Storm Choi and Eric Davies are two members of the 10-person team Emmy-nominated for editing “Jordan Klepper Shows Trump Supporters January 6th Hearing Clips,” a segment released in June 2022 as part of Klepper’s ongoing “Fingers the Pulse” series and has since amassed over five million views on Youtube.
As the title suggests, the 7-minute piece follows Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper to Mississippi for a stop on the Trump Freedom Tour, where Klepper attempts to discuss the ongoing January 6th hearings with Trump’s most fervent fans—some are willing to engage, some cry conspiracy and some haven’t heard of the January 6th insurrection at all. Klepper’s reporting takes the “man on the street” bit for a fresh (and disturbing) spin.
Fast-paced, clever, and very funny, the segment is indicative of everything The Daily Show has come to represent during Trevor Noah’s seven-year stint behind the desk. (Noah announced his decision to step down in September). As Choi points out in our interview, Noah’s time on late-night TV spanned the Trump presidency, COVID, and the Black Lives Matter movement, among many, many other history-making, seemingly once-in-a-lifetime news events. So, how do you edit a nightly, half-hour news talk show in an era when the news cycle never ends? The answer seemingly lies in the editing team’s versatility, adaptability, quick speed, and understanding that sometimes a new headline means you have to be willing to start all over.
Here in conversation with Awards Daily’s Shadan Larki, Choi and Davies discuss what working on The Daily Show, and on a diverse and closely-knit editing team. has meant to them.
Awards Daily: I thought it would be fun if you could break down how a typical episode comes together. Where does it start? How far in advance do you start prepping? How do we end up with what we see on TV?
Storm Choi: There’s such a range of pieces that go into the show. Some segments are edited over weeks, while breaking news pieces are truly last minute.
Eric Davies: Well, the first thing I’d say is [The Daily Show] is just like a news bureau. It’s just like a news program. It’s that intense in that the people swallowing the news in the morning and generating what the show will be about are working just as hard as you would at ABC or NBC.
The longer-form pieces, like the Jordan Klepper piece in the nominated episode, are ideas that are sometimes generated months out and edited like documentaries. So the show combines two different forms of editing, and those pieces, which are different than anything any of the other late-night shows are doing, get to bring the correspondents into politically active spots to talk to people we would never talk to on the program.
We cover issues that are all over the place, from gentrification to whether or not Valentine’s Day is a terrible holiday. I mean, it’s really broad. Those are the sort of segments we’re cutting ahead of time. Then those have to be slammed into the show that is being generated the day of, and they have to be the right length, and we have to get the show done by a certain point.
SC: When we think of The Daily Show, I think a lot of times you think about the desk segment and the interviews, but when you look at all the pieces that go into the show, you could have everything from mock commercials and ads to musical performances, cutting and inserting characters into movie scenes. And all of these are quite different in how they’re cut. Some are so graphics-heavy; others are sound design heavy. And I think when it comes to assembling the whole show, it is important to have flexibility and not the ‘This is how we’ve always done it mindset.’ Because quick turnarounds on The Daily Show are really important.
Taking what Eric said, the day-to-day basis of delivering the show will be so different depending on what’s in it. Sometimes we have an interview that will take two acts instead of one, and from taping to delivering, it’s a sprint. And that process is different because we finish at different times every day, but the end process is always the same—we have to deliver a show nightly.
AD: For a piece like Jordan’s which involves being on the ground, talking to everyday people. How do you decide what ultimately ends up in the package? What makes someone or something suitable for The Daily Show?
ED: Right. It’s an incredible team. I’ve heard The Daily Show described both as a sausage factory and a machine, but it’s truly a precision team. You have producers and directors who are out in the field shooting stuff. You have the segment producers who have to know who everybody is and what they’re saying and whether or not it’s true, whether or not it’s usable. And then you have an editorial process, which is truly like editing a documentary on steroids because you’re going so fast.
You’re going so fast, and you have to generate a story from point A to point B. It has to be funny, and it has to make a point. And it also can’t cross the line into showing something that isn’t Daily Show material. So, it is fairly intense and actually spectacularly fun to cut.
AD: What defines a Daily Show piece?
SC: Smart humor with a fresh perspective, and I think a lot of what we’ve done in the last few years is a different perspective. I’m proud to say that it’s a diverse POV that is very much needed on TV, and I think that defines how we look at things and present them. It has a significant, signature flavor to it.
AD: I feel like as I’m watching the episode, everything moves so quickly that I’m not really appreciating how much work goes into these different segments. What’s something that might surprise the average viewer?
ED: I think it might just be the amount of work we do because we’re putting out a show every night. It’s called The Daily Show. We’ve got to put out a show every night. People always ask me, ‘How fun is your job?’ It’s really fun, but it is also producing more television and more comedy than almost anything out there. It’s amazing.
SC: On top of what Eric said, I’m trying to imagine the board as to how many pieces were in editing at the time that the strike happened. There’s so much content being generated. We’re thinking weeks ahead. Some things are being shot weeks ahead to accommodate a guest when we have a specific person in mind.
I can’t stress enough how many things come up the day of. That morning someone gets an idea, and as wacky or crazy as it can be, we have to try. That’s the challenge and the fun part of it too. And sometimes you nail it, sometimes you don’t, most of the time, you kind of get it right, and it needs to be adjusted on the fly. But it’s a lot of work and quick turns.
ED: I don’t think any other late-night show is throwing out the entire show because Donald Trump suddenly said something ridiculous. And we have to rewrite, reshoot, and rethink the entire thing.
SC: It’s pretty much throw away everything you’ve done today. And I think the worst time for that to happen is the mid-afternoon. If there’s something crazy at six or seven, it’s not getting in the show, but mid-afternoon, you can get the phone call, ‘Let’s throw away everything. Our headlines have completely changed.’
ED: Yeah. And it still has to be funny.
AD: Wow. The editing team for The Daily Show includes ten people. How does such a large team work together?
SC: Gosh, I’ve been smiling now because we really are very tight. I cannot think of a group of people that have a bigger range of personalities and editing styles, but my goodness, I really do love these guys and women so much. And everyone is a team player. I’ve been in this industry for a while. It doesn’t happen like this, where it’s an egoless team that everyone’s willing to quickly jump on and off things, try things, and help out.
There is a lot of like, ‘Hey, I have free hands; what’s needed?’ It wouldn’t be done with a different team. I feel very confident in saying that.
We also service a lot of different departments. Much of the content we cut is not always for the linear show. A lot of it goes out online—we have things like the monuments or the Twitter library. There are editing pieces that go on social media as well. It’s a content machine. We have to wear different hats, and everyone is pretty great about this.
ED: Yeah, it’s a solid bunch. They are a really strong bunch of editors.
AD: It’s a strange time because we’re in the middle of a strike, but it’s also the end of Trevor’s reign on The Daily Show. How do you feel about what may come next?
ED: Trevor had seven years of Trump, the pandemic, and Black Lives Matter. He had an amazing run, and he did an amazing job. And frankly, I think we’ll all miss him. And I think really what it shows is just how strong a platform The Daily Show is. It can cover everything and anybody. What comes next? I mean, obviously, there’s going to be a show. “The Daily Show with…” We’re looking forward to that when the strike’s over.
SC: My Daily Show time has been all Trevor. I started pretty much right after Trump was elected. I’m really grateful for my time with him. I think he’s a uniquely talented person, and I think, as time moves forward and we’re able to look back, we’re actually going to realize later on his actual impact on late-night TV. And how his voice changed a lot. You can’t have that sort of impact and not have it change our show. So looking forward, we’ve learned so much from our time with him. I think we can all look at it with gratitude but also have some excitement as to who comes next, what they will add, and what they will bring? I mean, I’d love to know that as well. We’re all looking forward to the strike ending and moving forward.
AD: What stood out to me in our conversation is how adaptable you must be. Can you describe your editing styles? Or does it just fluctuate so much depending on the material?
SC: Oh, it changes. You can’t edit a fake ad the same way you edit an interview. It’s completely different parts of your brain and skillset. I think that’s part of the fun, isn’t it, Eric?
ED: Oh, totally! You never get bored, and you’re constantly being challenged. Even if it’s like, ‘Oh, this is an interview.’ Cutting an interview is not the hardest thing in the world, but let me tell you, they tape an interview for 45 minutes, and you got to get it on the air for six minutes. It’s hard. And it’s a lot of content to go through. That’s amazing. It’s amazing to listen to some brilliant person, someone you never thought you’d see on television, telling these incredible stories, and Trevor’s taking them all the way through it.
And as it goes past the 30-minute mark and the 40-minute mark, you’re thinking, ‘This is a great interview, and now I’m going to have to edit it down. Really down.’ It’s always a challenge.
AD: It’s a strange time for journalism; people don’t trust what they watch, and there’s so much cynicism. What does it mean to you to get to work on something that delivers quality journalism while also making people laugh? And it’s reaching people; segments are going viral. The Daily Show is making an impact. It’s a unique position to be in, I would say.
SC: I think you described it pretty well; actually, I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it. The reason the show does mean a lot is because it impacted my life a lot before my working here. When you get into the industry, you hope to work on something that’s creatively fulfilling but also makes you feel good about the content you’re putting out there. I think sometimes you can divide your jobs into black and white. Am I adding something good to the world? Or am I adding something ugly? I’ve never had that question here at this job, and that’s a great feeling. This is an impactful show, and I feel privileged to be here, and I’ve never not.
ED: I worked on documentaries and news before coming to The Daily Show. And the thing that struck me is that many big-name journalists would talk about, at that point, how Jon Stewart was covering a story. And I thought that was amazing, that even these huge names in the news business were talking about how The Daily Show was covering something.
And not only that but the lasting impact of what you do. This is going to sound obnoxious, but there’s a huge audience that comes with the show. It’s a bigger audience than documentaries get. It’s a bigger audience than a lot of news programs get. I’ve always felt privileged to be part of it, to be able to make something that actually is getting to people.
AD: And just to say goodbye, do you guys have any closing thoughts?
SC: I have a thought about when I was talking about the editing team, and this is actually something that’s important to me personally—when I started in this industry many years ago, the words’ diversity’ or ‘representation’ really were not even a part of the industry vernacular, they meant nothing.
I have friends that I’ve made in post-production over the years because early on, I’d see another Asian or another woman editor, and I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, you’re here too!’ That just wasn’t a thing.
To look ahead now and when I looked at a picture that I just posted of our team, the majority of this team is women or people of color. I can say clearly has never happened to me in my career. And to look back now and see that, I can’t help but feel good about this. And what a talented team of people, the most talented team of editors I’ve ever had. I don’t know; it just makes me smile. And yeah, I can’t help but feel good about it.
The Daily Show airs on Comedy Central. You can stream old episodes of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Paramount+.
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