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The Daily Show as Substantive as Broadcast News
Walter C. writes "Anyone who watches the evening news with any regularity knows that it's not a bastion of substance. However, a new study conducted by researchers at Indiana University reports that The Daily Show has just as much substance to it as the broadcast news. 'The researchers looked at coverage of the 2004 Democratic and Republican national conventions and the first presidential debate of the fall campaign, all of which were covered by the mainstream broadcast news outlets and The Daily Show... There was just as much substance to The Daily Show's coverage as there was on the network news. And The Daily Show was much funnier, with less of the hype — references to photo ops, political endorsements, and polls — that typically overshadows substantive coverage on network news, according to the study.'"
That the News has as little substance as The Daily Show?
Fuck Yeah!
I've been watching TDS for news for awhile now. I can't stomach the other news shows ... they're so full of bullshit. Just yesterday Fox News repeatedly tried to claim that Mark Foley was a Democrat. No thanks, I think I'd rather watch funny satire than bald-faced lies and propaganda.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
The Daily Show: Where more Americans get their news than probably should.
I get all my news from The Daily Show (and now, Colbert).
I can't be more succinct.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
There was a study that already showed The Daily Show's audience was better informed about the news than people who just watched the regular news.o litics/
... it's that network news sucks so bad.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/28/comedy.p
The issue isn't that The Daily Show is so much better
Or as Mr. Stewart put it (paraphrased) "The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls".
CBS has that hard hitting bastion of reporting "Katie Couric".
How can you take Jon Stewart more seriously than perky Katie?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
are before the show for godsake!
Is that the Daily show comes with a large dose of cynicism.
Maybe they need to make a toned down Daily Show (that is still funny), but for the parents.
Infotainment that is +1 Insightful
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Digg? Next we would see headlines on Colbert Report Youtube videos.
Of course I didn't RTFM, but it seems that researchers independently deciding that The Daily Show had more substance than MSM news orgs is hardly surprising or particularly illuminating. It seems like they (like most of us), probably just like the show better.
IMO, Jay Leno's monologue is an equally good news source.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Saying that the Daily Show is as substantive as broadcast news based solely on reporting during the political conventions (two events) is a stretch, and hardly supports extrapolating the idea to a general statement about The Daily Show verses real news. This is very weak, and very typical of Slashdot "editing".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
As mentioned in the article is this: "we should probably be concerned about both of those sources, because neither one is particularly substantive." Translation: it's not that the Daily Show is remarkably good as a news source (relative to what you'd expect), it's that the major news networks are remarkably *bad*.
While you might be able to make a case for any news show being 'full of bullshit,' it is my opinion that The Daily Show's viewers retain so much more information because it is entertaining. News? Entertaining? That's right.
How do I know what bills are being passed? How do I know who Zell Miller is? Well, if you ever saw the "Zell on Earth" episode from Indecision 2004, you'd never forget the man. If CNN, Fox, CBS, ABC, whoever else tried to cover that, I would have fallen asleep. Not only does it cover just as much material, but I retain far more of it.
My work here is dung.
When comparing The Daily Show fake news with real news, I'm not quite sure which one is the fake.
You'll also notice that the daily show is one of the only "news" outlets that will show a video clip of a public figure saying one thing in 2004, then a new video with them saying something that completely goes against their first comment on the matter in 2004. None of the big news outlets dare show such a stunt because that would make public figures accountable. Of course the daily show usually has Jon Stewert making a funny face and then goes to the next topic, but at least they aren't afraid to make someone eat their own words.
I think that's the point. Jon Stewart has come on record *many* times bringing regular news services to task, rather than admitting he's particularly good. Part of the mission of The Daily Show is, I think, to bring to light what good reporting *should* do on a regular basis, in a very funny, palatable manner.
Too bad the main news sources haven't taken the hint.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
daily show is not a news program... you can definitely get more information/news from your evening news than daily show....
all this study shows is that if...IF daily shows covers an event exhaustively, then it is as informative (or maybe more) than your average news coverage. nothing more nothing less.
there is no mention of any selection criteria as to what should be covered and whats not...
it is entertaining (and a very good one at that ) , but not nearly as informative as your average news program.
The other candidates wouldn't matter, Colbert and Stewart would win by a landslide. I'd actually register to vote them into office.
Note that the article make clear they aren't saying the Daily Show's reporting is good--just that it is equally good as serious news shows. What they are saying is, American TV news is a joke.
The research wasn't "based solely on reporting during the political conventions". From TFA: "Individual broadcasts of the nightly news and corresponding episodes of The Daily Show were analyzed by the researchers". They also looked at coverage of first presidential debate of the fall campaign. TFA was not by Slashdot, it was by Ars Technica.
This supports other studies that have been done, too. The Daily Show audiences tend to be better informed than folks who subsist solely on conventional news sources. This might have to do with the audience, or it might have to do with The Daily Show; in any case, Jon Stewart is doing a fuck-all great job.
By the time he's done, I feel I've received a less-biased, more-balanced view of the real news than an hour's worth of stupid-ass fake news given us by the mainstream channels.
But maybe that's just me.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Considering that the alternative consists of ad hominem attacks and bizarre rhetoric even most conservatives reject, and that the average age of that show is 71, it's no wonder that you would like The Daily Show instead. I also like to be both informed and entertained, and The Daily Show does both perfectly.
Nework news died because they aren't required to provide the public service any more as part their licensing requirements. Why would we expect a for-profit corporation to waste shareholder value on an unprofitable segment such as a real news division. Most news divisions, if not all, have been folded into the entertainment divisions of their respective companies. Consequently, why would we expect network news to be any more informative than the Daily News?
I'd argue it's MORE substantive.
But the Daily Show should not be congratulated, because they did nothing to deserve it. It's Broadcast News that has gotten dramatically less substantive, eventually to a degree where they sink below a comedy show.
Seriously. Jon Stewart is not a genius. Everyone else is an idiot, and that makes him LOOK like a genius.
They stopped being about "news" a long time ago.
Now, they are ALL about "entertainment". Which is why CNN has "The Situation Room" and such.
The Daily Show SHOULD be operating with a handicap. They have to focus solely on the items that they can turn into a joke. That should not be easy. They should be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But they have one advantage that the "news" shows do not. The Daily Show has SMART people working for it. They REMEMBER previous statements by politicians and they are not afraid to show how the politicians contradict themselves.
When was the last time you saw actual analysis and comparisons of a politician's statements on a regular news program. Yet they are a staple of The Daily Show. Because it is FUNNY when they catch a politician contradicting him/herself. And then The Daily Show will continue to hammer on the joke.
It should be stupid. It should be lame. But because the regular "news" shows have abandoned even the pretense of being about "news", The Daily Show wins by default.
The Daily Show mines recent events for jokes.
Regular news shows can't even mine recent events for news.
Network news may not be the best source for factual information about current events. But then again, that's not really its purpose. The mainstream media is run by corporations for corporations. It's there to make them profit.
Some of that profit is derived from the advertising of products put out by other corporations. While such products may be actual goods or services, other times that product is a political message. That political message often turns around and helps the parent corporations of the major media outfits benefit in some way.
Take NBC. It's owned by General Electric. General Electric is well-known for their weapons manufacturing. So of course it is in their best interest to monger war on their news programs. Not only do they attract viewers who are hyped up on American nationalism, but they also support and promote the business of their parent company. And at this, they do a very good job.
Your media stinks! And everyone else knows it. CBS or even ABC and CNN (bar CNN Int'l) are no match for the BBC, Euronews or even the propagandic Aljazeera for that matter. It's void of journalistic integrity. Just this evening I was watching CBS news, and it occurred to me you Yanks have little idea of anything going on outside your borders. So much censorship and lobbying you have in your media it's sickening (alright, so all media are biased, but you go over the top). News programmes with the emotional music or that crap really grate on my nerves. They can't even preview a book without blatantly advertising for it, like tonight's CBS news show (can't bloody bother to remember the title of the book this time). Bah!
The Daily Show on the other hand, it's a breath of fresh air.. Shame they charge insane rates for American cable channels. Then again, maybe not =P
My AP World History teacher last year recommended it over regular news. This was no ordinary teacher, he got a 100% passage rate on an extremely difficult test for his class.
All your base are belong to Wii.
I have the good fortune to not have the foggiest notion as to what the Daily Show is.
I believe I have heard of the Evening News, though. It stars Walter Cronkite, right?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
John Stewart said this when he was on CNN's Crossfire a few years back. Great stuff. Really informative, too.
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Ok, this study is flawed. they are comparing coverage of a political even to. The Daly Show is a left wing propaganda outfit and as such will have a good deal of coverage of political events, however main stream news also give time to many other events. The Daily Show ignores any event that they can not easily use to support democrats or spread FUD but the president with.
So completely ignoring the bias of this show it has a much narrower focus, and any study that simply take one item that the show is focused on and comparing it to a very general news cast is not a fair comparison.
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EVER!
And I believe it.
*DrugCheese rants*
A journalist can tell you facts.
A comedian can tell you truths.
We already know. Seriously. The reason everyone I know gets their news from the Internet isn't because it's more convenient, it's because it's more likely to be meaningful.
The BBC isn't all that, either, you know. It's leaps and bounds better than anything in the States, but it's got a very discernable conservative bias, and it's too damn polite to ever dig very deep. And CNN International? Why are you giving them a pass? It's the same shit with a broader focus, does that make it better?
The problem is English. Ever since the last bastion of balanced journalism in the US collapsed (NPR in the late nineties), I've been searching for a good English-language news source. I can't find one. I can find plenty of partisan hack jobs with an agenda, from Al Jazeera to CNN, and try to filter through the vapidity and outright bullshit, but frankly I could make up the news and I'd have a good chance of having more insight into current events than any of them.
So if you know a really good foreign news source with an English version online, I'm all ears. Americans are STARVED for decent news.
It frames a question seperate from the actual interview. Jon apologises because it's putting the guest in a difficult position. Like when he asked Pervez Musharraf who would win in an election between GWB and OBL in Pakistan. Asking that in the main interview would be a ridiculous notion. It's a device, and it definitely serves a purpose. And it's just one question :)
Anymore, I find myself dozing off during the Stewart rants on the same old things, Bush/Republicans are evil, blah blah blah, let's make the 10,000th Cheney heart attack/shoot you in the face joke, blah blah blah. It's just the same sort of left-wing propaganda as ABC/NBC/CBS. It certainly isn't independent. His jokes grow stale after watching for a couple weeks.
The only part I look forward to are the other correspondant pieces. They can find some wacky citizen and let them make fools of themselves. Now that's good television.
The Colbert Report far outshines Stewart's show in funniness. A couple weeks ago Toby Kieth told how Willy Nelson's bus is full of pot. A few days later, he is stopped by police and busted with 1.5 pounds of it. Or just last night's show, a teddy bear killed thousands of trout at a hatchery. You won't get this sort of news anywhere else. How many bridges, sports team mascots, or bald eagles are named after Jon Stewart, Katie Couric, and the gang?
It's hardly news that network "news" broadcasts are just watered down, censored entertainment.
For a long time, US TV had just 1 real news show, and that was on PBS. Jon Stewart (weakly, perhaps accidentally) makes it 2.
Someone had to spend real money doing a real analysis to figure this out? They must be as bright
as the audience..
Jon Stewart (or Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report for that matter) often offers much better and unbiased coverage of world events then FOX's "Fair and Balanced" news.
"Plenty of people would disagree there."
Terrorists, for example.
(Sorry, I've been getting all my news from Colbert and Stewart lately.)
Ever notice that? It's funny how the crowd tends to cheer more at the barbs against the right. BILL O'REILLY. GET A LIVE INSTUDIO AUDIENCE TO CHEER YOU! It would be so mint!
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Realistically Jon Stewart is more biased than Fox News. Stewart has essentially stopped trying to get laughs and now just tries for his narrow-minded audience's appluase. No, I'm not a fan of the administration, but it is now just annoying how Jon Stewart consistently says the same things about them again and again. A perfect example of the direction of TDS during the past year is the moment of zen, at the end of the show. This used to be some bizarre clip about a recent event, meant to evoke laughs. Lately it has just been used as a platform to make a point. Over the past few months the moment of zen has often been a newsclip from 3 or 4 years ago showing how the administration was wrong about something, or how they embarassed themselves in some way. There is a difference between humorous satire and consistent open criticism. Its not just how Stewart talks about Bush and other Republicans, Stewart also blatantly makes his opinion clear on partisan issues. Recently when congress voted not to raise the minimun wage Stewart sarcastically spouted, "the poor in this country have had it easy for way too long." Apparently Stewart no longer cares about balancing his show for the opinions of his more conservative viewers. A year ago I would have agreed with this article, now I no longer watch TDS.
Network news SHOULD be like Fight Club with everyone trying to be the most objective and uncovering the most dirt in the world, but instead we get human rights violations being passed over for yet another video report of an anti-US protest. We get an alarmingly high (unofficial) unemployment rate in China being passed over for a "ZOMG GAS IS EXPENSIVE/CHEAP!" report. We get Ted Stevens' "the internet is not a dump truck, its a series of tubes" being passed over for "in other news, 4 more U.S. soldiers died today in Iraq..."
Gee wow network news, that must've been pretty expensive. I could watch anti-US protests on the internet since Iran holds them so often NO ONE reports them anymore, I can see gas prices going down, I don't live in a bubble and I know people are dying in Iraq, thats why people are protesting...
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Will Rogers, a famous comedian while he was alive, also ran a wire service that many newspapers picked up on, wrote a popular weekly column, and did a weekly 30 minute radio show, all primarily focused on current events, aka news. It may be that journalism proper killed their own format by adopting non-partisan attitudes and an incredibly serious tone. When reading the news is likened to eating your vegstables, its no wonder nobody watches the news. The Daily Show is like applesauce, easily digested and still fairly healthy.
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Open Source Sysadmin
When some of the people you interview are heads of state and you ask them a question like "Who would win a popularity vote" you better fu*king apologize beforehand. Cause when they go back home, they might come home to millions of angry citizens because your answer offended them.
Am I the only one here who gets her news from newspapers, ala The New York Times and The Wallstreet Journal? One of the most enjoyable parts of my day is sipping coffee in the morning while reading the newspapers. I can't stand any evening television broadcast of the news, Daily Show or otherwise.
Have you ever read transcripts of the television news casts? Each story is usually a paragraph of text at most, whereas the reporting on the same subject in a newspaper will usually be several columns.
It saddens me that today's youth brags about getting all their news from the daily show while newspaper circulation is in rapid decline.
All I know is that if I wake up in the middle of the night and a creepy 5" glowing moth is hoving over my face (sucking out my life force??) I'm going to freakin' shit myself. It's like a metaphor for the MSM; the viewers are too scared to open their eyes and see.
Those of you that watch the nightly news know what I'm talking about -- it's in every broadcast.
Isn't just possible, that the viewers of the Comedy Central 'News Hour' watch the shows becasue they're already interested in current events and can therefore keep up with the jokes?
Full dsiclosure: I watch both CC shows, The (real) News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and read my local paper & the NY times daily.
rIa
I've been wondering recently if the US news services are actually taking money/favours when putting together their news broadcasts. With what is happening in US politics I'm absolutely astounded that the media are not having a field day with some of these events. Why are people not being held accountable? Why are the hard questions not being asked? The only people who seem to be doing this are Stewart, Colbert and Olbermann and 2 out of the 3 are working under the guise of comedy.
I thought the visit by George Galloway to the US Congress highlighted some of the differences in the way politics works in different democracies, he basically stunned the congress by simply refuting the facts and pointing out the reality of the situation without worrying about ruffling feathers, at this point I thought that cultural differences may explain the poor news coverage, in that it was simply the American way to not want to be seen to criticise itself in any way, but some of the most recent coverage I've seen has been too blatantly partisan than to be explained away by any other means than someones getting paid to spin news stories.
I feel it is of vital importance to a healthy political system to have a strong independant news source that is funded by public money outside of governmental/corporate control. Do you have one in the USA that i'm not aware of?
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
> And I'm sure the space "shuttle traveling nearly 18 times the
> speed of light" banner on CNN back in 2003 was some part
> of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and/or Liberal Media.
Just how much of a nerd am I that my first thought there, without even having to do any math, was: "Oh, that's about warp 2.5." ???
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
there is no doubt the daily show is meant for entertaining and pushing their agenda. however, so is cbs, abc, fox (pesonally it's more akin to the national inquirer), the new york times, bbc, aljazeera, washington post, your local paper, and the guy down the street. serisously, if you're relying on one show for the"truth" you're in trouble. the interesting thing is not how wrong public knowledge seems to be, it's how apathetic the american public comes across. if the daily show and colbert can increase any sense of awareness due to the entertainment factor while not being afraid to show public officials contradicting themselves (my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SrijoovKeo/) i know i should know how to link, get over it. maybe some teenagers/adults will care enough to start asking questions and not being afraid to hold those in power accountable. scary thought for those spinners (republican and democrats) whose rhetoric makes excuses for sexual predators, redefing the geneva conventions, making war and ignoring true human right problems (iraq vs. sudan/darfur), and all the while saying people like me aren't american since i won't step in line. the study is flawed, but the daily show isn't the problem, the people who are informed enough to comment on the daily shows flaws aren't the problem, the people who don't have a clue and don't want one are the scariest. personally, they make bill o'riely look attractive, and that's scary!
it's not left vs right, republican vs democrat - it's care or not. get informed from many sources, form your own opinion, and don't be afraid to express it. i thought that was the freedom i was supposed to have! i wish i had karma to burn!
Do you think journalists will hang their head down in shame ?
....
To be as substantive in news matter as a comedy show or a spoof on news....
Its like finding that Stalin offered as much freedom and priacy as the US these days
Oh wait
I think your wrong. I think they knew the answer before they started, they just chose particular stories which were long to do a comparitive example. I have watched the news (CNN, sometimes FOX, but not much anymore) and The Daily Show and now watch The Daily Show and read the paper.
I think that the authors of this study were just trying to do something to enlighten or just tell everybody the theatre is on fire. Because it is a sad state when a comedy show becomes more informative than a quote news show or channels.
The regular news just blurts out information that was hand fed to them about some topic. Whereas on the Daily Show, I have seen this multiple times, puts news in historical context. This is what a real informative news show should do. They actually dig up the crap that was said by this person on this topic or historical stories on the topic along with what is happening now or being said now.
The Daily Show actually shows more of the news that I am interested in, this in just 10 minutes at the beginning of the show, than does CCN or FOX in an hour. FOX and CNN think I give a rats ass about their opinions. FOX is the worst with CNN coming in a close second. FOX people can barely read the teleprompter, so I don't really think they have an opinion I would really care about. And look at all the time they spend on Entertainment news. I really don't give a crap where Angelina and what's his name went to have a baby or why. I don't care what the sezual orientation of an actor is and I don't care about an actors comments on psychiatry or drugs are.
Plus I actually find the interviews much more interesting. Maybe it's because they only have 10 minutes and they cut to the chase.
As for long interviews why can't they be more like Charlie Rose.
One of the things in interviews that both Charlie Rose and Jon Stewart have in common, is that when it's over no matter who it is I respect everyone that participated. I may not agree with them, but I feel I respect them for their sincerity and their intellectual logic (even though I may think it's flawed). Basically, both of them will get out of the interviewee, what or where do you stand on an issue and why?
The most recent example of this was Jon Stewart's interview of Pat Buchanan. I seriously disagreed with some of Mr. Buchanan's ideas on imigration and I could tell so did Jon Stewart, but he didn't try to make an ass out of him, he just tried to give him time and keep in focused on explaining his viewpoint and his arguments. I really wished that could have gone on longer, because I actually felt like Buchanan was arguing his point not just handling softball questions. I didn't agree with him, but I wanted to listen to him.
It wasn't 15-45 minutes of bashing, harping and yelling without any cognitive structure or similarity to an intelligent argument or debate.
I want to see news and I want to see information, I think I get more of that watching the Daily Show.
I'm not even going to start on latest crap I've seen on FOX,CNN (what the hell happened to headline news). I have watched some of 60 minutes, but I haven't found it very interesting or insightful and on top of that I have concerns about their credibility. I would watch more of ABC, CBS, or NBC broadcasts, but they are usually over by the time I get home. They are on only once per day whereas the Daily Show is on 3 times a day.
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
Isn't this the entire point of The Daily Show?
Today's episode, airing as I type this, just pointed out the graphic that Fox News ran multiple times after taping where it was claimed that Foley was a Democratic congressman. How's that for topical?
"I can't be more succinct." No but you might try to be a little smarter from where you get your "news" from. I know this guy bubba down on 12th and market and HE seems to have the inside scoop on everything. You might wan't to look him up !!!
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
If you watch that channel, you'll notice they do this quite a bit. I think the graphics guy is dyslexic or something.
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I like cspan as much as the next guy but COME ON. Who's gonna watch 4 hours of one congressional speaker after another just to distill the 2 or 3 non-trivial things that get said
The Daily Show is substantive because there's a lot of substance in current events not being outlined by the mainstream media.
The reason why The Daily Show is so popular is because it offers a more cynical, less corporate-controlled perspective on current events. Some may call that "liberal" but the whole notion of "liberal" was coined by conservatives as a way to marginalize any opposing viewpoint. The tired, "attack the messenger" rather than refute the message that has been elevated to an art form by the right wingers.
The reason for this mess is because of Ronald Reagan veto'ing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Reagan destroyed the balance that was mandated in network television and radio by doing away with FCC rules that:
a) Forced networks to report news of interest to their audience, and
b) Gave people a right to petition to have opposing viewpoints heard on these networks.
If you're old enough, you may remember a time when editorial was contained to its own compartment in news, and there was always a message that said, "If you disagree you're invited to express your own opinion." Once Reagan destroyed the Fairness Doctrine, the broadcast networks were free to unleash a torrent of special interest-centric broadcasting that turned news into info-tainment and thinly-veiled corporate propaganda.
And that's what we have now. Thanks to Ronald Reagan. And that's why one of the best news programs in the entire nation is a parody comedy show that by its own admission, can't take itself seriously.
Again, thank you Republicans. Great job. This shit is going to come back to bite you on the ass too... just you wait. The loss of the Fairness Doctrine hurts everybody. It's not a partisian issue. It's a freedom issue.
Just a reminder; All "entertainment" shows have this advantage, of any political bent, from the Daily Show to Rush Limbaugh to... whatever. It is more a sign of what politicians are all about than what any show is about.
Consider these quotes (in no particular order)
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton
"I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member." - Groucho Marx
"Anyone that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office." - David Broder
I think can be generalized into "Anyone who WANTS to be in politics, probably doesn't have the public interest at heart, and even if they started out that way, they won't have it for long".
The US concept of democracy has worked out pretty well, but maybe it needs to be updated somehow - more distributed. The "problem" with politics is the natural tendancy for bureaucracies to grow and turning money=power and power=money.
Oddly, maybe more branches of governement would help here. Keep the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary branches, as the USA has now - all elected and appointed officials to create policy, etc. But don't give them any authority to fund anything. Add a new branch of random, drafted citizens who have to approve any funding needed. The "random" and the "drafting" part takes politics out of it. Especially if the funding branch is a large number of citizens, maybe even anonymous - like getting "mod points" on slashdot. The key point is to time limit the voting rights of the drafted - again, like mod points. No time to influence the funders.
Separation of decisions and actions - sounds like a bit more fail-safe in the system.
A lot of BS "political" programs will die on the vine if there is no "popular" support.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
>If you use linux you're a dick smoker and a faggot... probably a muslim too.
I don't think dick is Halal.
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Is it just me, or does the Colbert Report make The Daily Show seem semi-legit? Colbert's show is so stuffed with sarcasm and trolling -- on purpose -- it makes Jon Stewart look like Cronkite (well, almost).
I've been a fan of both programs for quite a while. While their political slants are easy to see, they seem to try to stay as fair as possible -- making fun of both sides pretty equally.
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The next time you hear someone allege "liberal bias" or "conservative bias", remember this study and remember that bias would be a step upward from what we have now. "Liberal bias" would have covered the Downing Street memo sooner and explained that most bankruptcies are caused by medical emergencies. "Conservative bias" would have given air time to anti-Bush conservatives and explained why free trade is a good idea. In order to say something biased you first have to say something, and that would be an improvement.
Have any good cripple jokes asshole?... And you wonder why a substantial majority of people in the U.S. loath Republicans now. And no the spineless weak ass Dems are no better.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
I honestly get my news from 4 main sources: Indie Media, Comedy Central (The Daily Show, Colbert Report), Stephanie Miller and of course /.
I do read my local paper and i do read my local weekly liberal rag as well as carouse some news sites, and all are pretty decent as far as the "fair and balanced" fiasco goes. But the four sources i refer to at the top are national. Notice there is no ABC news, Sux News, CNN or anything else.
I blame the sucess of TDS on Jon Stuart. The man is extremly smart and sharp. Craig Kilborn ran TDS like a frat house.
No really, TV news is a lot funnier. At least in the Twin Cities, where there isn't all that much crime. Most of the news involves "shocking" college drinking "exposes", and -always- has the cute animal story towards the end. If it wasn't for the internet, my news sources would be horrible (not helped out by the Star Tribune, an agenda-driven rag that would make William Randolph Hearst proud).
I doubt I hold a majority opinion, but I don't find Jon Stewart very funny, and the obvious bias kindof defeats the perpose of doing a no-holds-barred news satire show. Oh, and if you're getting your news from either source.. you're going to find yourself extremely uninformed on issues. You just can't boil down complex issues into 15 second speech blurbs and expect to know what's going on in the world.
I'll probably get a couple jabs for this.. but I actually think the WSJ has the most opinion neutral articles I've seen in a paper (outside of the opinion section of course). If they even had a pro-business-at-all-costs bias, I doubt I would have seen that Chinese lead expose on the front a few days ago.
some of the arguments that i've seen say that daily show viewers are more informed than a general audience. if you are informed, then the daily show is a great outlet. if you are not informed, then i think it sucks to get your news from a comedy show, regardless of how informed or smart its writers are. that said, i' rather get my news from a large variety of sources like aljazeera.net then just watch it on cbs. all news sources seem to have their slant and only by sampling a large number of sources do you have a chance of getting close to reality. true, colbert and the daily show make me chuckle more than any other source. ok, the onion is good too.
All good comedy contains a core of truth. That's why it works. Except Yakity Sax, that's just funny cause it's funny.
I can't remember whether it was in Montreal, Paris, or Mexico, but I've seen The Daily Show come on right after a "real" news show on CNN International. And I didn't see any disclaimer about it being satire, either. Folks elsewhere must have a really interesting perception of what's going on in the U.S.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
News viewership is terribly sad. It seems the worse the source, the more people watch it.
/. they also have more of a tech slant than other news programs, reporting on the major developments, before you see it here on /.
Evening News is taking it's cues from the morning shows. More in-depth coverage of "How did being kidnapped make you feel?" and people crying on camera, filling the time, and little to no time for substantive news from politics, war, economics, and general world news. School shootings are terrible, but spending half an hour every day for weeks, interviewing scared kids and parents, isn't helping anybody.
Evening News is bad, but local news is MUCH WORSE... If you think back to days before the invasion of Iraq, all of the major nightly news programs had a nice run-down of all of Bush's evidence, and why it was all utterly incorrect. The local news programs, however, just showed Bush's original sound bytes on the subject, and never followed up when new information came along. The viewership of local news is why some 70% of people (or whatever the figure) believed there were links between Bin Laden and Iraq.
The thing most people have forgotten, though, is that you are NOT stuck with just those crappy options. The alternate national newscasts are actually a lot better...
Both CBS and ABC have very good (fast-paced) morning newscasts at 4:30-5:00 am that are packed with news from the entire day, vastly unlike evening news programs, which are half commercials, crawl along at a snail's pace, and barely get through the three top stories of the day... Of note especially on
If that isn't to your liking though, you also have the option of ABC's WNN around 2-4am every night. Over the course of an hour, they get just slightly more in-depth than the half-hour CBS/ABC morning news shows, and throw in lots of idle time, uncomfortable anchor chit-chat, and regular bits of fluff news pieces if you like a little of that.
Despite the opinion around here that news is crap and utterly worthless, I easily see some 98% of the news stories I care about in a half-hour a day, as opposed to spending a couple hours over a day, reading the same stuff through Google News or the like. So, IMHO, set your DVR for 4:30, and the news not only won't suck, but it will be quite useful.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
holy freaking crap the daily show is SOOOO liberally biased it's not even funny...
They've mentioned on the show before that CNN International carries it. Jon Stewart seemed pretty surprised. =)
~ Leilah
Good show. It's their weekly "Global Edition" edit out of stuff that non-Americans wouldn't understand; e.g. gun love, school shootings, Fundamentalist Christian extremism. JOKE!!!! ;-)
But it is very funny. Because it's satire, they can say stuff with humour that the boring mainstream networks wouldn't dare. Mainstream media has become so coy (and much of it owned by Rupert "Invade Iraq and we'll see oil fall to $50 a barrel" Murdoch) that they won't say anything vaguely critical of the government, their monkey or the corporate paymasters. Stewart and his buddies get away with a lot.
It's on SBS on Saturday Nights.
Is it just me or does anyone else find that the immaturity displayed in a lot of TDS segments tends to counter any substanence they might have? And yes, I still find myself laughing while watching TDS.
You keep using that word - I do not think it mean.. oh forget... the point is this... that one is blatantly obvious. Nobody is going to read that and go "*GASP* He's a fascist!? Let's oust him!"
But the whole (D) vs (R) thing in U.S. TV is subtle. They don't refer to it, it's not blatantly obvious if you haven't heard of the person they're talking about, so your initial reaction may be (if you're part of Fox's target viewership anyway): "damn democrats"
And maybe I live in a distorted world, but I find -that- to be much worse than some idiot proclaiming Bush a professional fascist.
Not Montreal, we get it on CTV up here.
They're Establishment - when I want examples of conservative news organizations, I use them for radio and New York Times for print. They're not part of the Bush-Cheney-Rove right-wing mafia that's taken over Washington the last few years (but those thugs have Fox News when they need a mouthpiece.) If I want an example of left-wing media, there's Pacifica, who are unabashedly leftie; it's much easier to work around the biases of a bunch of up-front lefties telling you about some horrendous thing Bush did this time than it is to guess which stories CBS/NBC/ABC didn't report on. (And my use of the NYT as "conservative" doesn't mean I'm far left of the US center - I view the Washington Post as a partisan Democrat paper, and when I worked in DC I'd be more likely to read the Washington Times, which was right-wing and less competent, but did a better job of telling what the then-Democrat Congress was doing, and you could work around its biases about what Reagan, Bush, and Ollie were doing.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They do put a disclaimer in front. Then again, I don't think most people take CNN seriously as a newschannel outside the US.
Je ne parle pas francais.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8899688486 56043401
Anyone submitting a grant application for *that* study?
Modern news is shallow. Wow. That's a news flash. :) Now they can go on to prove fire is hot and objects generally fall downward.
Now we just need a technews-comedy that's as informative as slashdot.
They don't just read the press releases and then parrot them into a microphone, they discern the real story and then satarize it brilliantly.
A perfect example is when the Foley story broke on Monday that evening they devoted a lot of time to it and had one segment where their "reporter" said that anger in the capitol was building.... against the Democrats. On Tuesday there were Republicans actually saying the same thing on Fox.
Not many television shows are so perceptive that their stories predict the actions of the people in the news. This is one reason why I listen to NPR and watch The Daily Show.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
In order for a monologue to be funny, it has to hold an element of truth in it. While the truth that Jon Stewart espouses and creates is well accepted by a left-leaning audience, right-wing members aren't seeing the truth in his statements. Because the joke is based on a truth that half of the potential audience doesn't agree with, (aka all Republicans are gay child molesters) the humor is lost.
This is why Stewart would never be elected to office, or command larger numbers than he already does.
I guess the Daily Show is a good source of news if you like to be manipulated. It's like listening to Rush Limbaugh for three hours. If that is your sort of thing, and you can't stomach news that goes against your ideology, then so be it.
I'm not sure what the motivation for SoH is. I think the whole "getting a sponsor" thing was just a joke. I think part of it is an attempt to lampoon the msm's attempts at "hard-hitting interviews" (and overbearing graphics). Asking a clearly rigged question is sometimes a cheap stand-in for tough journalism.
True, SoH blows. Though the look on Bill Clinton's face when Stewart asked, "Will Hillary run in 2008, and if so, what is the key to defeating her?" was pretty priceless.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Oh man, please don't start a post by saying "You sir, are an idiot" and then go on to contradict yourself. For clarity, you backed up your argument for both houses being attacked equally by confirming that the Republicans have a majority in both houses and therefore get the majority of the attention. So not an equal spread of attacks then eh?
That's where it runs in the UK, where More4 run it after their main evening news.
http://www.channel4.com/more4/
I can't remember if we get a "satire warning" up front, but isn't it kind of obvious?
Sometimes on
Hope things get better for you this week though. Really, I do.
Hee hee hee hee...
CNN International isn't bad. Last week I was in the US, and the difference with the US CNN is like day and night. The news on CNN International looks like a regular European news channel (or at least Western European news channel, I have no experience with Eastern European news channels so I can't say anything about those).
The US version of CNN is much more sensationalist/agitated/excited imho. And almost completely US-focussed, it seems.
Donate free food here
CNN is not THAT bad outside the US, because CNN international broadcasts significantly different and more diversified content, since it aims at a global audience (compared to an audience that is at least partly conditioned by Fox News and the like to view everything in a self-centered view).
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Hehe, I like your sig. Something is rotten in the state of slashdot..
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
How about an article that compares The Daily Show to O'Reilly?
You are kidding, right? CNN is considered to be big and important outside the US.
Clever signature text goes here.
Sure, I laugh with them, but should I?
It's possible to make people laugh at situations, decisions and individuals that cause failing economies, crumbling infrastructure, bigotry, hate and death... but should they?
Should you laugh, or should you recognize the gravity of their topics?
I've considered the idea that serious and polished news casts have outlived their usefulness as propaganda vehicles... the populace was catching up with the MSM's omissions and lies too quickly due to improvements in our communication tools.
The obsolete methods have to be replaced by a more effective system, i.e. rather than omitting and lying, the truth could be told so long as it is presented as a joke. Jokes are funny, disarming and harmless. Jokes do not require action by the audience. This "funny news" used to be covered by the late night shows, but it isn't their focus and they had no credibility or expectation towards accuracy. So now we have full-time funny truth tellers who cause us to sit laughing hysterically in our comfortable hand basket on its way to hell. I guess that's better than being glassy eyed and bored on the way.
And sure, it's hard to imagine Jon and Steve as scheming assholes. They seem to be good guys who are good at what they do... but maybe they aren't aware of what they're doing. Maybe they're allowed to do what they like to do by someone with ulterior motives. I expect this funny news to become more wide spread.
I wouldn't hope that anyone stop watching, but at least pay attention to what you laugh at - it may not be funny in the next year or day.
There is not evidence Foley EVER abused a minor, unless you consider e-flirting with people above the age of the consent "abuse". There is no evidence AT ALL that he actually had sexual contact with anyone underage, or indeed, even propositioned anyone under the age of consent. The fact that he was asking ages clearly indicated that he was attempting to stay within the bounds of the law.
The emails that were known two years ago were not illegal in any way. What was the Republican leadership supposed to do? Out one of their own because he was a creep who had a fetish for deviant-but-legal sexual behavior?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
do you wear glasses? :)
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but here goes anyway:
No, John Stewart is, imho, left of center, but not by much*. Nonetheless, he's just as quick to poke fun at the Democrats. His show is popular because he makes fun of people, and making fun of people is always humorous - especially to the 20-40 demographic. He has an expanded following becuase he tends to poke fun at people who shouldn't be targets, but make themselves so through their poorly thought out actions. Politicians happen to be the perfect targets.
*Stewart is not far left. Simply disagreeing with Rush and saying that Ann Coulter is a bitch does not make one far left. Blowing up a lot full of hummers to "save the earth"...that's far left.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
That's quite true. A few years back, when I lived in my home country, the cable network offered three CNN channels: the "normal" one, CNN International, and CNN en Español, along with Fox News, and several news channels from Europe: BBC, DW (Germany), RAI (Italy), TVE (Spain), a French one called Channel 5 or something; and also a few from Latin America.
From the what I could gather from the channels in the languages I don't speak, all the non-US channels did a fairly good job at covering news from outside their own countries. It was shocking to see how crappy the basic CNN and Fox were. In particular it was shocking because CNN International was about as good as the international ones, and CNN en Español managed to cover with some depth the news from ALL Latin America (including Brazil) plus Spain and Portugal, and STILL the coverage of news from US, Canada and the rest of the world was very good - much better than the regular CNN.
The saddest part is that all CNN channels claimed to be produced in their studios in Atlanta, and of course they shared the same material. So the problem is not that the basic CNN channel doesn't have access to high quality material, it's that they deliberately choose not to present it, most certainly because their main audience has no interest in it.
I'm appalled if that's the case. Is there really no effort to hold politicians to account in the mainstream media at all? Over here, the news article itself wouldn't raise the issue, but an analysis segment immediately afterwards would. Then Newsnight would go into it at some length, after which some poor junior minister would be grilled over the policy U-turn. Then the government party representative on Question Time that week would probably get some terrible stick.
And that's just the TV. You should see what the tabloids are like when they've got an excuse to call someone a liar without getting sued...
I gather, though, that there's more respect over there. Here the media like nothing better than the downfall of the exalted over a scandal. The head of the Prime Minister himself has been on the block for a while, which is why he's stepping down now - he's after getting out quick before somebody picks up the axe :-)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
(and a helluva lot more liberal slant than) real news.
Let's face it, is the McLehrer Hour entretaining? No!
People find buffoon Stwart antics entratining.
People find teary eyed melodramatic Couric entretaining.
News (specially political news) develop too fast.
Today's shrink wrapped news (network and cable)
have a though xbox-youtube-websurfer 15 sec attention span audience.
I say go watch BBC or Al-Jazeera, but that's not entretaining.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
Yes, I'm saying that human tragedy doesn't matter. People got shot this week, and more will get shot next week. In a nation of 300 million, murders happen. I'm more interested in what the Christian Reconstructionists are up to, or which parts of the nation still have electronic, unverifiable voting machines, than in who got murdered last week. The movie Jesus Camp moves me more deeply, and disturbs me more profoundly, than the Amish murders.
Instead, TDS has wound up being the best show on television. They attack topics no one else will, they have guests you'd never expect - Presidents, Congressmen, pundits, etc. And Jon Stewart interviews them not as some hotshot journalist trying to further his/her career but in the same way we would - he asks the questions we'd ask if we had Former President Carter or Sentor McCain on our couch.
Their only problem is they can't report on anything not funny. When Mother Teresa or Steve Irwin died, it went without comment. And it took a while but they did get to making fun of America, Post-9/11. In some ways, 9/11 actually made TDS better since it gave TDS an even better reason to exist.
Schnapple
yes, TDS rants out about the current Repbulican administration. but what many of todays "conservatives" tend to forget is that when TDS started, the main news topic was bashing Clinton and the Democrats. (likewise with moveon.org)
TDS has always bashed whomever was in power at the time.
the history of the world
Jon Stewart takes the time to learn about his guest's point of view BEFORE the show happened.
Last night he had on a political science professor with a book to shill, "The J Curve".
And it was immediately obvious that Jon had READ THE BOOK, or at least enough of it to grasp the central thesis. He played ignorant a couple of times (for laughs) but he clearly was keeping up with the guest and knew what he was talking about.
Do you think any of the Fox News pundits ever do that? Can you see Bill O'Reily (say) going to a screening of Al Gore's global warming movie and actually paying attention to it?
Seriously, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert give me hope that there still exists intelligence and rational thought in America. They should both run on the same Presidential ticket.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Yes, but that direction is generally defined as "down" in the local frame of reference. You know, even as I typed the quip, I wondered if someone would get all wonky on it, but I thought "Naaaahhhh!"
I get all my news from the Police Squad! shoeshine guy.
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!"
~Harcourt Fenton Mudd
After watching the drek on FOX, CNN and all of the other nwtworks with shlock puppets - mouth Rove's media turd releases - it's a relief to watch the Daily Show and see Daily shovel away the turds - and expose Rove's puppets for what they are - puppets for the Elite - spinners for the Elite.
Now obviously Daily Show is much more adept in humour than I am - but more often than not I express the same views here as Daily does on his show - and then 99% of the time the puppets here score me 0. Which I find very funny - knowing that puppets here are like puppets everywhere.
Ok, the Daily Show part is ... well, horrifying, but he says he's using the same criteria he used in 1998 to 2000. So he has quantitative data from THEN. I want to know how far news has decended since then (if it has). How much less substance is there now than then?
I can't remember whether it was in Montreal, Paris, or Mexico, but I've seen The Daily Show come on right after a "real" news show on CNN International. And I didn't see any disclaimer about it being satire, either. Folks elsewhere must have a really interesting perception of what's going on in the U.S. ;)
;)
Some people might even be smart enough to figure it out on their own
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
This is the same reason that I depend on RCAF to get all of my government news too.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Who are you to tell us what traditional American values are? People came to America to GET AWAY from people like you, telling them what was right and proper to think. Your sort are an affront to the values of our Founding Fathers. It is obvious that you have nothing but contempt for the REAL values that make our country great.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Allow me to assist you:
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.
What was once true, is no longer so
7% comes from the government. At least that's what WBUR in Boston says in their fundraisers. But that 7% makes them a totally unbiased presenter of the news.
But seriously, it's easy to hear the bias in individual reporters/analysts comments on NPR, so it's easy to take some of that with a grain of salt. In my opinion, the one big failing of network news, whether it's NPR, CNN, Fox, ABC/NBC/CBS, your local station... The one big failing is that the news anchor always - I mean virtually always - asks the "reporter" for analysis of the story. And that's the problem. How about reporting the news first. Then at the end, put up a big disclaimer and launch into the analysis of the news. That way Joe SixPack would at least be able to separate objective reporting from opinion.
It won't get us all the way there, but it's a start. Of course, maybe news in the past was done this way, and it didn't sell, so the networks sexed it up a bit. No, that couldn't be it...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Nice post.
One quick thing:
Bipartisanship is cooperation between members of two parties in getting something done.
Partisanship is the polarized, fractious bickering that you were most likely referring to.
Political discourse in the US has degenerated to a series of three-second soundbites, focus-group-tested slogans, and "Yo Mama" snaps. The Daily Show uses these same jump-cut techniques to point out the hypocrisy and idiocy prevalent in government and in the "mainstream" media, and it does so in easily-consumed, thought-sized chunks.
A parallel can be drawn to Thomas Nast's drawings in Harper's Weekly, which played an important role in the overthrow of the Tammany Hall Tweed Ring in 1870s New York City. An exasperated Boss Tweed is recorded to have demanded of his henchmen, "Stop them damn pictures. I don't care so much what the papers write about me. My constituents can't read. But, damn it, they can see pictures."
but I'll catch The Daily Show's coverage of it.
The fact that the mainstream media aren't accurate is obvious. But do they have to compare them to the Daily Show? Jon Stewart isn't all that he's cracked up to be. He's like a guy at a party who THINKS he's funnier than he really is. I guess I'll have to crack open that copy of "The Faculty" where his character gets stabbed in the eye.
Let's hope someone with real comic talent can replace him someday.
One of my assigments in "intro to communications" was to watch a news program at night. The first suggestion the teacher gave was The Daily Show. Why? It's engaging because it's funny, and it's not just a "Fake news show" as Stewart always calls it, it's a lot better produced than other news shows, and look who they had on just recently General Mussharraff rom Pakistan....who says it's not a real news show?
I just want him to try it. Just once, for him to go on his show and say "Malcolm in the Middle is hurting America."
Hey, thanks for saying what I've thought for quite a while. All this time, I've been feeling guilty for "liking" O'Reilly. He's guy that I think has been reasonably fair on most issues. Yes, he's conservative, but at least he's honest about who he is shilling for.
Compared with Hannity or Rush, it's not even close. Now, THOSE guys are definitely nothing more than Republican talking arms. Just listen - it's ridiculously easy to see that.
Anyway, thanks for the Bill comment. I think he unfairly gets lumped in with Hannity and Rush and I find he's not nearly that bad.
Since the news shows devolved into entertainment, it makes perfect sense for entertainment shows to devolve into news!
You are kidding, right? CNN is considered to be big and important outside the US.
I'm in (western) Canada. CNN is one step above Fox News.
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
How about a premium news channel. Like HBO, or the movie channels. Pay your $10-15 a month and get real news. there's less chance of a ratings bias and less commercial influence since ads are not the sole source of revenue.
non-cable/satellite owners wouldn't be able to get it, but they don't get CNN or Faux either.
Compare EU news channels with US ones. In the EU, 'centre' is quite a long way to the left of where the US presents 'center.' And since rational people know that they don't want to be extremists, moderates in the EU are quite a long way to the left of moderates in the US.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The think I like best about the Christian Science Monitor is its name. It reminds me of what Voltaire said about the Holy Roman Empire.
XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-U
So making fun of Republican over and over again is unfair. Would you say the same thing about the undending stream of Clinton jokes?
Colbert is funnier, but he makes the same anti Republican jokes over and over again, too. He just cloaks them in irony so that stupid people don't understand he is bashing the conservatives even harder than Stewert.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That one. "Why didn't you do more about Osama" is easy. It's so blatant, you do exactly what Clinton did, or any Republican would have done: you go on the attack. They attack you, you attack back, show them you have some balls. The Democrats need to grow a pair, and Bill's shown them how.
But the Hillary question? That is funny on so many levels. You can see the moment of panic on Bill's face, he was obviously ready for a tough question but that just came out of left field. Tacked on the end of a question he surely WAS expecting was this absolute curveball.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It probably wasn't in Montreal. As far as I know, The Daily Show is carried on Comedy Central and CTV in Canada. I believe that it is made obvious on the CTV airing that it is a political satire show.
The reason the Daily show is "as substantive" as every other news station in America has nothing to do with how good the reporting is on the Daily Show. The Daily show takes news from other stations, regurgitates it, and then puts some sarcastic spin on it, usually at the expense of George Bush, Fox News, or some other conservative. That's not to say that the Daily Show doesn't make fun of the stupid things democrats do on occasion, but let's be honest. The Daily Show is extremely liberal, and the discussions on the show are extremely skewed toward the left. The worst part about this "The Daily Show as Substantive as Broadcast News" title is that the people who watch the Daily Show already think they're smarter than everyone (everyone being conservatives) because they know how to turn conservative words into moronic statements using sarcasm. As everyone knows, the ability to add sarcasm to a serious subject is a sign of true genius. The sad thing is that the Daily Show often clips the statements made by conservatives to purposefully make the Republicans look stupid, and the "intelligent" Daily Show viewers don't even realize it because they are too ignorant to what conservatives actually do and stand for that they could careless about really hearing what conservatives have to say. Now the viewers are just going to have bigger heads and think that John Stewart's comments are actually valid forms of argument.
We had people voting against Kerry that agreed with his platform on the sole basis that he's Catholic.
Remember the last time we had a non-Protestant president? He was assasinated!
We can't even have Samantha Bee in there because she's a woman.
That leaves Mo Rocca and Steve Carell as the two obvious candidates
They didn't predict fox doing this though! Now did they?
Apart from that, agreed. The daily show is a better source, not just as good.
Keith Olbermann's Countdown is the only true real news show where journalism ideals are strived for. Olbermann strives to fit Morrow's shoes in a modern context. He does many of the things that people have pointed out the Daily Show does- showing the current leadership contradicting themselves, mocking the infotainment, mocking the news media for saying asinine things (favorite and easiest target Bill O'Reilly) He was the only newscaster in 2004 who reported seriously in the voting machine stories after the election. And he clearly can't abide the blatant lying done by the current administration; he's made several "special comments" about this in recent months. The one weak point, Keith does have on too many Republican mouthpieces as regular commentators, and doesn't call them on their lies. (a polite rebuttal would be nice, no need for stupid shout downs, just something along the lines of what Jon Stewart does when he calls a guest on their spin. Jon is more likely to do that to a reporter than any other guest.) I just wonder why Keith doesn't, when his occasional special commentaries shows he knows they are lying. I've taken to hitting mute when the spinmiester Republican commentators come on; heck Scarborough was more honest when he sat in that spot last night on Keith's show. I started to hit mute but listened to the first sentence before I did, and when Scarborough didn't do the talking points (much) I left the volume up. Olbermann is no "flaming liberal", he's certainly more of the moderate persuasion. I'm mainstream liberal. I find some of the things said on Air America too "tinfoil hat"- the conspiracy stuff especially. I'm a natural skeptic like most mainstream liberals. You're going to have to show me hard proof that something that sounds too outrageous happened- like I still don't believe the Bush administration was directly involved in causing 9/11. I think they just showed arrogance and willful ignorance and didn't believe it could happen here. Olbermann is an old school moderate who has become so outraged at what the Bush adminstration has done that he's coming closer to mainstream liberalism, at least in his heart. It's made him an even better journalist than the pretty good one he was before. Word of mouth is spreading about his show being the one place in the msm where journalism lives. His ratings are climbing every month, so much so that it's even filtered over to the Fox news viewers, they are losing viewers in droves the past few months, and Olbermann's Countdown is the news show that has shown the largest growth in viewers. This is why Olbermann has been able to speak his mind more openly, even though corporation he works for is as Republican biased as all the other msm, Olbermann's ratings trump that. Now, if only they'd grow a clue and dump Carlson and bring Donohue back. The wind is finally starting to favor moderate to liberal voices, if the mainstream news media had any brains they'd be hiring more liberal newscasters- heck get a few leftists like Mike Malloy while they are at it. if they can have all these far right wingers on, they ought to balance it with some leftists, then get a few mainstream liberals like Donohue, and liberal leaning moderates like Olbermann, Rather and Moyers. Of course, if they did that, it would show just how nuts the right wingers who host most of the msm newcasts really are. (It'd expose the crazy on the leftist side too, while showing the mainstream liberals and liberal leaning moderates as the sane, intelligent and normal viewpoints.)
... somebody refers to themself as a "Daily Show Liberal".
So... then what you are telling me is that the majority of the information you receive about current events and the conclusions and positions you've derived come from a comedy show.
The emails were sent to a former page, who must be at least 16 (the minimum age for a page). He may have been 17 by the time.
Being a "minor" is irrelevant. Age of consent is not. And these young men were above the age of consent, and therefore it is legal to proposition them, or even have sex with them. That being said, the emails known about two years ago were not even propositions - they were pretexts to propositions.
So Hastert was supposed to flip a lid when he learned that Congressman was doing something legal, simply because it was tacky or creepy?
Not anymore: they were good when they began but for the last couple of years they've become very US-centric (you can almost hear the US anthem in the background) and biased by comparisson with BBC, Dutch news and TV5 (french).
Mostly you can figure out the bias on CNN news from the stuff they don't show and by the way that when reporting on a conflict where the US or Israel are present, they concentrate on showing the "suffering", "valour" and "good reasons" of that side and ignore the fact that the other side also has "suffering", "value" and "good reasons".
They paint the world black and white (it's grey people, GREY) and the US and it's main allies are always painted as white as pure snow.
PS: I'm talking about CNN-international here.
... the only people in the New Testatment to act like them are the people that called for Jesus to be crucified and against who he directed many of his servants -- the Pharisees.
I meant sermons. "Against who he directed many of his sermons."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Plug in "good, Christian Americans" for the core group and terrorists and liberals for the enemy cultures, and you have Conservative America. Plug in "faithful Muslims" for the core group and Americans and apostate Arabs for enemy cultues, and you have Islamic Fundamentalism.
Plug in "labor collectivists" for the core group and plug in rich industrialists and Western capitalism, and you have the Soviet Union. Plug in "the German people" for the core group and "Jews and our old enemies from WWI," and you've got the Nazis. In the later two cases, Marxist collectivism replaces religion for the USSR, and worship of the state and of German ideals replace normal religion in the case of the Nazis.
However, the core concepts -- the group has a shared ethos, the group is superior to foreign groups because of this shared ethos, the group has an enemy that must be defeated, dissenters within are traitors who aid our enemies, strong hangups about sexual conduct, glorification of violence -- are universal to all human authoritarian systems. If anything, the moral ethos of the group is nothing but window-dressing and can often be ignored or perverted whenever is stands in opposition to the modus operandi of a tribal attitude. (e.g. Turn the other cheek, blessed are the peacemakers, Muslims doing no harm to other Muslims, etc.)
21st Century American Conservatism and Islamic Fundamentalism are just manifestations of the old human instinct to form tribes and go to war. There is nothing new under the sun, here. The differences you see are because you're on the inside, tryihg to elevate the status of your own group as moral and just while trying to demonize the other group as a bunch of crazed killers.
From the outside, you both look the same.
Anyone who is a regular fan of the Daily Show knows that there is some truth to what they say, but a lot of made up humor to put the icing on the cake. I will be the first to say that they do captivate thier audience with the humor variable, but it is not a legitimate source for news.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Is that 7% total? Or is that 7% for the station itself, but another chunk of money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which produces a lot of the content, and some more for other Federally-funded news sources?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Fox News... no particular show... that channel is evil