Or am I the only one getting a disproportionate amount of his news coverage from “The Daily Show?”
PAD
33 comments on “Is It Just me…”
Here in Ireland I get all my US news fromThe Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
If it’s comedy I’m after I head for Glenn Beck.
I feel the same way. Maybe it’s because they have an opinion, but not an agenda?
It’s not like there’s anything else on television that actually *covers* the news — where else would you find it?
Wildcat
Surely you’re not the only one. It seems that every other article bemoaning the declines in network news viewership and in newspaper readership notes (among other things like cable channels and the internet) the influence of the Daily Show as some folks source for news.
I seem to recall a recent survey of the American people which showed that Stewart is America’s most trusted anchor person. What that says about the rest of the American news media is probably more telling than any other single fact which can be discerned or inferred from this.
It’s not just you; they seem to be the only people who listen to Politician A’s latest statement, then go back and dig up clips of them saying the exact opposite when it was politically expedient to do so. (Or Pundit A…there always seems to be an abundance of Bill O’Reilly taking one position when Bush was President, and doing a 180 now that the opposition party is in office.)
They never seem to need to look very hard to find these clips that expose establishment hypocrisy; I can only assume that the “traditional” news media doesn’t feel like making the effort.
I agree 100%. While most news networks will report on what a politician said and then move on, THE DAILY SHOW will show what the politician said, then go back to show what the same politician said back when the opposite position was more in line with their party’s politics.
THE DAILY SHOW also does a fine job countering the continual anti-Obama propoganda on Fox News. If Obama cured cancer personally, Fox News would report that Obama had put thousands of doctors and researchers out of business.
A disproportionate yet appropriate amount. I am one of those people who find Stewart to be one of the most trusted “news anchors” and The Daily Show itself to be the most trusted “news show” (quotes due to the fact that TDS is technically “entertainment” and not “news”).
Of course. If we didn’t have shows like TDS to make us laugh at the news, we’d have to cry.
Yes. When the final report on the Bush Administration came out, ultimately saying Bush should have known the intelligence on Iraq was wrong, nobody but the Daily Show covered it. I know everyone else had already condemned Bush by that point, and it might had seemed redundent – but I for one was waiting for a report like that before really blaming the Bush administration. I probably wouldn’t have known about that report expect for Mr. Jon Stewart.
Remember the old tagline, “Where more people get their news than probably should.” When TDS started winning Peabodies, it was a sign that mainstream news media had humped the shark.
I think that one reason why so many people trust The Daily Show for news is, like Larry said above, they have a trustworthy agenda.
.
This puts me in mind of a night back during the election when a guest accused Stewart of siding with Obama. He quipped that he had to sit through 15 minutes of the show making fun of McCain.
.
Stewart’s reaction, as I recall, was to point out that the reason he made fun of McCain was because McCain had done something worthy of being made fun of. He pointed out that when Obama did something similar the show made fun of him as well.
.
I know that the reason I watch the show regularly, and only watch other news shows based on what channel I happen to be on at the time, is because of the lack of bias. They don’t make fun of democrats or republicans or pundits or corporations, they make fun of whomever did the goofiest thing.
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Theno
Like everyone says, it’s not just you. I get my news from Stewart and Colbert because they’re just about the only honest ones talking about the news at all. No agenda other than common sense and making us laugh.
Their stance right now on the politics is very accurate… The dems are totally inept but the repubs are total douchebags.
…HULK FOR PRESIDENT!
There’s actual science proving you’re not at all alone, PAD.
.
A few years ago a survey determined that among young people (I forget how they defined young people, but I’m thinking under 30), The Daily Show was the primary source for news.
.
There’s more. Another study recently determined that the Daily Show has the same amount of actual news as the average nightly news cast. That’s how much fluff is in your standard news show, they don’t actually give any more real information than what the Daily Show gives in the process of setting up their jokes.
Definitely not just you, Peter. I have never been more uniformed about the world in my adult life than when The Daily Show and The Colbert Report took their recent three-week vacation.
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Chuck
That should be “uninformed”, not “uniformed”–I’m usually uniformed 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, not counting holidays and vacation time.
.
Durned rassin’-frassin’ typo….what a difference a missing “n” makes.
.
Chuck
That’s the boat I was in when I still had time to watch TV. Now everything is filtered through various internet outlets. I tend to miss most of the crapfluff, and am happier for it.
If I were Rio de Janeiro, I would be trying to convince Obama to go lobby for Madrid right now.
I get my news from CNN and the NY Times.
I get my news analysis from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
The Daily Show’s motto once was:
“Where more people get their news, than probably should.”
The Daily Show’s only agenda is comedy. Can’t argue with that.
Frankly, I’d like to think that more people are getting their news from Daily and Colbert as opposed to Fox News or some of the hosts like Beck or Limbaugh. However, considering Obama’s drop in the polls and the rise of money into Republican coffers, my guess would be that while liberals may enjoy news from the comedy networks, more people seem to be watching / listening / buying into the right-wing stuff. Then again, they can form opinions in other ways aside from just news.
I’m not at the level where I get more of my news from him yet, but I find it interesting that a comedy program meant to poke fun at the news seems more trustworthy a news source than the cable “news” networks 8 times out of 10 anymore.
It’s almost sad we’ve reached this point, but Jon Stewart is now America’s anchor.
I don’t know what “disproportionate” is, but I started watching TDS in part, IIRC, because you mentioned it more than once on this blog. I watch it for the comedy, but also because he’s the only with a program on TV that acts as a media watchdog who shows the absurdity and hypocrisy of the Far Right and the Media in General by showing clips of it. No one else on TV does this. Granted, he dropped the ball by repeating the falsehood that Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski by saying that he didn’t rape Samantha Geimer (she didn’t, she just clarified what he was charged with), but overall, his satire performs an invaluable service, and it’s probably because of the fact that he does it with comedy that, unlike similar attempts to do this like Steven Brill’s Brill’s Content, he is successful at it.
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That said, I don’t think I get that much news from him. I wake up in the morning to 1010 WINS, I like watching ABC World News at 6:30pm (EST), learn of stuff happening from links on message boards, Wikipedia/Wikinews, etc. I even got a BBC widget on my computer some time ago, though it hasn’t been working lately.
“he dropped the ball by repeating the falsehood that Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski by saying that he didn’t rape Samantha Geimer”
Well, he did say that with Joy Behar right there to defend Whoopi. I actually don’t remember what Jon said, I just remember Joy’s clarification.
Actually, what might be ever scarier is that, I understand,there are people who watch The Colbert Report that don’t realize it’s a parody.
That’s not as bad as it sounds. The study that claimed that was done by showing a clip, not an entire episode. The clip was from the interview segment, which often makes the satire much less obvious than the rest of the show.
Having watched that, I’d say here’s clearly joking around, but someone on either side can joke around. It’s not entirely clear which side he’s on of you’re not familiar with him. In particular the part where he’s hammering her about how a soldier broke the law isn’t getting laughs and could be taken seriously.
Dude, I’ve had prolonged online arguments with people who believed that Stephen Colbert the character and Steve Colbert the comedian were one and the same, and that he was being totally serious during his entire show.
.
Some people honestly don’t understand irony and parody. And I think that might be just a little bit scary.
There are people online who will have prolonged arguments that the Earth is flat. Or better yet… TIMECUBE!
. http://www.timecube.com/
.
Yeah, there are crazies out there, but I think that study blew the “Colbert is serious” contingent out of proportion.
I think it’s one of the differences between us and the right wing … we watch The Daily Show so we can laugh about our opponents, while they watch Fox so they can get mad about their opponents. That and the fact that you will virtually never see Fox criticize the Republicans for any reason. Anyone here remember Bill O’Reilly’s promise that if WMDs were not found in Iraq he would apologize to American and never trust the Bush administration again? To give credit where credit is due, he DID apologize for being wrong, but I’d have preferred he opened his eyes and saw the Bush administration as untrustworthy.
Something I’ve learned over the past 8 years … it takes a big man to say “I was wrong” but it takes a MUCH bigger man to say “I was wrong and you were right.”
Hey – that hour on Comedy Central with Stewart and Colbert is just about the only real coverage on TV.
Well, I get a disproportionate amount of my news coverage from you, which I think is worse.
• 
Here in Ireland I get all my US news fromThe Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
If it’s comedy I’m after I head for Glenn Beck.
I feel the same way. Maybe it’s because they have an opinion, but not an agenda?
It’s not like there’s anything else on television that actually *covers* the news — where else would you find it?
Wildcat
Surely you’re not the only one. It seems that every other article bemoaning the declines in network news viewership and in newspaper readership notes (among other things like cable channels and the internet) the influence of the Daily Show as some folks source for news.
I seem to recall a recent survey of the American people which showed that Stewart is America’s most trusted anchor person. What that says about the rest of the American news media is probably more telling than any other single fact which can be discerned or inferred from this.
Articles here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&fkt=7663&fsdt=12260&q=most+trusted+newsman+
It’s not just you; they seem to be the only people who listen to Politician A’s latest statement, then go back and dig up clips of them saying the exact opposite when it was politically expedient to do so. (Or Pundit A…there always seems to be an abundance of Bill O’Reilly taking one position when Bush was President, and doing a 180 now that the opposition party is in office.)
They never seem to need to look very hard to find these clips that expose establishment hypocrisy; I can only assume that the “traditional” news media doesn’t feel like making the effort.
I agree 100%. While most news networks will report on what a politician said and then move on, THE DAILY SHOW will show what the politician said, then go back to show what the same politician said back when the opposite position was more in line with their party’s politics.
THE DAILY SHOW also does a fine job countering the continual anti-Obama propoganda on Fox News. If Obama cured cancer personally, Fox News would report that Obama had put thousands of doctors and researchers out of business.
A disproportionate yet appropriate amount. I am one of those people who find Stewart to be one of the most trusted “news anchors” and The Daily Show itself to be the most trusted “news show” (quotes due to the fact that TDS is technically “entertainment” and not “news”).
Of course. If we didn’t have shows like TDS to make us laugh at the news, we’d have to cry.
Yes. When the final report on the Bush Administration came out, ultimately saying Bush should have known the intelligence on Iraq was wrong, nobody but the Daily Show covered it. I know everyone else had already condemned Bush by that point, and it might had seemed redundent – but I for one was waiting for a report like that before really blaming the Bush administration. I probably wouldn’t have known about that report expect for Mr. Jon Stewart.
Remember the old tagline, “Where more people get their news than probably should.” When TDS started winning Peabodies, it was a sign that mainstream news media had humped the shark.
I think that one reason why so many people trust The Daily Show for news is, like Larry said above, they have a trustworthy agenda.
.
This puts me in mind of a night back during the election when a guest accused Stewart of siding with Obama. He quipped that he had to sit through 15 minutes of the show making fun of McCain.
.
Stewart’s reaction, as I recall, was to point out that the reason he made fun of McCain was because McCain had done something worthy of being made fun of. He pointed out that when Obama did something similar the show made fun of him as well.
.
I know that the reason I watch the show regularly, and only watch other news shows based on what channel I happen to be on at the time, is because of the lack of bias. They don’t make fun of democrats or republicans or pundits or corporations, they make fun of whomever did the goofiest thing.
.
Theno
Like everyone says, it’s not just you. I get my news from Stewart and Colbert because they’re just about the only honest ones talking about the news at all. No agenda other than common sense and making us laugh.
Their stance right now on the politics is very accurate… The dems are totally inept but the repubs are total douchebags.
…HULK FOR PRESIDENT!
There’s actual science proving you’re not at all alone, PAD.
.
A few years ago a survey determined that among young people (I forget how they defined young people, but I’m thinking under 30), The Daily Show was the primary source for news.
.
There’s more. Another study recently determined that the Daily Show has the same amount of actual news as the average nightly news cast. That’s how much fluff is in your standard news show, they don’t actually give any more real information than what the Daily Show gives in the process of setting up their jokes.
Definitely not just you, Peter. I have never been more uniformed about the world in my adult life than when The Daily Show and The Colbert Report took their recent three-week vacation.
.
Chuck
That should be “uninformed”, not “uniformed”–I’m usually uniformed 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, not counting holidays and vacation time.
.
Durned rassin’-frassin’ typo….what a difference a missing “n” makes.
.
Chuck
That’s the boat I was in when I still had time to watch TV. Now everything is filtered through various internet outlets. I tend to miss most of the crapfluff, and am happier for it.
If I were Rio de Janeiro, I would be trying to convince Obama to go lobby for Madrid right now.
I get my news from CNN and the NY Times.
I get my news analysis from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
The Daily Show’s motto once was:
“Where more people get their news, than probably should.”
The Daily Show’s only agenda is comedy. Can’t argue with that.
Frankly, I’d like to think that more people are getting their news from Daily and Colbert as opposed to Fox News or some of the hosts like Beck or Limbaugh. However, considering Obama’s drop in the polls and the rise of money into Republican coffers, my guess would be that while liberals may enjoy news from the comedy networks, more people seem to be watching / listening / buying into the right-wing stuff. Then again, they can form opinions in other ways aside from just news.
I’m not at the level where I get more of my news from him yet, but I find it interesting that a comedy program meant to poke fun at the news seems more trustworthy a news source than the cable “news” networks 8 times out of 10 anymore.
It’s almost sad we’ve reached this point, but Jon Stewart is now America’s anchor.
I don’t know what “disproportionate” is, but I started watching TDS in part, IIRC, because you mentioned it more than once on this blog. I watch it for the comedy, but also because he’s the only with a program on TV that acts as a media watchdog who shows the absurdity and hypocrisy of the Far Right and the Media in General by showing clips of it. No one else on TV does this. Granted, he dropped the ball by repeating the falsehood that Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski by saying that he didn’t rape Samantha Geimer (she didn’t, she just clarified what he was charged with), but overall, his satire performs an invaluable service, and it’s probably because of the fact that he does it with comedy that, unlike similar attempts to do this like Steven Brill’s Brill’s Content, he is successful at it.
.
That said, I don’t think I get that much news from him. I wake up in the morning to 1010 WINS, I like watching ABC World News at 6:30pm (EST), learn of stuff happening from links on message boards, Wikipedia/Wikinews, etc. I even got a BBC widget on my computer some time ago, though it hasn’t been working lately.
“he dropped the ball by repeating the falsehood that Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski by saying that he didn’t rape Samantha Geimer”
Well, he did say that with Joy Behar right there to defend Whoopi. I actually don’t remember what Jon said, I just remember Joy’s clarification.
Actually, what might be ever scarier is that, I understand,there are people who watch The Colbert Report that don’t realize it’s a parody.
That’s not as bad as it sounds. The study that claimed that was done by showing a clip, not an entire episode. The clip was from the interview segment, which often makes the satire much less obvious than the rest of the show.
Here’s the interview they were shown:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/76345/october-05-2006/amy-goodman
Having watched that, I’d say here’s clearly joking around, but someone on either side can joke around. It’s not entirely clear which side he’s on of you’re not familiar with him. In particular the part where he’s hammering her about how a soldier broke the law isn’t getting laughs and could be taken seriously.
Dude, I’ve had prolonged online arguments with people who believed that Stephen Colbert the character and Steve Colbert the comedian were one and the same, and that he was being totally serious during his entire show.
.
Some people honestly don’t understand irony and parody. And I think that might be just a little bit scary.
There are people online who will have prolonged arguments that the Earth is flat. Or better yet… TIMECUBE!
.
http://www.timecube.com/
.
Yeah, there are crazies out there, but I think that study blew the “Colbert is serious” contingent out of proportion.
I think it’s one of the differences between us and the right wing … we watch The Daily Show so we can laugh about our opponents, while they watch Fox so they can get mad about their opponents. That and the fact that you will virtually never see Fox criticize the Republicans for any reason. Anyone here remember Bill O’Reilly’s promise that if WMDs were not found in Iraq he would apologize to American and never trust the Bush administration again? To give credit where credit is due, he DID apologize for being wrong, but I’d have preferred he opened his eyes and saw the Bush administration as untrustworthy.
Something I’ve learned over the past 8 years … it takes a big man to say “I was wrong” but it takes a MUCH bigger man to say “I was wrong and you were right.”
Hey – that hour on Comedy Central with Stewart and Colbert is just about the only real coverage on TV.
Well, I get a disproportionate amount of my news coverage from you, which I think is worse.