Is your work social criticism? Josh Lieb | Big Think

Is your work social criticism?

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Is the Daily Show social criticism?

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Josh Lieb:

Josh Lieb is the former Producer and Show Runner of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. His credits include stints as Executive Producer of NewsRadio and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He won 7 Prime Time Emmys as a producer and writer for The Daily Show. In 2009, he published a young adult novel, I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President, which was a New York Times Bestseller.

Lieb was raised in Columbia, South Carolina, and graduated from Harvard, where he was an editor of The Lampoon, the college humor magazine. After graduation, he found work writing for Twisted Puppet Theater, The Jon Stewart Show, and NewsRadio. He subsequently worked as a producer or consultant on shows including The Simpsons, Drawn Together, Sirens, Nikki, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Lieb's tenure at The Daily Show lasted from 2006 to 2010, during which he also served as Executive Producer of “The Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear” and as co-editor and co-author of Earth: The Book.

In 2013, he wrote and directed a series of comedic shorts to raise money and awareness for the charity Water.Org. Stars featured in the shorts included Matt Damon, Jessica Biel, Sir Richard Branson, and Bono.

Penguin/ Random House released Lieb's second novel, Ratscalibur, in 2015.

In October 2016, NBCUniversal announced an exclusive writing deal with Lieb.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Is your writing for “The Daily Show” social criticism?

Josh Lieb: I’m not a social critic, I think, in my role at the show. I mean I . . . I . . . You know yeah I make jokes, and I funnel jokes to Jon. I think Jon’s a social critic, but I think he’d be the one to say he’s just a comedian, too. I . . . I . . . I . . . Again I’m an enabler, so it’s not so much my criticisms coming through as . . . as me helping someone else get theirs across. Again, you know, it . . . everyone is a social critic. It’s nice. I’ve got a bit of a soapbox. I can certainly, you know, get some of my points across, which is nice. I don’t know what those points are though. My points tend to all be, you know, what an ugly tie. Or you know, I can’t believe she said that. Not . . . not . . . just dumb jokes.