The Dish on "Daily"

By: Matthew Felling
Topics: Mega-Media Trends

(CBS)

First things first: I love "The Daily Show." And, truth be told, I love "The Colbert Report" even more. They're addictive, clever and the bleeding edge of political satire.

All that being said, it's time to set the record straight on Jon Stewart's night-time fun house.

For years, the "Daily Show" has been put forward as The New Information Source. It's a sexy and fun topic, and there are actual data supporting the claim. This past weekend, Gail Shister – the artist formerly known as a top-notch media writer until her paper reassigned her – wrote the most recent story looking at how viewers ages 18-29 increasingly are using "The Daily Show" as their news outlet of choice. This is a tempting and fun story to write since the tell-tale numbers are provided by the unimpeachable Pew Research Center for People and the Press. And the numbers don't lie. She writes:

Politically, The Daily Show is no joke.

According to a Pew Research Center study, one in five 18-to-29-year-olds reported regularly getting news about the 2004 presidential campaign from late-night comedy shows - up 12 percent over the 2000 race.

In addition the 2004 study – we'll call it Exhibit A -- she also tosses in a stat from this year's study (Exhibit B), showing 13 percent of "Gen Nexters" report watching the show regularly.

There you have it. "The Daily Show" = source of news for young people, who feel disenchanted with the mainstream media. Case closed, right?

Not so fast. If you take a closer look at Exhibit A, there is also a table where the Pew people quizzed participants on "Where They Learn and How Much They Know." As a part of the poll, which was conducted in late 2003 when people were more familiar with the Democratic candidates, people were asked which of them was a former House Majority Leader (Dick Gephardt) and which was a former Army General (Wesley Clark). And in a field of 18 genres of news outlets – from NPR to Sunday talk shows to cable TV — the participants who said they get their news from comedy shows such as "The Daily Show" or "Saturday Night Live" scored next to last.

Shister closes her piece with a "Daily Show" executive comparing the show to a pizza with spinach because, hey, you still get the important stuff, right? But the truth is that the "Daily Show" is actually just a nice dessert or digestif, after a meal of Real News Roughage.

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by vitka-2009 May 17, 2007 5:30 PM EDT: I'm so glad CBS is around to keep journalism on the level. You're still a beacon of integrity, right? No troubles there at 57th street?

The House that Murrow built is slowly tumbling down, down, down...; Reply to this comment


by jburdman7 May 16, 2007 9:39 PM EDT: I hear that Gen anything below around 30 years of age, are largely VIDEOTS.

The music industry thought it was all fun and games, helping raise an amoral generation. Treating those youngsters destined to be the new leaders of America as a marketing demographic, not human beings.

This immoral generation now steals the music industry's product every day, outright. And it serves them right.

But when this ignorant bunch, entertained, not taught by news, starts voting. The joke will be on us all, and it will not be amusing.

John Edwards thinks its politically useful to claim Bush is the reason people are in wheel chairs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34167-2004Oct14.html

And Edwards has fun fanning class warfare. In other countries, such as France, class warfare starts riots. And there is no reason to think that 20 years from now that class warfare riots will not be happening here in the US.

All I can tell you is Comedy Central will not be conducting a poll of the rioters to see if they are where they received their political "education".; Reply to this comment


by memekiller May 16, 2007 1:37 PM EDT: You're right. The people who watch the Daily Show are news junkies and get their news from all sources. They also hate how journalism has been brow-beaten into submission, which is why they seek out Stewart/blog/Colbert irreverence -- they watch the news, but don't fall for the nonsense that's taken over. That's why they're better informed.

They watch the news with a skeptical eye.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller May 16, 2007 1:34 PM EDT: You're right. The people who watch the Daily Show are news junkies and get their news from all sources. They also hate how journalism has been brow-beaten into submission, which is why they seek out Stewart/blog/Colbert irreverence -- they watch the news, but don't fall for the nonsense that's taken over. That's why they're better informed.

They watch the news with a skeptical eye.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller May 16, 2007 1:32 PM EDT: You're right. The people who watch the Daily Show are news junkies and get their news from all sources. They also hate how journalism has been brow-beaten into submission, which is why they seek out Stewart/blog/Colbert irreverence -- they watch the news, but don't fall for the nonsense that's taken over. That's why they're better informed.

They watch the news with a skeptical eye.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller May 16, 2007 1:29 PM EDT: You're right. The people who watch the Daily Show are news junkies and get their news from all sources. They also hate how journalism has been brow-beaten into submission, which is why they seek out Stewart/blog/Colbert irreverence -- they watch the news, but don't fall for the nonsense that's taken over. That's why they're better informed.

They watch the news with a skeptical eye.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller May 16, 2007 1:09 PM EDT: You're right. The people who watch the Daily Show are news junkies and get their news from all sources. They also hate how journalism has been brow-beaten into submission, which is why they seek out Stewart/blog/Colbert irreverence -- they watch the news, but don't fall for the nonsense that's taken over. That's why they're better informed.

They watch the news with a skeptical eye.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller May 16, 2007 12:52 PM EDT: You're right. The people who watch the Daily Show are news junkies and get their news from all sources. They also hate how journalism has been brow-beaten into submission, which is why they seek out Stewart/blog/Colbert irreverence -- they watch the news, but don't fall for the nonsense that's taken over. That's why they're better informed.

They watch the news with a skeptical eye.; Reply to this comment


by lukasiak-2009 May 16, 2007 12:56 AM EDT: wow! I'm glad I rely on the internet and Comedy Central for my news analysis, because you are completely unreliable.

First off, Shister did not claim that the people who get some of their news from Stewart/Colbert are especially well informed. She simply made the point that "politically, these shows are no joke." (The same can be said of people who get their news from Fox, whose viewership is especially ignorant.)

Secondly, the study you cited does not break down knowledge of the two candidates by age and news source. To draw a conclusion that YOUNG people who get part of their news from Comedy Central are ill-informed cannot be concluded from the data. Indeed, the primary news source for people in the age cohort (18-29) in 2004 was "cable news".... and people who got their news from cable scored in the middle of the pack.

Shister's primary point is that programs like the Daily Show and Colbert Report are having more of an impact that the network news shows that previous generations relied upon for their news. (And it should be noted, that those who identified network news as a news source scored lower than those who got their news from cable in the 2004 report.)

Nothing you've written disproves Shister's point, and the conclusions you've drawn about how knowledgeable younge viewers who get information from Stewart/Colbert are not supported by the data itself.; Reply to this comment


by exile8 May 15, 2007 11:22 PM EDT: You may be right about "Real News Roughage" but that comes from blogs like TalkingPointsMemo -- not the "Paris Hilton casserole with a side of right-wing propaganda" you clowns provide.; Reply to this comment