No Jokes for Jon Stewart After Charleston

June 19, 2015 – On Thursday’s The Daily Show, Jon Stewart used his normally comedic opening segment to reflect on the massacre in Charleston, S.C.’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that left nine dead. There were no jokes. No punchlines. Stewart has taken such pauses before including his first broadcast following 9/11, and perhaps being in the home stretch of his Daily Show tenure allowed him to go more direct and deeply here.

“I have one job, and it’s a pretty simple job. I come in, in the morning, and we look at the news, and I write jokes about it … But I didn’t do my job today, so I apologize. I got nothing for you, in terms of jokes and sounds, because of what happened in South Carolina.”

Pure coincidence resulted in the booking of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai as the night’s feature guest.

Watch Jon Stewart’s opening segment here courtesy of Comedy Central: