The Daily Show as Substantive as Broadcast News 669
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.'"
Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
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...)
NPR/PBS is strongly biased - but intelligent (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course then there are the fart jokes.
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
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/ [mtcp.co.uk].
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Informative)
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... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Very nice repetition of Tucker Carlson's argument [cnn.com] 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... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:4, Informative)
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... (Score:5, Informative)
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).
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... (Score:3, Interesting)
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... (Score:4, Interesting)
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... (Score:3, Interesting)
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... (Score:4, Funny)
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).
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
Until it sinks in.
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:4, Interesting)
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... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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... (Score:5, Funny)
"regime"
There, now doesn't that... make sense?
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Informative)
I believe crossfire was canceled soon afterwards
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Informative)
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf
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... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Informative)
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!
There's more to it: (Score:5, Insightful)
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
CNN carries it, outside the US. Really. (Score:4, 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.
Re:CNN carries it, outside the US. Really. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:CNN carries it, outside the US. Really. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:CNN carries it, outside the US. Really. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Informative)
"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!"
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wouldn't it be better to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Well duh (Score:5, Informative)
Entertainment = Retention (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
News programs ARE entertainment. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:3, Funny)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Entertainment = Retention (Score:3, Informative)
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 [youtube.com] 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.
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fox does this to many, not just Foley (Score:4, Funny)
Worse? Not so... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 [crooksandliars.com].
Keep smiling, it could never happen here. Just like you have always been told...
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember the old slogan (Score:5, Funny)
Old news. (Score:5, Informative)
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".
Re:Old news. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Daily Show vs. O'Reilly (Score:3, Interesting)
How about an article that compares The Daily Show to O'Reilly? [mediamatters.org]
Re:Old news. (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Funny)
How can you take Jon Stewart more seriously than perky Katie?
Puppets making prank calls.. (Score:4, Funny)
Accountable Recordkeeping (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Accountable Recordkeeping (Score:3)
Re:Accountable Recordkeeping (Score:5, Insightful)
The politicians need the media a lot more than the media needs the politicians.
Colbert and Stewart for 2008 (Score:5, Funny)
The article doesn't say the Daily Show is good. (Score:4, Insightful)
The What? (Score:3, Funny)
I believe I have heard of the Evening News, though. It stars Walter Cronkite, right?
Deep Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
A comedian can tell you truths.
Re:Deep Truth (Score:4, Funny)
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.)
Newspapers, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
How to Watch TV News [amazon.com] 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 [wikipedia.org] a fluff piece about the photographer Annie Leibovitz.
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.
Colbert legitimizes TDS (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Weak, ver weak. But typical. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Not very strange (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Weak, ver weak. But typical. (Score:3, Insightful)
+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.
Re:The Main Difference (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:The Main Difference (Score:3, Funny)
Take it from an American (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Take it from an American (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Take it from an American (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Flawed Study (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Flawed Study (Score:3, Funny)
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:Flawed Study (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Come On (Score:5, Funny)
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:Come On (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Come On (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Amen...Duh (Score:3, Insightful)