The Daily Show: a good source of news?

According to a 2004 Pew Foundation study, from 2000 to 2004, the percentage of people under age 30 who received much of their information from comedy news shows rose from 9% to 21%.

Being on a college campus, I often hear people say that they get their news from shows like The Daily Show. The students seem to feel that information from the entertainment world better reflects their views and tastes than the traditional journalism. In response, I also hear a lot of dismissive comments about the show’s legitimacy or reliability.


So what’s wrong with getting information from The Daily Show? Obviously no one source should be the sole provider of a person’s information, but why exactly is the The Daily Show seen as inferior to other news sources? Should it be used by information-seekers?

Food for thought: In 2004, Comedy Central had more hours of coverage of both party’s conventions than ABC, CBS, and NBC combined.

Thought # 2: All media sources have some degree of bias, but the difference is that most tout themselves as neutral; The Daily Show is open about their motivations. The viewer has to engage her mind to separate the facts from the farce. The network news is presented as serious and unbiased, so the viewer merely has to sit back and absorb. If anything, The Daily Show encourages greater engagement in the information gathering process because the viewer has to be actively filtering and evaluating what’s presented.

Final thought: According to Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, The Daily Show consistently focuses attention on issues badly covered through the mainstream media, ensuring that they register on the radar…” (p226). So the network news decides what’s news-worthy based on what’s dramatic enough to grab attention; The Daily Show can report on anything—including things that are important but not sensational—and get viewers by satirizing it. Comedy shows are not bound by finding dramatic stories because they can take any important-but-boring story and make it interesting.

A lot of people feel comfortable talking with others about popular culture and the entertainment world, but not as many people feel qualified to talk about politics. The Daily Show frames political issues in a way that encourages greater participation, and that’s something that can only bolster a democratic society.