According to the Media Blog Jon Stewart will pay the writers out of his own pocket for 2 weeks. From the blog:

In a show of solidarity with his fellow scribes, the Daily Show host has told his writing staff that he will cover all their salaries for the next two weeks, according to a well-placed source. He has also vowed to do the same for writers on The Colbert Report. A Comedy Central spokesman referred my inquiry about this to Stewart's personal publicist, who has yet to respond....... Stewart's intention, says the source, is to ensure his writers will face no financial hardship should the strike, which kicked off at 3 a.m. local time, conclude within that timeframe. It should come as no surprise that Stewart is a union die-hard: He tells the current issue of Rolling Stone that his childhood heroes included socialist leaders Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas.

Kudos to Stewart for supporting unions! While we will desperately miss The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, it's nice to know that he's looking out for his crew.

**UPDATE**

In case you needed a reminder, This article from Howard Kurtz highlights the reason we need Stewart back on the air, soon. Who else with a national television audience is making this point?

On "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart worked up a head of steam challenging my argument that the anchors had framed the Iraq story in a way that helped turn public opinion against the war. To him, they were just delivering the facts, not making editorial judgments. "Let's say 20 people are killed in a bombing," he said. "How do you not report on that? In what world is that not a kind of big story?" As I explained that the daily body count had become so depressingly familiar that the anchors had searched for other ways to underscore and emphasize the carnage, Stewart argued that such basic reporting was, quite simply, their job. Our allotted time had expired, but Stewart kept going for several more minutes -- which he knew would never be aired -- venting about the media's inability or unwillingness to get at the "truth." The crowd, of course, loved it.

**UPDATE II**

Another update from Portfolio's Media Blog is now saying Stewart's Rep has denied this.

UPDATE, 2:20 P.M.: Confusion: Jon Stewart's rep just called back to deny the information above. I checked back with my source, who set me straight on a few details: Stewart is not paying writers out of his own pocket, but through Busboy, his production company. And it's not just writers who are getting their salaries covered but all the shows' employees. "He's hoping that it wraps up amicably and quickly, and over the course of that time he wants to look out for his employees," he says. But when I ran this by Stewart's rep, he emailed back, "While I hesitate to knock down every rumor that comes up, the assertion that Jon and/or Busboy Productions will be paying for the staff is false and we have no further comment beyond this at this time." I'm pretty sure there's some truthiness here (sorry), but it may take some more digging to determine exactly what the situation is.

Well, it seems that facts are still being sorted out. I'll leave the diary up until I get confirmation of what the actual story is. But it seems several people have run with the story.