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.'"

Comments

Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

That the News has as little substance as The Daily Show?

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

That the real news is mainly fake too...

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Simon Garlick]

Yes, but the Daily Show is not SUPPOSED to have "substance". It's on the COMEDY CHANNEL for chrissakes.

To say that the Daily Show has as much substance as network news is a vague statement about the Daily Show; to say that the news has as little substance as the Daily Show is a sharp criticism of the news.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Greyfox]

Well the article might say that but I tend to find TDS more informative. If you want reasonably objective news, try NPR. They seem less biased than almost everyone else. Notice I don't say "not biased" so don't reply that they're so far left that one's dragging the ground. If you think that you're probably so far right that the wrong one's dragging the ground.

Anyway even with a couple of high qualty sources a few stories still fall through the cracks. If you really want to stay in the know, you need some helper monkeys to ferret out dirt for you. For example, the communications act that the house was debating a while back (S. 2686) from our good buddy Ted Stevens. You'd think the proposed regulations to the Internet would warrant comment from someone. But not so much... Likewise the Treasury department's mandate that Credit Card companies double their minimum payments last year. Didn't hear about that one on the news (Well NPR picked the story up 3 months after I got it.) Helper monkeys, yeah...

So go with NPR, the comedy central "News" shows and some helper monkeys and you'll be reasonably well informed. I'm still trying to convince my helper monkeys to blog but they don't seem to be in to the whole Internet thing (Which is pretty astounding considering how good they are at ferreting out information...)

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Just because it is on the Comedy Channel and you are supposed to laugh does not mean it is not substantive, insightful, critical, thought provoking, sad, true, accurate, dramatic, etc...

Of course then there are the fart jokes.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[JKConsult]

Well, technically, it's on what came out of the combination of The Comedy Channel and Ha!

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Jeremi]

Yes, but the Daily Show is not SUPPOSED to have "substance". It's on the COMEDY CHANNEL for chrissakes.

The Daily Show is an interesting (if perhaps unintentional) solution to the problem of political news. The problem is: politics either is so full of bullshit and spin that it disgusts people, or it's so dry and abstract that it bores people. Either way, the networks found that when they covered politics, their ratings went down, and when they covered other things (read: fluff), their rating went up. Their response was the obvious thing to do when you're in it for the money: cover the bare minimum of politics, and spend more time on other, more "fun" stuff.

The Daily Show, on the other hand, takes a different approach: it covers politics and makes its political coverage enjoyable to watch, by making it funny. Also, because it doesn't bill itself as a serious news show, it is free to say things that traditional news shows can't or won't (ironically, because they want to preserve their reputation for "objectivity", which is in tatters nevertheless... because objectivity is an impossible standard to reach, even in principle. One person's "straight facts" are another person's "obvious bias"). That means that there is often more information available in a TDS episode than in the news, because TDS isn't afraid to connect the dots for its viewers.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[timeOday]

Yes, but the Daily Show is not SUPPOSED to have "substance".

Why do you say that? If you follow the Daily Show you won't miss any major national stories. The fact that the stories are accompanied with (supposedly humorous) commentary doesn't really affect the information content.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[AFairlyNormalPerson]

"Yes, but the Daily Show is not SUPPOSED to have "substance". It's on the COMEDY CHANNEL for chrissakes."

I kind of thought that it WAS supposed to have substance... I mean, isn't that part of the joke?

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Pedrito]

Yes, but the Daily Show is not SUPPOSED to have "substance". It's on the COMEDY CHANNEL for chrissakes.

Yes and no. The daily show is supposed to be funny, but I think it's very clear that, on a certain level, it's about raising important issues. They do it by making fun of the ridiculously stupid things that are happening. Unfortunately, the current government in the U.S. is just a goldmine of material for them.

I'll give you an example. Back when the plot to blow up planes flying out of Britian was uncovered, they ran an episode where he was interviewing John Oliver, one of their "correspondants". The exchange went something like this:

Stewart: John, will these steps server to diffuse the threat is the question?

Oliver: Not at all John. Unfortunately there's a larger issue here. The fact is, the men arrested are British citizens, which means the form of government in Britian must not be democracy. For as you know, Democracy is the only known antidote to extremism.

Stewart: So what does that mean?

Oliver: It means ranging change John. America must topple the British government...

Now, funny, yes. Hysterical even. But look at what they're doing: They're showing how absolutely ludicrous the rhetoric of the current administration is. I don't know of a single news program that could show that in a clearer way than to do it with humor, as they have. It's incredibly effective.

So yes, they're on Comedy Central, but I don't think that means they should be or even try to be devoid of substance. On the contrary, I think humor is simply their way of delivering substance.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[lewp]

Oliver: It means ranging change John.

"regime"

There, now doesn't that... make sense?

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Rooked_One]

John Stewart is a true patriot. He was on crossfire a while back (i'm sure its on youtube or something). He reamed the hosts up and down for how they are doing a piss poor job of doing thier job, and instead are making it nothing but drivle. The hosts even had the nerve to compare their show to his, and he laughed at them and told them it was on comedy central.

I believe crossfire was canceled soon afterwards

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stewart shilling for the latest Democratic candidate?

You mean like when he compared the dems to Ewoks? Sure, that's a resounding recommendation. Sorry, but your post is nonsense. Do you even watch TDS?

I'd say you're projecting. If you think that opposition to Bush stems only from dems or liberals, then I'm sorry, but you're just plain wrong. There are plenty of right wingers, including almost every conservative who isn't either a religious loony or a neo-con, who dislike Bush for reasons ranging from the deficit (fiscal conservative my ass) to civil liberties (remeber when "rights" were a conservative ideal? It was what seperated us from the USSR for crying out loud!)

Stewart sounds like a cynical libertarian to me, not a liberal. He'll readily decry the democrats when they go against his own idea of right and wrong, or when they act spineless, or when they suck up to the neo-cons. He'd fit right in on /., which may explain his popularity here.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Korin43]

I agree, it wouldn't be nearly as funny if it wasn't true..

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[treke]

The transcripts are available online at CNN:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf. 01.html

STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: What is wrong with you?

Though I think his intention isn't to say that the Daily Show isn't intended to have substance, but acknowledge that they will sometimes sacrifice substance in favor of the presentation in a way that isn't appropriate for a program that intends to be taken seriously.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Osiris Ani]

"I recently read a survey that said that 30-40 percent of Americans get their news from late night comedy shows, and I just want to say one thing to those people... DON'T DO THAT! WE MAKE THINGS UP! WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING!"

- Jon Stewart {The Daily Show}

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the impression I got from the AC was that he doesn't agree with the assessment that Stewart is liberal, or a supporter of the Democratic party. Perhaps you didn't mean to imply he was, but saying the show had a "liberal slant" does give that impression.

I'd say that Stewart is a centrist and definately a cynic. By most international standards (I'm Canadian for the record), he's actually more conservative than liberal. Libertarian is perhaps a bit optimistic (I don't entirely agree with the other AC on that), but he certainly isn't liberal from where I'm standing.

Now, Stewart might support the Democrats over the Republicans on balance, but that isn't quite the same as having liberal bias. Disliking someone and liking their opposite aren't the same. And, softball interview with Kerry or no, he has gone to town on the Democrats more than once. If they controlled any branch of the government, he'd probably go after them more, since he seems to work by attacking the establishment.

Even if he does support a Democratic candidate, for him that might be as simple as wanting to restore balance of power; I've seen many Americans arguing in favour of having different parties in control of the different wings of government to keep them deadlocked. I could see him supporting a classical conservative candidate if the Republicans chose to field one.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[ivano]

Correct! People keep on saying how unsubstantive TDS is but it is the ONLY news program that I watch that regularly catches out what politicians say. A case in point: When the VP Dick Cheney said that he never said, or that he couldn't remember saying, that there was a link between Iraq and Al-Quaeda, the Daily Show was the only program to immediatedly follow that denial with the clip of him saying it. If this isn't *objective* journalism then I don't know what is.

The whole point of the press and news in general is to help the common guy/girl with how their democracy and their representatives are doing. I should not be expected to make a concerted effort everytime a politician says something to go through my archive of news bullentins stretching back a few years to see if the VP was lying/deceiving or not. It is the responsibility of the press and news to do the leg work for me in an objective way as possible. If one news organisation wants to say "he couldn't remember, which is different from lying so we won't pick up on it" that's fine; but I also expect some people to pick up on the codewords for "i know i said it but I'll play safe and hope the average viewer won't remember" which is what TDS did.

It's a fine line between a democracy that is for the people and a democracy that is for some of people.

Ciao

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[rynthetyn]

I'm about as conservative as you can get on most issues, but I still enjoy watching The Daily Show. I've found that those conservatives with a sense of humor and a willingness to laugh at the absurdity that is politics (and who are we kidding, the whole thing gets pretty bizarre at times) are more inclined to like The Daily Show. It's those who take themselves too seriously who don't like it.

Besides, if you actually want to know what people think, Jon Stewart's interviews are far more informative than those on the rest of cable news because they don't degenerate into screaming fests. Heck, I've even managed to convince my Limbaugh listening, Hannity watching parents that it's worth watching the show for the interviews, if nothing else.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[hey]

I actually thought Crossfire was kinda fun -- like a sport.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[rossifer]

That being young, politically liberal minded people.

Have you ever actually watched the show? Cause the Dems get lambasted as the unelectable (and worse than that) on a regular basis.

How many times do we really need to hear that Bush is a dumbfuck,

I'll take "at least once a day" until McCain gets elected, please (I'm a nonreligious conservative who thinks Bush has harmed this country in almost every way that matters and who doesn't feel well represented by most of our "religious-right" Republicans).

or see Stewart shilling for the latest Democratic candidate?

You can't possibly regularly watch the show. The only explanation for your statement is that you accidentally ended up there instead of watching Fox News for one episode where he was playing nice with a Dem and haven't been back since.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Bloggs_99]

But "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Court & Castle Jesters have a long history of saying politically emotive things in the form of jest or song. Saying things that would be unpalletable in serious conversation. And anyway Satire is the only logical way to treat politics. Politicians deserve to have the P*** taken. If you start to take them seriously, you might end up beleiving them, and that path leads to insanity.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Monkey-Man2000]

I noticed that as well, and IMDB.com cites Jon Stewart's appearance as the reason Crossfire was canceled. He should probably appear on some other CNN shows if he's the catalyst for cancellation, but what are the odds of that ever happening again?

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[CAIMLAS]

It would appear to me (from my limited viewing of the show) that he approaches it from a fairly Jeffersonian liberal perspective. In other words, both the Dems and Reps are (as he said) "hurting America". They're both terribly divergent from the ideal.

I do enjoy it, but being one of those "Jefferson liberals" who likes to see fiscal responsibility and a lack of government meddling, and thinks the government shouldn't have anything to do with what you're doing at home provided nobody othre than yourslef is being harmed, I still see a slight liberal slant to the show.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[RajivSLK]

To be fair CNN had dug up and aired all of the clips of Cheney's previous comments and they interviewed the CIA analyst, who's questions led Cheney to deny that he had previously claimed that there was a link between Al-Quaeda and IRAQ. They did all this BEFORE the daily even aired that night.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[quantaman]

Actually if wikipedia is to be believed Tucker Carlson, the conservative host of Crossfire that Stewart went the hardest on, actually resigned from Crossfire sometime before that for exactly the reasons that Stewart was talking about when he was on the show. That's probably the reason that he didn't fight back much, he actually agreed with what Stewart was saying.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[lubricated]

>> You do remember that he softball interviewed Kerry during his campaign, don't you?

He doesn't grill people that come on the show. In general he has celebrities and the interviews are usually about them. Essentially he softballs everyone because it's not a news show. Those aren't news interviews they are more akin as to what happens on the late show. Bush was also invited and he would have gotten the same treatment.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[MaxInBxl]

It seems obvious to me that you can make accurate political comments using humour. Sometimes (as parent points out) it is a lot [i]easier[/i] to use humour. Can't really remember what it's like in the US (I was a young at the time) but I know that satirical political shows abound on EU television channels. I'm guessing that TDS is in the same vein?

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[kalidasa]

Very nice repetition of Tucker Carlson's argument against The Daily Show on Crossfire in - what, 2004? Do you guys have some kind of handbook that you use to remind you what the Party Line is? Perhaps a Little Red Book?

Outright hatred of AMERICAN values? I've got news for you, buddy: Current Republican "values" are closer to al Qaeda's values than they are to American values. Most of your "values" issues are ones on which the average Wahabbist could nod his head in agreement.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Lumpy]

Think about this...

ONLY the daily show had the balls to sat that Senator Sicko was cranking off clum babys to little boys and trying to seduce them online.... plus connected that he was the bastard responsible for overseeing internet child safety.

FOX news, CNN, CNBC did not have the balls to call the senator what he is.

I give John Stewart way more credibility than any other TV journalist. All the other journalists are wishy washy, refuse to ask the hard questions, and only report what their controllers tell them to, and then candy coat it... unless it's about "TERROR"

and yes, this is very sad that a comedy show that is supposed to be giving us humor about the news turns out to be the only real source for news.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Dragonslicer]

If he's just a comedian, why should I listen to him criticize the news?

You don't see very many comedians, huh? That's kinda part of their job description.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Junior J. Junior III]

The problem is, the Daily Show is primarily interested in connecting the dots to "funny" and to the producers/creators/audiences biases, and not connecting the dots to "truth". There's often truth in humor, but there's just as often exaggeration, hyperbole, and outright falseness. I like the show because it's blunt and biased in a way that I find agreeable, but I can't say that I believe everything I hear on that show, or that I believe that they care passionately about "getting it right" every time out.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[gkhan1]

Boy, are you totally missing Jon Stewarts arguments.

His claim wasn't that Crossfire was biased, his claim was that Crossfire was political theater and nothing else. It was simply a show that featured people screaming their heads off at eachother, and Stewart argued that this is detrimental to the political climate. He said that it increased bi-partisanship, it increased disrespect for anyone not sharing all of ones views and it genereally increased division in America. He said that a news show has a responsibility to be clear, to be honest, to give every argument the time that it needed.

To this, Tucker Carlson responded "Well you went really easy on John Kerry. so you suck!", basically commiting all the sins Stewart had accused him off. The fact is this: it's not Jon Stewarts job to ask the hard questions. His job is to be entertaining, to provide a humorous commentary on the top stories in the news. When he has guests on, he treats them (unlike Carlson) with respect, he honestly asks their opinion and lets them give their views on different matters. If he debates them, he is kind and respectful, and he gives them the time to respond in a calm fashion. Tucker Carlson doesn't get this, because in his world-view, if you didn't mercilessly attack your guests, you're not doing your job. He is what is wrong with media in US today, and Stewart confronted him on it. And, to quote Stewart, he faught the law, and the law LOST!

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Shaper_pmp]

it is free to say things that traditional news shows can't or won't (ironically, because they want to preserve their reputation for "objectivity", which is in tatters nevertheless... because objectivity is an impossible standard to reach, even in principle. One person's "straight facts" are another person's "obvious bias").

Sorry - I agree with almost everything you said, but unless you were being sarcastic here I have to call complete bullshit.

1. The news media's credibility is in tatters because in the USA you lack a proper, independant news media - almost every show or channel is shilling for one party or the other, separated only by degree. The fact is that the news media isn't even trying for objectivity any more, let alone trying and failing.

2. Objectivity is an "impossible standard to reach", but then so is "law-abiding", "equality" and "moral". That doesn't stop anyone from agreeing we should try to be each of those, so why does it excuse the news media's descent into partiality?

Maybe you weren't offering this phrase as any kind of excuse, but it's the favourite get-out of media-bias apologists and a pet hate of mine so I'm kind of on a hair-trigger for it now - apologies if so.

3. "Straight facts" are straight facts, and "obvious bias" is obvious bias. People always try to claim their opinions are facts, but these people are wrong. Please don't imply they're in any way interchangeable, even jokingly. There are plenty of fuckwits out there who honestly believe this is true already.

These people also often try to claim that "obvious facts" are "someone else's opinion". These people are retreating from reality, refusing to confront essential facts, and are arguably therefore not merely wrong, but actually insane.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[GregWebb]

Agreed.

Over here, some of the best investigative journalism about government and corporate failings I've ever seen was on the Mark Thomas Comedy Product - http://www.mtcp.co.uk/.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Shaper_pmp]

I think this is kind of the point of the article - news shows should be aiming at True and Informative, and are frequently missing.

The Daily Show is aiming at Funny and still hitting True or Informative as often as the news shows.

In addition, you know the Daily Show isn't aiming primarily at True or Informative, so you don't automatically believe everything you hear, but are more likely to check elsewhere for confirmation.

News shows claim a monopoly on Truth and Informativeness, and rely on a historical veneer of impartiality to stop people checking up on them elsewhere.

Thus the Daily Show is arguably a better primary source of information than mainstream news shows - at least it admits it's inaccurate, and tries relatively hard to skewer both main parties equally. That's way better than a one-sided partial propaganda organ that nevertheless claims it's "fair and balanced"...

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[ivano]

Also not to forget the guests that plug their books. Heck half of my reading material seems to come from watching that show and saying "hey that looks like a good book to read". Currently I'm reading "No god but God" by Reza Aslan (no link since I'm not whoring :)

In fact, I would love to compare the reading list between TDS and, say, O'Reilly Factor.

Ciao

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Ubergrendle]

He's thrown softballs to Bill O'Reilly and that Afghan Hound Lookalike Ann Coulter, even though you KNOW he's ready to annihilate them with a small burst of logical discourse 101. His interview segments are very soft fluff; if they weren't, no one would ever go on his show. Remember Rosie O'Donnell? Not my cup-o-tea, but she had a highly rated talk show UNTIL she ambushed Tom Selleck on the topic of gun control. After that she couldn't book any guests, and her show suffered... it was doom.

If Bush had shown up for an interview before his 2nd term, he too would probably have gotten a soft interview. Now there's just too much baggage to let him off; he barely shows up in public for fear of being subpoenaed and/or indicted I suspect.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[stunt_penguin]

The interview with the Pakistani Leader, to which the show dedicated half the programme (or at least the version of the programme shown here in Ireland by Channel 4- we get every programme the evening after), was IMHO a superb piece of journalism and actually managed to shed new light on the interviewee, rather than just pester him with the same 10 questions he gets on every onther news station.

Many a serious thing is said in jest.

Anyway, thein joking about how 'convenient' that it was that this story leaked just a month before the mid-terms, the programme unintentionally provoked in me a little conspiracy theory I came up with (but don't give that much credence to) about the Republicans; on Friday the house voted to redefine the rights afforded to prisoners in U.S custody.... something that deserves massive media coverage as it's a sign of the creeping 1984 state that seems just around the corner.....

Instead the media circus has contentrated on this insignificant little paedophile prick who won't even appear in the footnotes of history, taking the heat off of a law which gives Bush (for it is he who now defines what torture is) the right to treat prisoners in whatever way he sees fit.

Pfft.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[kalidasa]

Note to mods: parent posting (my own posting) is *not* a +5 post. I expected to get hit for flamebait on this, but I am sick and tired of Republicans talking about how they and only they represent "American values" - especially now that we can see that the Emperor has no clothes (when he's IMing his pages).

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[hey!]

The Daily Show is an interesting (if perhaps unintentional) solution to the problem of political news

Let's look at it through the other end of the telescope. You show why the Daily Show is beter entertainment than the evening news. The question we should be asking is, why is it better news than the evening news?

The answer came to me when I was thinking about the obvious liberal bias of the show. Now before liberal fans of the show skewer me, let me say that I am a liberal fan of the show. Every show has, not just one bias, but many biases. You have to understand how those biases rank against each other.

TDS has a liberal bias to be sure, but that's not it's greatest bias. It's greatest bias is a mocking bias.

TV news has much less political bias, but it's the other biases that reaslly matter. Like TDS, TV news has to make a profit. But nobody would watch it if they didn't take it seriously. Safeguarding its legitimacy means not offending people and not rocking the boat too much. The result is so insipid that it would be unbearable to watch if they didn't throw in a little entertainment. But not entertainment that is so entertaining people forget that they're really serious.

This is where the epiphany hit me. The institution of the great daily newspaper is withering. TV news is so emasculated by its medium it is just plodding mindlessly through the motions. The Daily Show, whose primary bias is to mock, has accidentally stepped into the vacant role of the adversarial press. It takes great courage to speak truth to power. It takes great courage to tell people things they need to hear but which offend them. Unless, maybe, you do it with a smirk. Nobody wants to be poor sport.

It doesn't hurt that Jon Stewart has turned out to be one of the most interesting interviewers around. His selection of guests, if you took out the entertainment celebrities, would not be out of place for Jim Lehrer, except somehow I retain more from the Stewart interviews. Judged by the Fr. Sarducci five minute university test, only Terry Gross is better.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[indifferent children]

How many times do we really need to hear...

Until it sinks in.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Johnny5000]

I'd say you're projecting. If you think that opposition to Bush stems only from dems or liberals, then I'm sorry, but you're just plain wrong. There are plenty of right wingers, including almost every conservative who isn't either a religious loony or a neo-con, who dislike Bush for reasons ranging from the deficit (fiscal conservative my ass) to civil liberties (remeber when "rights" were a conservative ideal? It was what seperated us from the USSR for crying out loud!)

Stewart sounds like a cynical libertarian to me, not a liberal. He'll readily decry the democrats when they go against his own idea of right and wrong, or when they act spineless, or when they suck up to the neo-cons. He'd fit right in on /., which may explain his popularity here.

The first paragraph you point out the conservatives who don't like Bush, but the second paragraph you make it seem like if Stewart doesn't like the Democrats, he must not be a liberal.

Most liberals I know are disappointed by the current batch of Democrat politicians, and are perfectly willing to vocalize their displeasure with the spinelessness and neo-con sucking-up. That doesn't necessarily make them Libertarians. Most of them will hold their nose and vote for the Democrat anyway, since the alternative is probably worse.

Hooray for American politics!

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Any law with drawn with intent to influence church attendance. Many of the can't purchase alcohol on Sunday or before noon on Sunday fall into this category.

Oh, how about prayer in school? Hrmm, religious indoctrination? Going even further, wanting to teach a Philosophy as a science (Creationism and ID).

Laws banning sexual behavior amongst consenting adults because a religious text says its bad.

The "value" that a child in the system shouldn't be adopted to a loving and qualified Gay couple based on their sexual orientation. No it's way better to keep those kids in the system - where no one gives a shit, than to let them be exposed to homosexuality. It's not like their getting raped in group homes anyway.

Capital punishment through inhumane means. I guess it's not enough that were killing these fuckers (real Christian by the way), no we have to do it in a painful manner. Electric chairs and hangings. I guess a lethal injection is just to good for them.

Decency and obscenity laws. Are you fucking kidding me? Who the hell are you to dictate personal taste. While there should be laws in place to protect people from being exploited and manipulated. Consenting adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to as long as there is no harm to outside parties. Is there some material you don't want your kid to see, you control your own kid. Not limit what the adults can do because you suck as a parent.

The suspension of Habeas Corpus.

How that for starters?

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[cduffy]

I do not submit that most republicans believe all of the below. I do submit that the present (neoconservative) Republican leadership has been acting in a manner consistant with them, however -- and I've been fairly careful to only select items which I can find quotes or actions from present leadership to back up. (That's not to say that I'm necessarily interested in doing so, however). These are only the items off the top of my head; there are certainly many more.

Again: I'm not accusing you of believing these things. I'm accusing the people you helped to elect of acting in a manner consistant with them (and frequently espousing them openly).

• Government has a legitimate role in enforcing personal morality.
• Unilateral use of force for purposes other than immediate defense of oneself or one's allies is not inherently illegitimate.
• Achieving military objectives is more important than maintaining personal liberties.
• A free media threatens legitimate governmental interests unless placed under substantial controls.
• A strong, empowered leader granted wide powers (with which to attack our enemies) is a Good Thing.
• The executive branch of government may have a legitimate need to act outside of the law, and should be able to prevent laws from being enforced which could hamper its actions (when those actions are taken in the interests of national security).
• The executive branch of government should be able to avoid transparency when it sees fit, including in cases where it uses its powers to act in a manner not consistant with standing law in the interests of national security.
• Questioning strong leadership in the context of an active conflict is inherently unpatriotic.
• Noncitizens do not need to be granted the same rights as citizens.

Finally, there has absolutely been a departure from the fiscally conservative policies which the Republican party once stood for. I used to support the Republicans on fiscal matters, the Democrats on social ones and the Libertarians at the ballot box; presently, I am obliged to throw my support behind the Dems until we switch to a system of elections (such as Instant Runoff Voting) which would allow me to express a more nuanced view of my beliefs at the ballot box.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[kthejoker]

Any good book on the relativity of truth will tell you that the word "fact" is itself a fiction. It's like lying with statistics. It's not the facts that are important, it's how they are displayed and presented. It's as important what is not shown as what is shown. And that's what the original poster is getting at. Even the most apolitical entity will show bias if one looks for it.

Consider two economic facts: New home sales in America rose by 1.1% in August. New home sales in America rose by 0.9% in September.

Consider the presentation of these two facts:

"More new homes were sold."
"Sales of new homes are slowing."
"The housing market is in decline."
"The housing market is stagnant."
"The housing market is growing at a steady rate."
"Housing is showing a seasonal decline."

What biases can you discover in these?

Then consider all the assumptions about capitalism, economic rent, urban growth, the arbitrary granularity of "one month" in determining economic output, the use of percentages rather than dollar values (possibly hiding a rise in low-cost housing), the environment, sociological norms, cultural values, and the relevance of monthly new home sales on any future decision you may make in your lifetime.

What about the economics report that ignores this metric altogether, but focuses on the rise in consumer spending instead? What about the report that ignores the rise in spending to focus on this decline in housing? (Is housing even in decline?)

No single entity can hope to glean all the facts on an issue, and there are no doubt conflicting reports about the current state of the economy, diplomacy, the arts, health care, etc. at any given moment. To suggest that with all the facts on the table one can come to a rock-solid conclusion - that somehow interpretation of facts is devoid of bias - is not just wrong, but preposterous.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[theonetruekeebler]

I think he was basically toying with O'Reilly. But he's run roughshod over a couple of guests. Bill Bennett had his ass handed to him, but he pretty much asked for it. Stewart is a very bright man, quick-witted but generally civil. The occasions when he tears into somebody are rare and an awful lot of fun.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[g1zmo]

"Straight facts" are straight facts, and "obvious bias" is obvious bias.

Here's my take:

The only bit of journalism that is just "straight facts" is the police blotter (in newspapers that still have one). Everything else is written by someone who chooses words and phrases to evoke specific emotions and color the facts with their own bias. That doesn't necessarily imply the intent to deceive or spin or otherwise brainwash the reader. It's just a natural result of a writer conveying information to a reader.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[drinkypoo]

It isn't a real solution because it's narrowly focused on a specific target audience. That being young, politically liberal minded people.

I think people who have no idea what their political views are watch it, too. These people are a larger group than you [appear to] think.

How many times do we really need to hear that Bush is a dumbfuck

Perhaps until he's been impeached?

Clinton was taken to court for a blowjob. Bush has illegally wiretapped citizens, his people have stolen two elections, including through illegal influence of supreme court justices. And he's sending our youth to die so that companies owned/controlled by his cronies can make money.

I think we need to hear it a few more times.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[drinkypoo]

The republican party has been hijacked by the religious right. this is not just propaganda, this is a fact. Our president said on national television that he believes that god works through him, in so many words. He has repeatedly cited religious motivation for his decisions.

Abortion is not a straw man issue. It is a fundamental religious debate at its root. Most people agree that it's wrong to take life (although as others have pointed out, the death penalty is a rejection of that supposedly christian value and law of god, "thou shalt not kill") but the religious aspect enters the picture when we talk about when life begins. Hell, we can't even agree on what life means. To me, it's when you're capable of both learning and cognitive thought, which in my book reduces it to a scientific question, but that is not what the religious right feels. To them, it's a question of faith.

I firmly believe that the republican party is under the control of the religious right, and of big/old money. Are you aware that the republican party used to be the party of small government and states' rights? And that the definition of conservative is that you support control of people's lives, but not of the market, whereas the definition of liberal is the opposite? But now, both parties want to control business in different ways, and your life in different ways. Republicans want to enact laws that give advantages to some businesses, and to require that you live your life by the bible (again, because the party is under the control of the religious right.) Democrats want to enact laws that regulate all businesses, and to require that you live your life in a way that will not offend anyone.

Both parties are utterly corrupt, but the major difference is that the republicans' plan will lead us to the world of 1984 much quicker. I think both parties' roads lead there, however.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[kalidasa]

All of your "wedge" issues: gay marriage - al Qaeda is against gay marriage, too. Abortion: al Qaeda is fundamentally against a woman's right to choose - and not just whether or not to have a child. Divorce: al Qaeda has many of the same views about divorce that you'll hear from a lot of right-wing radio commentators. Children born out of wedlock. Prayer in schools - al Qaeda simply goes further and says it should be mandatory, five times a day, and in Arabic. All the things that you Repugnicans (anyone who refers to the "Democrat" party will get called a "Repugnican" from now on) tell the poor semi-educated blue collar folks are "American values" or family values. However, the real American values of democracy, freedom of thought, belief, assembly, and speech, bipartisanship, going to war only when attacked and only against the people who directly attacked us or our allies - things al Qaeda would disagree with, that is - don't seem to be a part of your platform anymore. Used to be that Republicans were conservatives who understood that, back in the good old days of Bush 39 - hell, even Reagan understood a lot of that. But not today.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[dan_bethe]

Apparently, his mind is too rational to process such a ridiculous and nonsensical vernacular.

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[tonyr1988]

Yes, but Stewart himself said that the goal of TDS isn't supposed to be content. He said (paraphrased), "I come on after a show about puppets making prank phone calls!"

Re:Wouldn't it be better to say...

[Kingrames]

The show doesn't have a liberal slant.

It's just that much easier to make jokes about so-called "Conservatives."

Seriously, the jokes they tell about Democrats are just as funny. One I remember is back when the government completely flopped on the Katrina cleanup, Jon Stewart said something along the lines of "I don't know how the Democrats could possibly pass up the opportunity to take advantage of the situation, but you know they're going to."

Well duh

[Ignorant Aardvark]

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.

Re:Well duh

[Jhon]

Yeah... and I'm sure it wasn't an accident that CNN stuck an X over Cheney... Bah. I once saw CNN mislabel Syria as Iraq on a map graphic once. I'm sure CNN wasn't trying to erase Syria... I'm sure CNN wasn't trying to erase Cheney. I'm also sure Fox wasn't trying to convince viewers Foley was a democrat...

Re:Well duh

[Aardpig]

But why did they put "Mark Foley (D)" at the bottom of the screen? When Foley is a congressional Republican? Are you retarded or something?

Re:Well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the main stream media was trying to portray Gary Condit as a conservative Republican?

It even confused the folks at C-SPAN, as seen in this video. One would think that they would have been more informed.

This is from the New York Times web site (bold added):

National Briefing | West: California: Support For Condit Challenger

Sens Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein will support Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, one of several Democrats, in California primary for candidate to run against incumbent Republican Repr Gary Condit for House seat
January 26, 2002 News web site:

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.

Re:Well duh

[randomiam]

With quality on point analysis like that, you should consider a career in broadcasting!
JK. I'm not poking fun at you, rather the lazy, lazy members of the press who don't get much deeper than the press release on any given event. (Bastards. Wish I could phone in my work.)

Re:Well duh

[Monkeyboy4]

If you RTFA, the researcher did a content analysis process that has been used for decades to ascertain the amount of coverage on 'issues v image' where issues are defined as those topics that are on a partiy's or candidate's platform. The definition of substance is right there in TFA.

The problem is that social scientests efine things in TFA that they publish, and journalists try to make them look intereting when they are bounded conversations about specific variables. However, in this case,The Daily Show covered less marketing adn more real news. Go them!

Re:Well duh

[PhreakOfTime]

By your very own words, you fail to see the difference in these 'mistakes'.

I once saw CNN...

both events of which you describe were LIVE programs. Bill O'liely is a recorded show. This 'mistake' also appeared on the AP news wire... Not only describing Foley as (D), but also the now pressured Hastert as the (D) from Illinois. Im not really sure what kind of misleading information a almost imperceptible graphic of an 'x' during a live interview would give you, but obviously we have different thought processes.

Link that show the 'mistaken label' all over the place.

Keep smiling, it could never happen here. Just like you have always been told...

Re:Well duh

[Aardpig]

IIRC, 50% of Americans think that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. 50%. That's unbelievable. Why do they think this? Because that's what Fox told them.

If Fox tells the cattle (deliberately, IMHO) that Foley is a democrat, they'll believe them.

Re:Well duh

[gaijin99]

There's a saying, "Once is coincidence, twice is hapenstance, three times is enemy action". FOX news labeled Foley as "D-FL" in three separate instances. I could see it as a typo if it had happened once, but three separate times? Nope, I'm pretty sure its because FOX knows that the vast majority of their viewers never watch any other news source so they know they can say anything they want to and their viewers will believe it.

Re:Well duh

[Grym]

Perhaps you grew up in this type of atmosphere and find it acceptable, but what you are describing, is in no way whatsoever 'reasonable'.

I have to agree. It's really kind of sad, though. The O'Reilly factor used to be such a good show, and I'm being entirely serious. This may be hard for you to believe, but there's a reason why he became so popular: he was good. Sure, he was mostly conservative, but he used to a respectable analyst that called it as he fairly as he could. In fact, I think if most people who dislike O'Reilly read his books, they'd probably find themselves agreeing with him more than they didn't.

Unfortunately, he sold out--ironically enough to the "media establishment" that he spoke out so boldly against in his books and previous programs... It's hard to say when, but by my observations it happened approximately six months or so before that sex scandal story became public. When it happened, though, the difference was night and day. All of the sudden, the hard-hitting stories disappeared and were replaced by the "child predator"/flag-burning tripe that characterizes our "news" these days. I can't even watch the show anymore, and this is coming from someone who used to have a "The Spin Stops Here"-doormat in font of his appartment.

Make no mistake; this incident was no accident. As others have mentioned, the O'Reilly factor is a pre-recorded flagship show. The mistakes that typically characterize the 24-hour news networks simply do not happen on these shows. I'm not one to advocate consipiracies, but somebody was definitely pulling the strings on this one...

-Grym

Re:Well duh

[squiggleslash]

What typo? We're talking about a situation where Fox, in a pre-recorded show, in full view of the producers of the show, put up a caption three times describing Foley as a Democrat.

There is no possible way in which Fox could have not known that this was inaccurate and in the show before they broadcast it, nor any way in which it is believable that they would have found it too difficult to fix had it been a genuine "mistake." They broadcast it anyway.

A typo is an accidental mistype you fail to spot before publication. Not a deliberate lie you deliberately allow to be published.

Re:Well duh

[Suggestive Language]

Stop lying. Just. Stop.

Remember the old slogan

[LostCluster]

The Daily Show: Where more Americans get their news than probably should.

Old news.

[khasim]

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.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/28/comedy.po litics/

The issue isn't that The Daily Show is so much better ... it's that network news sucks so bad.

Or as Mr. Stewart put it (paraphrased) "The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls".

Re:Old news.

[crazygamer]

If you'd read the article you linked to it talks about The Daily Show vs. The Tonight Show and The Late Show. I wouldn't call either of those network news.

Re:Old news.

[drooling-dog]

The issue isn't that The Daily Show is so much better ... it's that network news sucks so bad.

The big problem is that the mainstream media merely report what politicians say with a straight face, and avoid pointing out the absurdities and hypocrisies behind those statements. Why? Because to do so would make them appear "unobjective". In an environment where politics is a three-ring circus, it takes a comedy show to reveal how things really are done.

How can you say that?

[tkrotchko]

CBS has that hard hitting bastion of reporting "Katie Couric".

How can you take Jon Stewart more seriously than perky Katie?

Puppets making prank calls..

[sponga]

are before the show for godsake!

Weak, ver weak. But typical.

[Frosty Piss]

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".

Re:Weak, ver weak. But typical.

[kjart]

This is very weak, and very typical of Slashdot "editing".

For once this doesn't really have anything to do with Slashdot editing. The linked to article makes the same extrapolation. The actual title of the study is apparently No Joke: A Comparison of Substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Broadcast Network Television Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign. I dont see any links to it, but it sounds like it supports that case for at least that specific story. Generalizing the specifics of a story for the purposes of headlines is pretty common amongst news sources.

Re:Weak, ver weak. But typical.

[dave420]

+5, Confused

If you read the article, it's saying that the news offers as much substance as The Daily Show, not that either does a good job of being a news show. Basically, it's calling the state of US news shitty.

Entertainment = Retention

[eldavojohn]

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.

Re:Entertainment = Retention

[Headcase88]

"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."

That was probably the funniest shit on TDS ever, which is saying a lot. Zell is a cartoon-like madman, wishing he could challenge people to duels and complaining that there are fire safety warnings but no warnings about sinning, I'm not even quoting or explaining the situtation any further because you simply have watch this segment to get the hilarity. (This whole thing is funny, but if you want Zell, skip to 3:15). I can't find the fire safety sign one though.

Accountable Recordkeeping

[kingbilly]

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.

Re:Accountable Recordkeeping

[LaughingCoder]

None of the big news outlets dare show such a stunt because that would make public figures accountable.

Actually, I think the reason the big news outlets don't do this is because they would lose access to the public figures, who would cut them off. And then TDS's ability to show these clips would disappear as well, since many of the clips *come from* the big news outlets. Sadly, it seems either we accept the soft-and-chewy reporting of the big news outlets as it is, or we get nothing, as the pols will simply stop talking to the media.

Re:Accountable Recordkeeping

[cgenman]

If the pols stop talking to the media, they won't get their face in the public. If they don't get that exposure, who will vote for them?

The politicians need the media a lot more than the media needs the politicians.

Colbert and Stewart for 2008

[1155]

The other candidates wouldn't matter, Colbert and Stewart would win by a landslide. I'd actually register to vote them into office.

The article doesn't say the Daily Show is good.

[Freedryk]

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.

Not very strange

[Tony]

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.

News programs ARE entertainment.

[khasim]

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.

Re:News programs ARE entertainment.

[thrillseeker]

The Daily Show SHOULD be operating with a handicap. They have to focus solely on the items that they can turn into a joke.

With a nod to Mark Twain, I can think of 535 starting points that should provide rich sources for jokes.

Re:News programs ARE entertainment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, they are ALL about "entertainment".

True. This is why CBS hired Katie Couric as their evening news anchor. If they were a little smarter they would have hired Jon Stewart and Dennis Miller as coanchors.

On a side note, I think Colbert best summed up the reporting/entertainment quality of the morning news shows when they recently took one of his clips out of context.

Re:News programs ARE entertainment.

[TubeSteak]

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.

What they've abandoned is a pretense at being Truthful.

Balanced & Objective != Truth

News programs nowadays keep trying to present "both" sides of an issue. Well... not everything has two sides.

There are facts. Not everyone's opinion or interpretation of those facts is equal to everyone else's.

The Daily Show is what would be considered advocacy journalism (as opposed to objective journalism). Advocacy journalism "is fact-based, but supports a specific point of view on one or more issues."

Re:News programs ARE entertainment.

[madprogrammer]

> When was the last time you saw actual analysis and comparisons of a politician's statements on a regular news program.

When Bill Clinton was president.

Re:News programs ARE entertainment.

[Roger W Moore]

When was the last time you saw actual analysis and comparisons of a politician's statements on a regular news program.

After living in the US for several years (and having generally stopped watching the news because it did not contain any news) I caught a BBC world service interview with a US diplomat about the US opposition to the international criminal court. The interviewer literaly wiped the floor with this guy but without, in any way, being hostile or argumentative - she did it simply by asking questions and using his answers against him to point out the utter absurdity of his position. Like Jon Stewart but in a serious fashion.

After seeing that interview it was immediately clear to me why I hated the regular US news: they never ask sensible questions and follow up by pointing out the complete absurdity of the responses. I guess that part of the reason for this is that if they did start to ask tough questions they would lose priviliged access to the president which would then kill their career.

It seems to me that the US has a system which claims freedom of the press but then imposes relatively severe consequences if a reporter were to exercise that freedom. In my opinion this is very unhealthy thing for a democracy.

Re:News programs ARE entertainment.

[kwoff]

The Daily Show has SMART people working for it.

I think that is the entire explanation. They have smart people, and they put an effort into producing something of quality. The normal news channels, on the other hand, are interested in presenting news in a way that appeals to as many people as possible, by putting the least amount of effort into it as possible. Just like websites or anything else, content is what matters.

There's a billboard here that says "Elegance is in the details". That's exactly right; anything of quality, you have to work on it, like a work of art.

Re:News programs ARE entertainment.

[M1FCJ]

BBC is very good. My favourite is BBC Radio 4's Today programme with their very aggressive questioning tactics. OTOH, they had a huge scandal with the sexing up affair.

The fact that such grilling of politicians and officials is possible in UK shows how the democracy and self-critisism functions in UK. All I can see from American news sources is grovelling or very deep rhetoric divided through the party lines, rejecting everything the others do. Here the same anchorman can grill the Tories one day and do his best against Labour the next day or even minute - leave alone their own political ideas (James Naughtie of Today Programme supports Labour but still grills Labour ministers in an utter merciless way.

Network news doesn't suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

My AP World History teacher recommended it

[i.of.the.storm]

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.

The What?

[John Hasler]

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?

Re:The Main Difference

[schwaang]

Is that the Daily show comes with a large dose of cynicism.

One could argue that the real difference is that broadcast news is cynical and doesn't know it.

Why? Because while I find the cynicism of Stewart and especially Colbert to be quite corrosive, it's seeing bullsh*t delivered with a straight face on the network news that makes me really cynical. Having Stewart call them on it reminds me that sanity is not completely lost.

Deep Truth

[Gorimek]

A journalist can tell you facts.

A comedian can tell you truths.

Re:Deep Truth

[TeamSPAM]

So you're a fan of truthiness? You'd rather have truthy, not facty. >;-)

(I know it' the wrong show, but it's from a spin-off of the Daily Show.)

Take it from an American

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Take it from an American

[Arivia]

The CBC? They're very good, but I've grown up with them.

Re:Take it from an American

[dave420]

The BBC's politeness is due to them refraining from using biassed language ("bombers" versus "terrorists", etc.). They do do some very deep investigations - I don't know if they make it to the US (BBC News 24 is just one tiny facet of the reporting).

Trying to find one news source to get your news is a bad idea - more than one source is essential, just to make sure you're getting as much information as possible.

Re:Take it from an American

[be-fan]

The economist is very good. They've got something of a libertarian bias, but they're open about it. There analysis is much more in-depth than what you'll see most other places.

Re:Take it from an American

[Will Sargent]

The Christian Science Monitor has a decent news website, csmonitor.com. They actually do a pretty good job of reporting events (although their analysis reflects their bent, of course).

Re:Stewart's grown boring...

[Validus]

>> "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 about CNN?!?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/26/killer.teddy.ap/i ndex.html?section=cnn_offbeat

Re:The Main Difference

[hey]

Why do you have a link to cynicism? Do you think other people don't know that word.

Newspapers, anyone?

[Cutie Pi]

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.

Re:Newspapers, anyone?

[glesga_kiss]

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.

How to Watch TV News is a fascinating analysis on just why that is. In summation, TV as a different form of media compared to print isn't suited to news with the exception of visual news such as national disasters. For politics and international affairs, TV news doesn't have the time to spend on each issue to give much information across. Instead you get sound bites. On the other hand, Katrina and 9-11 were ratings goldmines.

Ultimately it always comes down to ratings, the bottom line in any media endevour. Americans also don't like bad news, which is why Newsweek localises it's cover for the US market. Example (27 Sept 2006): internationally the cover story was "losing Afganistan". In the states, they got a fluff piece about the photographer Annie Leibovitz.

It saddens me that today's youth brags about getting all their news from the daily show while newspaper circulation is in rapid decline.

I'm not sure that they are saying that it's their only source though. For me it's the only US news source I trust, but I round it off with many other international sources. I'm finding blogs are the best these days, simply to act as a filter onto media I wouldn't normally read. Take the Christian Science Monitor; normally I'd stay the hell away from them simply based on their name (Christian science?), but I've read some linked articles on there from time to time that are changing my preconceptions on them.

Re:Flawed Study

[Jeff DeMaagd]

TDS may be left wing but they do mock the Democrats a lot. Jon Stewart even called them Ewoks once in reference to their powerlessness, mocked John Kerry many times, as well as picked on many other Democrats. Stewart has even said in interviews with other shows that the Democrat's message is weak to the point of being worthless that they really aren't an effective alternative to sway voters away from the Republicans.

Highest bidder

[Xybot]

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?

Oh gods....

[SvnLyrBrto]

> 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

Re:Flawed Study

[eieken]

You sir, are an idiot. It is as if you haven't ever watched the show, you know full well that they attack both democrats and republicans equally. Both extreme sides of the political spectrum are very good fodder for a political comedian. In case you haven't noticed, the democrats haven't been much in the spotlight since the republicans took both houses, therefore there is very little news to make fun of.

Re:Come On

[tb3]

Apparently Stewart no longer cares about balancing his show for the opinions of his more conservative viewers.

No, not really, he just knows his audience.

He realized a long time ago that Republicans have no sense of humor.

And, they're all child molesters.

Re:Amen...Duh

[Tuna_Shooter]

"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 !!!

Colbert legitimizes TDS

[jcausey]

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.

Re:Fox does this to many, not just Foley

[Coryoth]

It could be worse. One of the major channels in New Zealand "accidentally" had a caption that listed President Bush as a "professional facsist". I believe te official comment from the TV station essentially amounted to "Oops".

CNN carries it, outside the US. Really.

[Shag]

It's on the COMEDY CHANNEL for chrissakes.

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. ;)

Worse? Not so...

[Animaether]

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.

NPR/PBS is strongly biased - but intelligent

[billstewart]

Of course NPR's biased. They're the government-funded news station (that's the US definition of "the government", which is the larger entity, as opposed to the definition in parliamentary-structure states, where it's "the current folks at the top".) They're not an outright propaganda station like the Voice Of America, or even a more neutral government mouthpiece like the BBC, and they're a high-quality intelligent and competent group of people, but they're still biased. Their biases are in favor of the overall establishment structure, though mostly neutral about different parties within that establishment. They think the US government should be out doing things, though not always the precise things it's doing, and they're in favor of it being big enough to fund the Arts, including themselves, though they also do their pledge drives. Listen to the Jim Lehrer News Hour some time - they're consistently carrying stories on "What's the government in Washington doing, and how does the rest of the world feel about it", because that's what they think is important. (And yes, there are differences between NPR, PBS, CPB, and their relatives, but they're close enough to lump together.

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.)

Re:CNN carries it, outside the US. Really.

[Dionysus]

They do put a disclaimer in front. Then again, I don't think most people take CNN seriously as a newschannel outside the US.

Re:The Main Difference

[HyperHyper]

This side thread was amusing... it got pushed up a notch when the "low hanging fruit" expression was misused by the guy who posted the link to cynicism because some people just don't get it. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/low_hanging_fruit
I almost think he did it on purpose... that's what my cover story would be.

Re:What about this article?

[DudemanX]

IMO, Jay Leno's monologue is an equally good news source.

Yeah, but the Daily Show is funny.

Re:Come On

[cje]

I think the fact that you're (apparently) unwilling to accept "open criticism" of the American government says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about Jon Stewart.

Re:The Main Difference

[blast flame]

I don't think that will work in practice by might as well give it a try... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/one en.wikipedia.org/wiki/two en.wikipedia.org/wiki/three en.wikipedia.org/wiki/four en.wikipedia.org/wiki/five en.wikipedia.org/wiki/six en.wikipedia.org/wiki/seven en.wikipedia.org/wiki/eight en.wikipedia.org/wiki/nine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ten en.wikipedia.org/wiki/eleven en.wikipedia.org/wiki/twelve en.wikipedia.org/wiki/thirteen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fourteen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fifteen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sixteen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/seventeen

The Daily Show vs. O'Reilly

[ben there...]

If you'd read the article you linked to it talks about The Daily Show vs. The Tonight Show and The Late Show. I wouldn't call either of those network news.

How about an article that compares The Daily Show to O'Reilly?

Summary: Bill O'Reilly asserted that "[m]any Americans ages 18 to 24 have no idea what's going on," stating that they "get their news from [Comedy Central host] Jon Stewart and their point of view from bomb-throwing entertainers." In fact, studies have shown that viewers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are consistently better informed about current events than consumers of other media, and Daily Show viewers are significantly better educated than viewers of The O'Reilly Factor. Further, consumers of Fox News in general have been found to be significantly more misinformed about current events than consumers of other mainstream media.

In 2004, the nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center released its National Annenberg Election Survey, which found Daily Show viewers to be better informed on campaign issues than consumers of other late-night television programs, newspapers, network news, or cable news.

The survey asked respondents to answer a six-question quiz designed to measure "political knowledge." Daily Show viewers ages 18 to 29 scored higher than those who consumed any amount of network news, any amount of newspapers, or one to three days of cable news; young Daily Show viewers scored the same as young viewers who watched four or more days of cable news.

Additionally, an October 2003 study conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy (PIPA) found Fox News viewers were "significantly more likely to have misperceptions" about the Iraq war than all other media consumers. The study was "based on a series of seven US polls conducted from January through September" 2003 and measured respondents' "key perceptions and beliefs" on "US policy" in Iraq. The study found that "[t]hose who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions." For instance, of the "three key misperceptions" -- which the study listed as "the beliefs that ... links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq" -- Fox News watchers were found not only to be the "most likely to hold misperceptions," but "were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions." The PIPA study found that 80 percent of Fox News viewers held at least one of the three misperceptions.

Re:CNN carries it, outside the US. Really.

[hkmwbz]

You are kidding, right? CNN is considered to be big and important outside the US.

Re:Come On

[TobascoKid]

Apparently Stewart no longer cares about balancing his show for the opinions of his more conservative viewers

Maybe that's because the Democrats haven't done anything funny recently (only a party in power would have the consistent opprotunity to screw up).

Also, why would you ever expect a comedian to be "fair and balanced"? TDS is a comedy show and I would expect the biases of the comedians to come in to play (in the same way if you went and saw a stand up comedian and he or she started talking politics, you would expect it to be thier biased opinion).

I admit, I don't really understand the American desire for journalists to not be biased (I live in the UK, but I watch every episode of TDS on More 4) - I'd much rather have thier biases out in the open so I can pick and choose which news source I want to listen to. They've tried to import that concept here with TV news (which is suppossed to be "fair and balanced", at least on the BBC, I'm not sure of the others), but it doesn't work that well (the bias still comes shining through). I'd much rather pick my TV news like I can pick my newspapers, where the biases are both obvious and well known.

Re:Flawed Study

[meringuoid]

TDS may be left wing but they do mock the Democrats a lot. Jon Stewart even called them Ewoks once in reference to their powerlessness

These are the same Ewoks who were easily able to capture (among others) a Jedi and a Wookiee? And who then prepared to eat them? And who, shortly afterwards, were confronted by an elite Imperial legion with AT-STs, blaster rifles and a heavily reinforced bunker, and successfully beat the hell out of the lot of them, gained access to the bunker and took down the shield around the Death Star? And who celebrated their victory with a barbecue and a rousing chorus of Yub Yub?

Eechawawa!

Re:CNN carries it, outside the US. Really.

[Smurf]

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.

There's more to it:

[DG]

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

Re:Fox does this to many, not just Foley

[Anonymous Coward]

"accidentally"

you misspelled "accurately"

Control the extremes

[TheRaven64]

Unfortunately, this presents a very effective way for the media to control your thinking. Most rational people have tendency to believe that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the data points they have. If a media conglomerate owns two channels, and presents one as 'extreme left' and the other as 'extreme right' you will think that the truth is in the middle. But what happens if one is actually slightly-right and the other is insanely-right? You will think the middle ground is quite far to the right of centre.

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.

Re:Control the extremes

[optikSmoke]

I've noticed this phenomenon as well. Living in Canada and getting American network news, it always surprises me when I hear rants on American TV or the Internet about the "extreme" left bias of various perspectives that would rate centre or just-right-of-centre in Canada.

To me, discussion of the biases of media sources rarely reaches an accurate depiction of those biases. However, it is generally very informative of the biases of those in the discussion. Particularly considering people's perception of media bias (see for eg the Wikipedia article on the topic). To quote:

A major problem in studies is experimentor bias. Studies of US Media Bias studies show that A) Liberal experimentors tend to get results that say the media has a conservative bias, B) conservative experimentors get results indicating a liberal bias, and C) experimentors that do not identify themselves as either liberal or conservative do not detect any bias. This issue may arise from a tendency to accept a reporter's statement that matches one's own bias, even if no evidence is presented to support it. In contrast, statements that disagree with a personal bias tend to be remembered as distinctly biased, especially if evidence is not submitted.

In other words, people's perception of media bias is heavily influenced by disconfirmation bias (specifically, the hostile media effect). They do not scrutinize a reporter's position if it agrees with them, and (over-)scrutinize when it does not -- leading to a perception of a bias opposite their own.

Thus, I find that the bias a person generally sees in media (and the perceived strength and ubiquity of that bias) are excellent indicators of how skewed their own politics are. They can also be good indicators of how clouded that person's vision is by their own beliefs.

No one has mentioned Countdown

[ciardha]

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.)