Jon Stewart Will Leave ‘The Daily Show’ on a Career High Note

Jon Stewart, who turned Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” into a sharp-edged commentary on current events, delivering the news in layers of silliness and mockery, said that he would step down after more than 16 years as its anchor.

Stewart, whose contract with Comedy Central ends in September, disclosed his plans during a taping of the program. Saying that “in my heart, I know it is time for someone else” to have the opportunity he had, Stewart told his audience that he was still working out the details of his departure, which “might be December, might be July.” “I don’t have any specific plans,” Stewart said, addressing the camera at the end of his show, at times seeming close to tears. “Got a lot of ideas. I got a lot of things in my head. I’m going to have dinner on a school night with my family, who I have heard from multiple sources are lovely people.”

In becoming the nation’s satirist in chief, Stewart imbued the program with a personal sense of justice, even indignation. For a segment of the audience that had lost its faith in broadcast and print news outlets or never regarded them as sacrosanct in the first place, Stewart emerged a figure as trusted as Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow.