The first time I heard about the New Yorker article was when I heard that Hasan Minhaj would not be getting the anchor spot at The Daily Show because of the article.

Before that, I had only seen a few episodes of The Patriot Act, had not seen his specials, and had not read the article.

After hearing the gist of the article I read genuinely confused why anyone would care. Comedians make things up for jokes all the time (I have yet to see anyone actually take Henny Youngman's wife). I could understand if this happened in The Patriot Act, but in a stand-up special, it just seemed weird to drill down on.

After watching this video, it really sounds like the article made Hasan out to be some sort of sociopath or something; and I really don't know why they would. I suppose it could've been for extra attention on the article, but it almost feels pointed the way the reporter misused quotes.

[–] marco@beehaw.org 9 points 10 months ago

The fact that they chose to go to this length to fact check a comedy standup special is ridiculous in itself, but having to spin it to make him look worse by ignoring what he told them is really the icing on the cake.

Go fact check your colleagues at fox news.

[–] RotaryKeyboard@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 10 months ago

I find his argument compelling and genuine. Comedians do "lie" on a regular basis to create comedy. You don't have to look very far to find other examples of this. This is why the line "--this is true!" is often heard during a late night monologue, because the comedians embellish and invent so often that when something sounds like an embellishment but isn't, it's even funnier for them to point out that their writers didn't make it up.

[–] Conyak@lemmy.tf 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So he basically confirms everything The New Yorker article said then. Not sure what he thinks he did here.

[–] Dominic@beehaw.org 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

He disputed several details of that article and added context that The New Yorker was aware of but chose to omit.

E.g. the article makes it sound like he fabricated the prom story, but all he changed was the day that he heard about it. The article also says that he invited the woman to his show and embarrassed her; however, he did not invite her and she enjoyed the show.

[–] storksforlegs@beehaw.org 13 points 10 months ago

Yeah, pretty brutal that the article states he invited the prom date to the show to humiliate her, which was completely untrue. For an article trying to call him out on lying it sure lied about a lot of stuff.