Julia R. Fox, assistant professor of telecommunications at Indiana University, recently conducted a study that found The Daily Show to be “as substantive as network news.”
"Our findings should allay at least some of the concerns about the growing reliance on this non-traditional source of political information, as it is just as substantive as the source that Americans have relied upon for decades.
The analysis was run again using the half-hour program, rather than the story, as the unit of analysis, and Fox still found no significant differences in substance. The study does not address differences in the ways viewers of both programs process and remember political information or the differences in tone between them."It is clearly a humor show, first and foremost," Fox said of Stewart's program. "But there is some substance on there, and in some cases, like John Edwards announcing his candidacy, the news is made on the show. You have real newsmakers coming on, and yes, sometimes the banter and questions get a little silly, but there is also substantive dialogue going on … It's a legitimate source of news."
With no analysis to back my addiction, I have been relying on Stewart as a primary news source for at least a year. I think I learned more from Stewart coverage of the CNN reports on North Korea's reported nuclear weapons test than I would have from the clips themselves. And as an added bonus, it its pretty darn funny. I almost fell out of my chair. Don't believe me? Just ask the Arrowhead delivery man who watched me laugh so hard I could barely breath.
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