it. I didn’t know how deep it was.
It was so cold I lost my breath. I dried off and they put me in again. But it got in the piece.
Oh, here’s a good drug story for you. Jason and I went to Denmark, to a place called Christiania, a little hippie commune that’s mostly free from Danish law. It’s basically just a squatter’s commune in the middle of the city of Copenhagen, and you can smoke hash there. We interviewed the mayor of Christiania, this bearded weirdo, and the whole joke was that the mayor says to Jason, “Hey, you want to smoke?” And Jason will go, “Oh, no, no, no… Are the cameras off? Okay. Let’s go get high!”
We go to a café in the middle of Christiania and Jason gets high on camera. I smoke a little bit and we get high. I don’t think I’ve ever shot high before. We had an interview right after that with a Danish TV personality, sort of their Jon Stewart, and it was the most surreal interview, but Jason was so good.
Jason usually played a real dick in field pieces. How much of that is him? Seventy-five percent?
I mean, not more than like 90 to 98 percent. Look, Jason is literally one of my best friends at the show and I expect we’ll be friends long afterward. He’s kind of a dick—
Not really.
But kind of, but not really. It’s kind of like a perma act. Let’s put it that way. It’s a permanent act. It’s not who he is in his heart, but it’s sort of a permanent act.
Not that Jones is necessarily a dick, although there’s a part of him that is, in terms of his comic persona, you know? He felt the need to take his balls out at every single occasion that he could. I’m talking about in the office. I’m talking about wherever. He’d always just show everyone his balls.
Jason did a piece once when our daughter Piper was a baby. He took her to a crowded bar. Because once everyone sees that you have a live human baby, then you can do anything you want with a doll baby. So then he strapped the Baby Björn and a fake baby to his chest and just drank, spilling beer all over the baby. At one point she slipped out, the doll slipped out onto the floor of the bar, and people screamed. Later in the piece he straps the Björn and the doll to his naked chest and dives into a pool. It’s so funny. It’s really funny.
Our children aren’t that curious about what we do. They think all parents are on television. And Jason and I were like, “Piper, you’ve been on television.” And she was like, “Oh, I want to see it.” And we showed her that piece, but we weren’t watching her reaction. She was standing behind us.
And Jason and I were completely self-satisfied in watching this funny piece together, just like, “It’s so funny. We’re the best.” And we turned around, and Piper had tears streaming down her face, and she said, “Why did you try to kill me?” It was a big lesson. Children aren’t that sarcastic.
We’re looking at years of therapy.
Jason Jones at his house and the real Jason Jones with his family and friends is an utter sweetheart. In any other setting, he’s generally a dick.
I mean, Jason has been fucking with people since he was a child. He cannot not do it. He pretended to be stuck under a boulder on the Bruce Peninsula in Canada when he was like seven years old. He would pretend to be stuck under a boulder on the hike, and people would walk past him, he’d scream and ask for help, and people would rescue him.
Sam is just like the sweetest, nicest… it’s funny, because when you know them separately, you’re like, “How are those two married?” He thinks she is so freaking funny. It works and it’s awesome, and they clearly have a great relationship, but their personalities are so different. Jason likes to be the life of the party. Sam’s a little bit just short of social anxiety.
I did feel pretty confident that Jason would return from Iran. I was more afraid when he went to Russia, actually, because there’s just so much violence, and Jason has a tendency to be so audacious.
You think I’m unafraid? Jason’s completely unafraid. He’ll say anything that tickles his fancy in the moment. And people will just put a sack over your head and disappear you in Russia these days.
But in Canada we don’t actually talk about Iran like it’s the devil’s spawn. We know Iranian people, and they’re really great. So I wasn’t inherently afraid of Jason going to Iran.
When we were heading to Iran, the Viacom lawyers sat us down and told us about how there are certain rules based on not bribing foreign officials or something, about how you can’t spend money in certain ways and everything has to be accounted for. Having shot foreign pieces before, like, this is close to impossible. So Jason and I are each traveling with $10,000 in cash to Iran, some in my backpack and some on my body, to pay off our fixer.
But in going to Iran, I think we were very naïve about what we were getting into. In Qom, a very holy city, we went to a square to play football, American-style football, with a bunch of kids. We filmed the bit and we thought it was relatively harmless. Our fixer said we have to leave. We’re like, “Okay, good. We’re done here.” They’re like, “No. We have to leave. You’ve been kicked out of the city.” We’re like, “Oh my God. That’s pretty good. That’s the first time we’ve ever been kicked out of a city.”
I grew up on Staten Island, but I’m half Iranian and I still have a lot of family there. For years I’ve heard from people who live in Iran about the despair they feel. So I’m really proud of the coverage the show did. Jason Jones and Tim Greenberg did it with heart and really humanized the country, showing that Iranian people are normal, something I’ve been trying to do my whole life.
My parents came in to The Daily Show and helped translate some of the interview footage. I think we paid them generously in salad bar–and-tilapia lunches.
Jason traveled so much for the show, to all kinds of destinations. But the Iran trip changed him as a person, in a good way. It was very definitive for him.
Jason is the most underappreciated person who was ever on The Daily Show. So much of what Jason did was self-directed and self-taught, and his instincts are so correct about things, and his eye is so good. And I personally feel like he got lumped into “You’re a white dude with dark hair. You’re all kind of the same.” But his work is really elevated. He did more field pieces than anybody has ever done on the show and has gotten the least amount of recognition, and I don’t know why. I find it really upsetting.
The entire reason why we have a connection with Maziar Bahari is that when we were preparing for the trip we saw him talking to Ted Koppel or somebody. I was like “Yeah, that guy’s a good interview.” Had we not happened to watch that, and I had not happened to call him, Jon would have never made his movie.
In Tehran, Jones filmed a bit where he asked Iranians why they hate Americans. He also sat down in a café to talk with Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari. About two weeks after the interview Iranian police arrested Bahari and accused him of talking with a “spy”—Jason Jones. Bahari was locked in the notorious Evin Prison for five months and forced to make a public “confession” to a variety of bogus charges.
Bahari wrote a chilling and darkly funny memoir that recounted his prison ordeal and his family’s tangled political history in Iran. Stewart bought the movie rights.
I think the fact that The Daily Show was part of my imprisonment, part of my interrogation, that played a part in Jon being attracted to the story. But I don’t think guilt had anything to do with him wanting to do the movie. Jon wanted to show what journalists are going through in order to get the story, in order to tell serious stories. He spends so much time on The Daily Show making fun of journalists for doing silly things, but that is because he believes good reporting is important.
I can’t remember what I was pushing, it was probably a Spider-Man movie, but we went backstage at The Daily Show and Jon said, “Lookit. I’m thinking of actually writing this script,” and I said, “How are you going to find the time?” Because that’s basically your weekends.
So I didn’t really think much of it until after he said he’d actually written the thing, and when he said he was going to direct it. Everybody gets excited when they first think they’re going to direct a movie or direct something, and then reality starts to set in as you get closer to the date and then you start doing it and it almost kills you.
I had been a guest on The Daily Show a couple of times. Jon contacted me because he had written a script for Rosewater and he was looking for reactions. When I read scripts, I find myself having to do a lot of work in my head in terms of really understanding and seeing how moments are meant to play out, what the rhythm of it is, what the tone of it is, why I’m in a certain place.
When I read Rosewater, I felt like I was in wildly competent hands, and that the story and scenes and moments were playing out in a way that felt incredibly vibrant and specific and clear. It wasn’t that there were shot descriptions or it was overwritten. It was more that it flowed in a way where I could see the movie as I was reading it.
No, Jon is not in Star Wars. I wish he’d come while we were shooting, but that never happened. I probably would have cast him as, like, a Jedi master’s butler.
With the Rosewater script shaping up in the spring of 2012, taking a break from The Daily Show to shoot the movie became part of Stewart’s contract renewal bargaining with Comedy Central.
The toughest contract negotiation was the last one, with the film. None of them were ever that bad. All of them gave Jon nice raises along the way. He was at the top of the late-night pay scale. So at that point I was never going to haggle over a million or two dollars either way.
This time it wasn’t about money at all. Jon was already making a great living. It was about getting him out for the film. Colbert’s contract negotiation was going at the same time. We’re all reasonable people. We’re all friendly to one another. But it had some ugly moments.
I don’t know what Jon will tell you, but I was like, “Dude, I don’t want you to do the movie. I don’t want you to leave the desk.” And so there was a little push and pull over that.
Yeah. There was a time when I quit.
My contract negotiations were fine. Only toward the end when I wanted to go do the movie did they get difficult. Once Philippe [Dauman, then-chairman of Viacom, the corporate parent of Comedy Central] got in, there was a bit of a change of atmosphere. Doug and Judy have a different ethos. I think Philippe is more… how should I put this charitably? Fiscally minded. One of the nice things about Doug, and Judy, and Michele is they try and balance the financial realities with a healthy respect for the creative process. I’m not so sure that’s the case with Philippe.
With Stephen, that negotiation started first, and they got hard-line and weird. It was the first negotiation we had with Philippe in charge.
I mean, this was when Stephen was at his peak, coming off the Colbert Super PAC stuff, and their attitude was, “Yeah, no. We absolutely would like to continue the arrangement perhaps with maybe a small bump just to let him feel good about it.” They were being shitty to Stephen, so he and I tied our boats together in the negotiations.
Colbert’s negotiation was a lot more acerbic. In our minds it was about respect.
I don’t think Philippe in any way saw what we do as special. As far as he was concerned the star is the real estate, and whether or not we are the ones who carved out that real estate and made it valuable is not important to him.
Philippe definitely leaned into this, and he definitely has a particular approach to negotiation, no matter who it is. We started negotiating with Colbert, it got a little testy, so we put that aside and went in with Jon. We thought we were at the goal line and then the movie came up.
I know when it was, I’ll tell you why. It was June 2012. I was at the fucking airport in New York leaving for London with my whole family, speaking to Stephen and he’s saying, “I’m done, that’s it.” We did three days in London before we flew to Africa for our safari and I remember being on the street, whatever that famous shopping district is, and getting a call from Jon on my cell phone. I’m on with Colbert, I’m on with Jon, trying to conference through my office. So the whole thing crumbles, literally.
How close can you get to it all falling apart? I mean, Jon quit and we were a package. When that happened I was on the road taking my daughter to visit colleges. I got off the phone and she said, “Who was that?” I said, “Oh, I was just talking with Jon and Dixon. Well, I’m going to be home a lot more.” She said, “What do you mean?” I said, “You know how we’re in the middle of the contract negotiations? It hasn’t worked out and so that’s it. We’ll end the show at Christmastime.” She said, “That’s crazy.” We were at a restaurant in Philly. She said, “Our waitress who just came up, she doesn’t know that your shows are ending in three months?” I said, “No. Nobody knows.” “People are going to go crazy! It’s going to be so bad.” “Yeah, we’ll do other things.” My daughter said, “No, Dad, you don’t understand!” I said, “Well, that’s it.”
I didn’t need a big bump in pay, I didn’t need a big anything. But I wanted the summer of 2013 off. That was a difficult part because I had really set my feet on it. They came back and said, “Okay. You can have eight weeks, but we will fine you $500,000 a day if you go over.”
So I said, “It sounds to me like you’re not really letting me do it, by setting conditions that make it impossible.” I don’t think it was Doug’s call. I think these decisions had Philippe written all over them.
We wanted Jon back behind the desk, and we were trying to find a way to incentivize that, because movie shoots have a tendency to run long.
I remember it very clearly, standing out here at home in Jersey. I said, “James, call him back and say, ‘Look, man, we’ve had a great run. Jon is going to do this movie, and we’ll part as friends, and he won’t renew.’”
So I quit.
It was a dark thirty-six hours for me. Sad, pissed off, confused—I was all of those. But my sense was it wasn’t going to end that way. That we were going to figure this out.
That weekend was like… you know, I said to Tracey, “Okay, it’s over.” I sort of kind of got used to it, like, “Oh, yeah, well, you know, it was great.” Would’ve rather have gone out on my terms, timing-wise, but I really felt very passionately about getting this project done and I knew that I needed to get it done in a timely fashion.
And then Philippe called me a day later, while I was at a diner in Red Bank, and said, “Tell me about this movie. Why’s it important to you?” So I had to tell him about it, and he said, “Let me see what I can do. Let me talk to them.” Meanwhile, he was the one who had said draw the line.
I get a call on Bond Street and it’s Jon. “You’re not going to believe it. I just got a call from Philippe.”
So it all resets itself and we rejigger and we get both the deals done.
It was head-scratchy to me. Here’s the crazy part of it: We went in and I said, “Okay, I’m ready to sign up for another four years. I’m willing to do the same terms. I’ll guarantee through the 2016 election.”
They said, “No, just two.” Jon and I looked at each other, privately, like, “What is going on?” Jon says, “I do not begin to understand what the benefit of their position is. How is this better for them that they have to do this again in two years?”
That’s not my memory. I think Stephen wanted to go from four years to three, maybe to sync up with Jon’s deal. And we ended up with two years.
I think it was all part of Philippe’s philosophy, the idea that there’s a new sheriff in town. His sense that the artists aren’t going to control us, we’re going to control them. We weren’t trying to control them. We were just trying to make a fair deal.
Thank God they said no to four years. All I know is that if they had taken our offer I would not have been available to take over for Dave. So all the people who think I planned it, I did not. I promise you this was not my idea.
Ultimately I ended up paying Stephen a certain amount of money each year as a bump from my production fee. The penalty for going long on the movie got removed, but I ended up having to give up half my bonus, and there were ratings penalties—if The Daily Show’s ratings went down, I would owe them money. That’s how bad it was with them.
The undertone of the conversation was that Jon was feeling a little restless, and that this will help him, right? He needs a break, and this will help him reenergize. In a perfect world I want him there every night, all right? I got a business to run, and these are every-night shows for a reason, and you want your guy there every night. So that was that.
In July, Comedy Central announced that Stewart and Colbert had agreed to two-year contract extensions. Nothing about the bitter negotiations leaked, however, and Stewart kept his movie plans quiet until early the next year. Yet even as he was spending nights and weekends hammering out a screenplay, Stewart and the show did some of their strongest work of the entire run.
Two new correspondents provided an infusion of energy. Al Madrigal, forty, had been living in Los Angeles but touring regularly as a standup comic. One night in Miami he got an e-mail from a stranger asking for a slot as an opening act. Madrigal said sure—“I was playing one of the worst clubs in Miami.” Two years later that same stranger, Daily Show producer Adam Lowitt, arranged for Madrigal to audition for Stewart, who hired him on the spot as Senior Latino Correspondent.
I’d been in a sitcom with Rob Riggle, Gary Unmarried. I told Rob I’d gotten the gig at The Daily Show, and he mentioned having these handwritten notes from Colbert on how to do a field piece. Riggle transcribed them and e-mailed them to me, and I memorized those notes, because they’re amazing.
Hey Al,
So I found Colbert’s notes for me on things to think about when doing a field piece!
1) Burn Tape! Tape is cheap, keep talking and keep them talking…
2) Break up questions… Don’t let them see where you’re going.
3) Play the silence.
4) Match energy with subject.
5) Discover things in the moment! Be aware of when those “discoveries” happen.
6) Always be asking yourself… “What’s my point of view on this subject?”
7) You have to think it’s funny. Find a way to make that happen…
8) Get clear on 3–5 things you want your subject to say and don’t leave until you get them.
9) Understand the real point… what’s behind all this?
10) Character is key! Understand your P.O.V. on this issue and you will be able to react spontaneously in the moment.
That’s it bro… These were the tips Stephen gave me when I started and they helped… I hope they help you!
All the best,
Riggle
My second field piece turned out to be one of the things of which I’m most proud. Steve Bodow’s parents live in Tucson, and they flagged an article about an Arizona law banning ethnic studies in public schools. The law was being used to shut down this one Mexican-American studies class in Tucson, because they thought it taught hatred of the white man. So I interviewed this Tucson school board member and asked him, “So when you banned African-American studies, what did they say?”
Michael Hicks, Tucson school board member: Honestly, this law won’t be applied to any of our other courses… the African-American studies program is still there. It’s not teaching the resentment of a race or class of people.
Al Madrigal: I’m a black kid. Try to teach me about slavery without me feeling resentment toward white people. How did I end up here?
Michael Hicks: Slavery was a… hmm. Okay, the white man did bring over the Africans…
Al Madrigal: And what kind of jobs did we do?
Michael Hicks: The jobs that you guys did were basically slavery jobs.
Al Madrigal: So after we were freed, we got to vote?
Michael Hicks: Yes. Well, you didn’t get to vote until later… We now have a black man as president. You know, Rosa Clark did not take out a gun and go onto a bus and hold up everybody.
There was a tremendous amount of press after the piece. It had an impact. It sort of ruined me for all normal comedy, because now all I want is to be part of something that’s smart, silly, and has heart at the same time. Why can’t everything have all three? It’s really informed every single thing that I do since then.
The show had evolved so much by the time I got there. Jon wanted us to be passionate about what we were writing about and propose solutions as well—not just shit on something and walk away. Talk about what should be done.
Jessica Williams had studied improv and acted as a teenager in Los Angeles, then focused on college at Long Beach State, until a casting agent encouraged her to submit an audition tape to The Daily Show. At twenty-two, Williams became easily the youngest correspondent The Daily Show had ever hired. She learned fast, in more ways than one.
I had watched the show some. I mean, I knew the show was that thing that my professors put on in a poli-sci class. They’re like, “All right, we’re going to watch this clip from The Daily Show. You guys remember Mark Twain? This is like his great-great-grandson. This is satire.”
I was really terrified to try and hurry up and finish my exams, pick up everything, and move to New York City. John Oliver was really helpful, and Wyatt was like my silent sort of older brother, who introduced me to Brooklyn and took me out to cool spots, and Sam was this very beautiful, hilarious woman who would always give me really good advice. And Jon was always dancing around and acting like he threw his back out all the time, especially around me. He’d turn to me and be like, “You know, just don’t get old.” That helped, but I was so nervous.
I really appreciated the risk that Jon took on me, as a black woman. Because that hadn’t really happened yet, a black woman in late night in any sort of capacity.
But the first few months were really tough. The Daily Show, it had been on for a while, and I think people can be very possessive of the show. When I first started, I got… you know just… you know the negative racial comments in my inbox. You do anything that ruffles a few feathers on the show, there’s always going to be some racist dude ready to like call you a nigger, you know? I think a lot of it has to do with people just being really stupid. And people hadn’t really seen a black correspondent on the show before. I think that was kind of jarring and surprising for people. So, their response was just to, you know, call me a nigger, I guess. At that time, it really bothered me a lot. Now, either I get it less or I just don’t give a shit anymore.
As bumpy a beginning as it was for Williams personally, she and the rest of the correspondents were feasting on campaign material—in large part because, in the words of an “Indecision 2012” graphic, “Mitt Happened.” As the campaign plunged into arguments about income inequality, The Daily Show gleefully sprinted into the fray, turning what could have been dry economics lessons into civic-comic minisymphonies.