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http://mediamatters.org/items/200605250003, which references an National Annenberg Election Survey which found that, "Overall, Daily Show viewers scored the highest out of any group surveyed, with Daily Show viewers answering, on average, 60 percent of the questions correctly."

Is that enough of a defense of the grandparent post's weasel words?

The survey didn't say Daily Show made them better informed (about the 2004 presidential campaign), just that they were better informed that people surveyed who did not watch The Daily Show. It's definitely correlation, not causation. People who watched any late night comedy show (Leno, Letterman) were also better informed but not as informed as Daily Show watchers.

I don't get Comedy Central right now but I love both Daily Show and Colbert Report. I would say they inform me of issues in a way similar to scanning headlines does.

Daily Show Viewers Knowledgeable About Presidential Campaign, National Annenberg Election Survey Shows [PDF]

Google HTML version

The actual study can be found here. There was also a slashdot discussion here.

Check out this survery. Stewart had 9 jokes about both Bush and Kerry (see section D). Leno had 97 about Bush and 76 about Kerry. Its interesting that Stewart has less jokes, but the show is much funnier and higher quality. Stewart also made more jokes about the issues instead of the candidate, which is much more important IMHO. If you believe he is making more jokes about the president, its probably just jokes about the president's stupid policies, which reflect on the president.

How about Reasoned Compromise: "May not agree with his every last item of policy, but in comparing the two likely candidates, he is at least closer to the preferred side of issues involving government spending, taxation, business incentives, and military functions."

The original research report is here (warning: PDF file)

It does not compare the Daily Show to CNN or O'Reilly specifically, but found that the audience of the former was more knowledgeable than the average person who watched "network news", "cable news" or "newspapers."

This finding was held controlling for all other variables, specifically: education level, party identification, 'following politics', watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age, and gender.

The actual pdf report points out that between July 15th and September 16th, out of 83 political jokes on The Daily Show, 9 were directed at Bush, and 9 were directed at Kerry (page 8). Seems pretty balanced to me. Letterman was just about the same (20 Bush / 21 Kerry). Leno was a bit skewed (97 Bush / 76 Kerry), but, not being a fan of Leno, I would expect him to take the easy route when hunting for a joke. :)

They not only proved that the Daily Show viewers are better informed than viewers of his show, but they are also more informed than viewers of Jay Leno and David Lettermen.

I call troll. After RTFA twice now it clearly says that the survey was between Daily Show, Late Night, and The Tonight Show, nowhere did they survey The Factor viewers. So how does this "prove" the viewers of the Daily Show are better informed than The Factor viewers?

Also did anyone else catch the percentages?! From the CNN.com article But 60 percent of "Daily Show" viewers answered all six questions correctly. but from the PDF it says that the average score was 60% and that dropped to 48% for the 18-29yro class (less than guessing?!) and only 34% got 5-6 questions correct. Perhaps CNN should RTFA
PDF here

I think O'Reilly's statment may be correct.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center is here, a detailed release fo the specific study is here (it's a pdf).

The Annenberg Public Policy Center is here, a detailed release fo the specific study is here (it's a pdf).

Because when you go to CNN and click on the article there's a link saying "pop quiz". I took it, thinking that it would be the Annenberg quiz and that I could test myself against it.

Wrong.

Instead, it was an idiotic CNN poll "quiz" about how many times the people on Leno make fun of Bush or Kerry. 7 Questions. All stupid. Probably someone who watches a lot of Leno/Letterman made up such a silly, unnewsworthy CNN poll...

Actually, the poll does ask about cable news viewership.

Daily Show viewers tie heavy (4+ days/week) cable news viewers and beat the ones that watch less. The poll doesn't break out which cable network they prefer. So technically, Daily Show viewers are just as or better informed than O'Reilly viewers *and* CNN viewers, but CNN's not going to tell you that in their article. ;)

The poll was taken by Annenberg, not CNN, and wasn't taken in response to anything in particular.... This PDF from them directly has more specific stats and methodology. (I'm just amused that someone had to classify all the jokes. <g>)

I can't make up my mind about these Annenberg 'independent' groups. On the one hand, Walter Annenberg has a rep as a conservative, but on the other hand, you have Adam "Asshole" Clymer as Annenberg Political Director.

The other wierd thing is that you're like the third person who has sent me a 2-3 sentence recommendation of Factcheck.org. It seems like an astroturf campaign or something. For example, see here.

The best criticism I've seen of Fact check is that they don't actually point to the primary sources; they point to news articles about the primary sources.