Jon Stewart generally does a wonderful job of deconstructing and skewering the tropes and memes and outright falsifications of the right-wing noise machine. For whatever reason, though, he usually goes right to the brink of speaking the truth and then stops before actually naming it.
For a couple of moments though he does come close to calling it what it is - here:
we finally had a literal manifestation of what we feel is the metaphorical methodology of the entire Fox network, which, of course, is the subtle altering of reality to sell a preconceived narrative.
and here:
What FOX News is selling is a worldview, and not just a worldview for its own sake but one guided by a very definite purpose - helping a particular political party gain and hold political power. The process was well described in another time and place:
Some kind of idea is at the beginning of every political movement. It is not necessary to put this idea in a thick book, nor that it take political form in a hundred long paragraphs. History proves that the greatest world movements have always developed when their leaders knew how to unify their followers under a short, clear theme...
One then builds a whole system of thought on such a brief, crisply formulated idea. The idea does not remain limited to this single statement, rather it is applied to every aspect of daily life and becomes the guide for all human activity — politics, culture, the economy, every area of human behavior. It becomes a worldview. We see that in all great revolutionary movements, which begin with a clear, crisp, understandable, all-encompassing idea. They spread more and more and become a mirror of life that reflects all activities of the peoples, and indeed in a particular way.
Then one can say that a person has a worldview—-not because he knows a lot or has read a lot—-but because he sees all of life from a certain standpoint, and measures everything by a certain standard...
If I develop this crisp, clear idea into a system of thought that includes all human drives, wishes and actions, I have a worldview.
As an idea develops into a worldview, the goal is the state. The knowledge does not remain the property of a certain group, but fights for power....
You see how an idea spreads and becomes a worldview, and how the bearer, the individual, reaches out to form a community, and how an organization, then a movement grows from the individual. The idea is no longer buried in the heart and mind of an individual. Now there are four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, a hundred, and ever more. That is the secret of ideas; they are like a wildfire that cannot be restrained...
Each movement begins as a party. That does not mean it has to follow the methods of parliamentary parties.... As an idea spreads, becoming a worldview that spreads to the community, the community will want to give the idea practical form. The party will feel the necessity to organize.... Gradually, a strong organism develops, a party ready to fight for its ideals....
You can see that a movement needs an organization if it is to conquer the state — and it must conquer the state if it wants to do something of positive and historic significance....
The important thing is not to find people who agree with me about every theoretical jot and tittle, but rather that I find people who are willing to fight with me for a worldview. Winning people over to something that I have recognized as right, that is what we call propaganda. At first there is knowledge; it uses propaganda to find the manpower that will transform knowledge into politics. Propaganda stands between the idea and the worldview, between the worldview and the state, between the individual and the party, between the party and the nation.... Propaganda stands between the one and the many, between the idea and the worldview. Propaganda is nothing other than the forerunner to organization. Once it has done this, it is the forerunner to state control. It is always a means to an end.
-- Joseph Goebbels, 1928
What FOX News is doing is making and using propaganda. When it organizes and promotes Tea Parties it is making and using propaganda. When it lies about the success of its propaganda efforts in order to make them seem more valid and attractive to the people it wants to make into "the manpower that will transform knowledge into politics," it is making and using propaganda.
Those who mock and criticize and deconstruct the propaganda so well, like Jon Stewart, are failing to complete the job when they shy away from giving the thing its proper name. It's not "subtle altering of reality to sell a preconceived narrative." Call it what it is. It's propaganda.