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Daily Show's Viewers Best O'Reilly's In Political Quiz
tjg89 writes "CNN.com has an interesting article about some deragatory comments made about Daily Show viewers by Bill O'Reilly and how Comedy Central reacted. 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. Are more slashdot readers Daily Show people or O'Reilly people?" Update: 09/29 16:55 GMT by T : The Daily Show's audience actually topped viewers of "The Tonight Show,""The Late Show" and "The O'Reilly Factor"; CNN just carried the story. (Thanks to reader Robert Nevitt for the correction.)
Jon Stewart is the man. O'Reilly is just a bully and a blowhard. And, while the Daily Show is fake news, it's still more real than The Factor.
To be fair, I did try listening to the Radio Factor for a few weeks. O'Reilly is head and shoulders above Hannity and Rush. But that's like saying Franco was head and shoulders above Hitler and Stalin. It's all relative.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
This is not surprising for two reasons: first, Bill O'Reilly saying something derogatory about anyone is about as novel as shit coming out of my ass. He's the Rush Limbaugh of TV: extremely close minded and very inflammatory to those who don't agree with him.
Second, anyone who watches The Daily Show has to be pretty open minded and independent thinking. The Daily Show pokes fun at everyone: Republicans, Democrats and even themselves! Their brand of humor also takes a little bit more thought, so those who don't "get it" usually stop watching.
Nathan's blog
For better or for worse, quality information is spread because of comedy.
Remember after September 11th, The Onion ran "Holy Fucking Shit: Attack on America"? Summed up the situation pretty good, and actually contained real information (about the history of Muslim anti-American sentiment). Meanwhile all the cable channels could do is have an endless loop of planes crashing into buildings or pundits who knew very little and preached fear.
And more often then not, we remember the lame jokes told during late-night monologs than the long boring congressional sessions on CSPAN. Believe me, I watch both regularly, and a good 30-second joke can sum up a 2-hour fillibuster quite nicely.
O'Reilly didn't just misspeak, nor did he make an error.
He manufactured the "Paris Business Review" magazine, out of thin air, to support his OTHER lie about this "French Boycott" that cost over $10billion in trade to France.
So, not only was the trade quote a lie, he backed it up by manufacturing the reference material. There is no "Paris Business Review".
This is his game. Like Coulter, they give references, but they all end up being bogus. They are there for petty-intellectuals, like you, who trust in references, and make other people check facts for you.
The issues are there in either type of show; the difference is that I research the DS stories afterwards more often. (probably because they pick the most insane real life stuff to begin with, and the stories that *don't* make it to other media outlets.)
People who watch other 'news' shows take for granted that the story, as presented, is all there is to it. (In my experience)
Much like the Patriot Act is anything but what its name alludes to - there is always more to the story.
Bill O'Riley is a tool. Of the right, btw.
I never think about that show, ive only seen it once or twice, but yah its good.
The thing that strikes me... even tho John Stewart calls his show "the most respected name in fake news"... its not really fake news. They don't make shit up (like the onion), they take real news, and insert funny little quips.
The fact is THEY ARE REAL NEWS. They are biased, they poke alot of incessant fun at the news. However, they still report real news and, I think, do it better than the average news show.
Most news shows spend alot more time on car accidents, shootings and just generally parading out the clowns and disasters in society, whereas the daily show generally reports on relevant political and social issues (only occasionally parading out some freaks).
Sure they make fun of them alot, and don't really try to cover the whole story. But they do make the issues fun, and they talk about more real issues. That instantly puts them ahead of any network news I have seen . Who seem to try and make the political news as short and boring as possible.... so they can as quickly get back to scaring the shit out fo you with the human freaks.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"Basically, viewers of certain TV networks were less informed than viewers of other networks - not naming any names here, mind you - and people who got their news from other sources, such as radio and newspapers tended to be more informed than people who got their news just from TV."
Yup. I'm with you so far.
"But picking on viewers of certains shows is like picking on special ed teachers for the abilities of their class - those teachers have a tough job on their hands and people need to cut them some slack. Here they are, working selflessly for little compensation to educate the common man, and people ridicule them for mistakes of their students."
Nope. That's the problem. The "political" talk show hosts aren't "working selflessly for little compensation to educate the common man".
They have their agenda to push and the manner in which they push it determines their audience.
If you are a small-minded, mean bigot, your audience will, primarily, be others of that type.
Therefore, surveying the self-selected audience gives you a good indication of the nature of that show.
I watch both the Daily Show and O'Reilly on a farily regular basis. In enjoy both - maybe because I'm more of a centrist leaning a little to the socially liberal side, try to be balanced between consumer and business, and tend to lean towards fiscal responsability (smaller government.)
It's very clear that John Steward and co. are fairly far left, anti-Bush. That doesn't stop him from bashing Kerry now and then however. Likewise, Bill mostly toes the Bush line, but not always. The real truth is somewhere in the middle.
I will say that the Daily Show, being comedy oriented does not need to be (and clearly isn't) fair to either side. They frequently take quotes out of context because they are funny - but that doesn't give the person watching the full story. If you are using the Daily Show as your main source of news you are not getting a true picture of what is going on in the world.
I believe O'Reilly tries to be fair, and most of the time he is spot on, but occasionally it's pretty obvious he is pushing his own adgenda without regard to reason or truth - occasionally going on rants that make me skip forward (tivo).
It's hard to get the real facts, and the full truth out of the media in general. We don't (for example) hear anything about the good things going on in Iraq. All we hear about is the bombings, kidnappings, etc. The negative stuff.
Since the Daily Shows mission is basically to make fun of the media, the current government in power, and coverage of the government by the media - that sort of makes the republicans target numero uno at this point, just because of their own success.