The NYT Says “Goodbye Stephen Colbert”
For Stephen Colbert’s last episode of “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, the New York Times‘ Axel Gerdau talked with reporters, correspondents and columnists at the Times about the legacy of the man who won television.
This “conservative” character touched and influenced these journalists at the New York Times over the past 9 years. NYT political reporter, Nicholas Confessore said that it took Colbert starting his Super Pac on the show to finally explain campaign finance reform in an effective way to the American public that straight journalism never was able to pull off.
Mark Leibovich, Chief National Correspondent for New York Times Magazine reflected on Stephen Colbert hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner in character in 2006. He lambasted President George W. Bush and his administration right to their collective faces while acting like he was praising them. Colbert’s hysterical performance that night is what Leibovich said was “what a critic should be doing”. Times Media Correspondent David Carr who said he will miss Stephen Colbert tucking him in at night on television, said that he still regrets his editors’ decision not to send him to cover the dinner that year because according to Carr, “The beltway just got smoked”. Although, he’ll miss the Colbert Report, Carr also can’t wait to see Stephen Colbert take over the Late Show on CBS. As he puts it, “It’s going to be a wild ride.”
