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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.)
I think the study actually has several flaws which make it difficult to conclude the viewers are smarter. For instance, it could be that newspaper readers are flipping straight to the sports section. Sports fanatics don't tune into the Daily Show or to O'Reilly, so the newspaper readership comparison isn't too relevant to the relative smartness. Ditto for network news - at 6pm and 10pm network news is on a lot of channels for people who don't have cable, maybe we are just seeing that audience's smartness, which again, isn't the same audience as O'Reilly (which is only on the FNC cable channel) or the Daily Show.
And if you dig deeper: The Daily Show: Global Edition
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
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.
I think we all know that most of the "news" on TV is crap anyway, at least with John Stewart I know to take everything with a grain of salt and I can laugh my ass off too.
I'll play devils advocate here and suggest that perhaps O'Reilly wasn't wasn't trying to deride Stewart for having an influence on the election, but rather its frightening that the politcal views of his audience are influenced by a comedy show. Then again, I only read the transcript but it seems like the interview was done in good fun. But I do think O'Reilly has a point: my vote, despite exhaustive research on issues and candidates, carries with it precisely the same voting power as someone who learns of the issues by accident while channel surfing. It may be fair, but it is still terrifying.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
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...
Something like this came out about a year ago from the Pew Trust.
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.
Such polls don't give proper credit to the tough job that some of those TV hosts have on their hands, the challenges they must confront to educate their viewers.
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.
Let's "Leave No Viewer Behind."
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I loved the Indecision 2000 coverage. But this time it's more mean-spirited. Last time you could be either of the major parties and have fun, but this time it seems to be aimed more for the Democrats.
It's not fun to watch anymore, so I don't. (And no, I don't watch O'Reilly either)
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
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 book based on the show
for the lazy I will supply some links:
ROFL
Fantastic analysis by CNN on this one.
Maybe it's because most people who watch The Daily Show are the people laughing at all the poor interviewees being lambasted by clever editing. I enjoy the show thoroughly, but c'mon....sometimes they are just ridiculously mean-spirited.
The show has turned from a wonderful comedy half-hour hosted by Craig Kilborn ( I miss Thursday's Dance Dance Dance and the 5 questions) into a left-wing bombthrowing extravaganze. From Mess-o-potamia to Indecision 2004 (a.k.a Anybody But Bush-a-palooza) -- John Stewart is now hosting a show that is merely appealing to the leftist youth of the East and West coasts.
I watch the show every day as I am one of said youths.
Thank heavens I'm open-minded enough to see through John Stewart and Stephen Colbert's biased 'coverage.'
I love comedy when it's funny, not angry.
I'm not popular enough to be different.
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
Mark Racicot, chairman of Bush's reselection campaign, was the guest. He says, "This campaign is so focused on being positive," and the audience spontaneously busts out laughing like it was the punchline to a joke.
That's what happens when you try to pawn off bullshit platitudes on an informed audience. They laugh at you. Unfortunately all of America is not so well-informed.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
They are biased, they poke alot of incessant fun at the news.
How are they biased? Bias would imply that they have a preferred viewpoint that they choose over the facts, regularly.
Stewart's got a liberal viewpoint - that's fairly obvious. But he blasts Democrats just as much as Republicans, and he has people from both parties on the show, and he's equally kind to both of them.
One of the best Daily Show episodes was when Stewart interviewed the author of a book about a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. This happened right after the 9/11 Commission put out their statement that no, there was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. So Stewart was interviewing someone with an opposite political viewpoint from his, who had written something that was publicly opposed by a nonpartisan committee. Stewart could've skewered him. But he didn't. He let him have his say, and he was very polite in asking each of his questions. It was a terrific example of how you do unbiased reporting.
Stewart's one of the best news reporters on TV. Leaps and bounds ahead of O'Reilly - who doesn't even try to be objective.
I'll undo my moderation done to these discussions just to refute one of your points.
"And as you mentioned, he apologized. I'm not sure how you want him to express distrust, but he doesn't give the president a pass on anything."
Read his editorial on the interview, found here. The man sounds like a walking hard-on for George W Bush. My favorite quote out of the whole thing:
"For example, I am known for confrontational interviews, but you simply cannot tell a sitting President that you, the interviewer, know more than he does. That would make you look like a moron. So open confrontation goes right out the window."
This is funny. If you ever saw O'Reilly and what he did to that kid Jeremy Glick (transcript can be found here, you know that he really has no qualms in letting his confrontational interviews lapse into inappropriate areas. Jeremy Glick, for those of you who don't know, was the kid of a September 11th victim who was part of an organization that opposed aspects of the Bush administrations "War against Terrorism". Specifically, he criticized the lack of responsibility being put on previous administrations for the funding of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the lack of a promise to never make the same mistake again (a look at the situation in Iraq can tell you that, yes, the US is making the mistake of funding a potential enemy again).
Anyway, O'Reilly goes on to rip through Glick, evoke the memory of his dead father and widowed mother to counter his arguments and cuts Glick's mic, despite the fact that Glick throughout the whole interview was very calm and composed. O'Reilly then had Glick escorted by security, but not before telling him that he would tear the shit out of him. Later, O'Reilly claimed in other shows that Glick claimed that George W. Bush planned September 11, though that was clearly not what Glick said.
Suddenly, however, there is a limit to his confrontational interviewing style. Of course, one could argue that it's just because Bush is the president. But it takes just one look at O'Reilly's treatment of Clinton, and his treatment of Kerry will be much the same if he ends up winning the presidency, to realize that such arguments are bullshit. O'Reilly is clearly a huge Bush supporter. Which would be fine, if he didn't insist that he was this unbiased guy (Al Franken's discovery of previous Republican registration by O'Reilly is further proof of that).
Just a side note: at the end of the editorial, O'Reilly says:
"In the middle of my talk with the President, my mind flashed back for just a second to my childhood in Levittown, N.Y."
Though O'Reilly always makes this claim (and indeed has produced a deed to try to prove it) that he lived in some modest, working-class home in Levittown, in actuallity he lived in the Westbury part of Levittown, now known as Salisbury, which is not quite Levittown. The stakes of pointing this out? Well, Westbury wasn't exactly "modest". It was rick kid suburbia. Another one of O'Reilly's many lies.