Kick em when they’re up, kick em when they’re down
You know, it must really suck to be a television journalist right about now.
Not only has their failure to adequately question the president in the lead-up to war been made apparent.
Not only has the Rather memo debacle at CBS tarred them all.
But to their evident stunned disbelief–shocked they are, shocked–increasing numbers of young people have been getting their information from late-night comedy shows like, say, The Daily Show. Instead of reliable, “real” news orginizations like Nightline, CNN, or MSNBC. Well, they sniff, all injury and wounded innocence, such couch potatoes can’t possibly be being adequately informed.
Oh yes they can. And now we have data. A new poll by the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey shows that those who have been following the presidental race on The Daily Show: “are more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not…”
Interestingly enough, the poll also provides evidence that The Daily Show is perhaps the only show on the air that truly can claim to be “fair and balanced.”
“Of the 83 political jokes made by Stewart [in the period surveyed], only 9 specifically targeted Bush. That was 11% of his political jokes. The same number targeted Kerry.”
That’s something I’ve noticed about the show and one of the reasons I have such respect for Stewart and his staff. It’s often been observed that it’s easy to make people laugh if you only hit the other sides guys (see: Dennis Miller’s current career). But if you can make people laugh when you’re hitting their side, that’s a great deal harder. And in the political satire world, I can’t think of anyone we’ve had who was this good at it since Doonesbury and Trudeau. Yes, I love it when Stewart and The Daily Show take their swipes at Bush. But I also think they’ve had some of the funniest swipes at Kerry, which manage to be scathing without having to lie about his Vietnam service or anything.
(My favorite: “John Kerry couldn’t inspire an ice cube to melt in the small of Halle Berry’s back.”)
