jon stewart interview update

To all my friends and blog buddies who have been following along and asking ... here comes the bittersweet Jon Stewart update.

Good news?  I talked to him. 

Bad news?  I'm not going to get to write the story. 

Here's the scoop: After weeks of behind-the-scene's wrangling, my editor/friend got an email from Jon Stewart's publicist the week before last saying: "Is there still time? Do you still want to interview Jon?" 

Editor/friend was on the phone with me in seconds  ... still time?  Honey, even if I had to pull an all-nighter!  Oh yes, there's still time.

I got off the call with editor/friend with a phone number and a time to call (ohmygod, i'm going to call jon stewart!).  My hands were shaking, and I was soon emailing a few close buds asking them to keep me from breaking into a thousand pieces of excitement.  I did a little breathing (never hurts to breathe), meditated, re-read my notes, and kept on trusting the force; I was ready.

I call the number Mr. Publicist gave me at the appointed hour ... 

"Comedy Central; this is Beth."

"Hi Beth; this is Deb Cooperman ... I have an appointment to speak with Jon Stewart ..." (ohmygod i have an appointment to speak with jon stewart!)

"Just a second Deb, I'll put you through."

I'm on hold and my heart is beating in my ears.  (don't be a stupid fan cooperman, you're a professional; you have a story to write ...) (and, at the same time: this is silly cooperman; you've worked with celebrities before; no big whoop.  people.  famous, talented people perhaps, but people.  this is no different.)

"Hello?" the voice says.  (ohmygod, it's jon stewart!)

"Hi Jon, this is Deb Cooperman ..."

"Hi Deb; how're you doing?"  (he called me deb ... ohmygod; jon stewart said my name ...)  (don't act like a butthead cooperman!)

"I'm fine, thanks," I say.  I congratulate him on his new baby, tell him I know he's really busy and that I appreciate his taking the time to talk to me for this article.

"Glad to," he says, sounding glad to.

It's going well, so far, I think.  I'm not acting like a butthead; I'm doing OK.  I'm breathing and the butterflies are calming down ... wheew.  We dive into the interview and the water's fine.  He's gracious and funny and it's flowing nicely.

Then, about 5 minutes into the conversation he stops me and asks what the thrust of our story is.  "Hometown boy makes fabulous," I say (having relaxed, obviously), and he's quiet: "Hm.  That's not what my publicist told me ..." 

Huh?

As I was able to piece together (as i danced as fast as i could on the phone with jon): In pitching this story my editor/friend did a great job of researching/selling the hometown angle - a teacher who he loved had died recently of Parkinson's (and he'd worked on a local benefit to raise money for research), so in her pitch letter(s) she mentioned that perhaps Mr. Stewart would like to talk a bit about her influence too.  But it seemed that Mr. Publicist told him that we would be focusing the story on the teacher rather than having that be an element in it. 

So after this came to light, Jon pleasantly, but rather definitively, put the kabosh on "yet another article about me right now."

I said that if he just wanted the story to focus on the teacher that was no problem (tap dancing now), but he (and i totally understand this even though i didn't like it) wanted to be sure that my editor would OK that (which i knew she would).  He, very politely said: "Why don't you confirm that and get back to me through Matt?" (aka: mr. publicist.)

I talked to editor/friend and she was, as I suspected, totally cool about changing the angle of the story.  Easy enough, we thought, to do something like: "Hometown boy Jon Stewart is on a roll ... just had a new baby ... is on the top rated Daily Show ... and is about to host the Oscars; but when I talked to him, he didn't want to talk Oscars or politics ... he wanted to talk about Selma Litowitz, his beloved English teacher from his days at Lawrence High School."  Easy.  No problema. 

But no.  Not so easy.

Editor/friend emailed Mr. Publicist (who i shall now refer to as 'nazi publicist man') and Nazi Publicist Man didn't want to cop to not giving his client the full story in the first place (OK, i know he's busy too, and it might have been an innocent mistake, but i'm cranky ... let me have my version of the story ...), so the bottom line is this: there will be no follow up call with Jon.  End of the road ... buh bye and sayonara.  (grrr)

Guess thems the breaks for us bigtime celebrity journalists.  ;)

Sad as the outcome was, it won't stop me from watching The Daily Show or the Oscars and adoring Jon Stewart still. 

I will, however, send vibes that Nazi Publicist Man gets a really bad hangnail that throbs like crazy, hurts like hell and takes over a week to heal.  (if i were less evolved, i might wish him worse, but clearly, i am WAY spiritual.)

When I think about it - although it's a dissapointment for what editor/friend and I were trying to accomplish - I probably admire Stewart more now. 

Cause he is busy ... and his life must be CRAZED, but he took time out to talk to a Princeton, NJ based business and entertainment weekly because he thought the story was going to focus on a teacher who'd meant a lot to him. 

He was right, we don't need another story about him.  There are plenty of stories about him out there.  He wanted to talk about his teacher; that would have been SO cool.  I'm sorry I didn't get to write it.  (on second thought - maybe i sorta did.)

Hm.

Well, thus ends my brush with Jon Stewart. 

Thanks to all of you friends/readers for your good vibes and supportive fabulosity through this "campaign"!

Comments

[donna]

Good for you - you did a great job!

You can't help that others weren't honest - you followed through on what you wanted to do, and that is very cool.

Too bad they didn't follow up with you - it would be a great story, and so much better than most of the stories I've seen about him.

[MB]

Yay for talking to Jon Stewart, Deb! Sorry it didn't work out though. But it made a good read anyway. :-)

[kat]

what a fantastic experience!! you talked to jon stewart!! :-) and yeah, you did kinda just write the story. :-)

[Marilyn]

"I'm sorry I didn't get to write it. (on second thought - maybe i sorta did.)" BINGO. My love for Jon Stewart has just grown exponentially, as much as I would have thought that wasn't possible. Having dealt with a few celebs myself, the fact that he even made time for the interview AT THIS TIME IN HIS SCHEDULE speaks volumes, I think. Pat yourself on the back for this one, sister, job well done...didn't have the outcome you expected...but then, what does? ;)

[Kerstin]

What a bummer. But how very cool that you got to speak to him!! This was no small feast that you and your editor had set out to achieve. And you did it, you spoke to Jon Stewart who I now definitely must take a closer look at. I think that you handled all this - the sales pitch, the interview, the tap dance and even the rejection - with style and grace. Good journalism Ms Cooperman! :)

[Will]

ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh---one of my internet friends talked to Jon Stewart! How cool is that!

Maybe friend is too presumptuous (can I call you friend Ms. Cooperman?).

But seriously---this was a fabulous story. How much fun to even just be able to say you had a nice conversation with the man. The people from the Apple stores who have helped him all have been quoted online saying that he's one of the nicest celebs that they help.

I had a friend who was working on a project (that later didn't get off the ground) where they wanted to adapt the movie Nightmare Before Christmas to the stage. So they got to the point where they had a number to call Tim Burton's people.

So they got on the phone and called the number and the line picked up, "hello".

They introduced themselves and the project and how they would like to speak to Mr. Burton.

The voice on the other end then said, "Yes, this is he."

How crazy is that? The couldn't believe Tim Burton answered his own phones!

This was a great adventure. I hope you have many more.