Philadelphia Magazine
March 2010
Longtime Inquirer TV-columnist-turned-Penn-instructor Gail Shister says she had the perfect name for her class on late-night and prime-time TV and TV news, but the university bypassed "Pimp My Flat-Screen" for the more Penn-esque "Advanced Topics in Writing: Television Criticism." The kids still manage to have fun, though: In December, the good professor took 12 of her students to a live taping of Jon Stewart's Daily Show in New York, a little "spoonful of sugar" in an otherwise rigorous curriculum, she says. It's Shister's fourth time to make the show with a class - a tradition Stewart himself noted, beginning his on-air monologue with a rousing "Go Quakers!" Forget what a field trip like this does for end-of-year teacher evaluations - for that type of public endorsement, jokes Shister, "Penn should at least double my salary!"