The Daily Show vs. NBC/ABC/CBS
October 4th, 2006 ‘Ars Technica’ has a really interesting article (link) about a study conducted at Indiana University which compares the substantiveness of ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ with other news broadcasts such as the ‘CBS Evening News’. The results of the study aren’t really surprising to me, as much as the conclusion made by the author of the study, Julia Fox. 
Basically, the study found that the amount of coverage of the real issues in the news, as opposed to the irrelevant hooplah surrounding them, was just as much in The Daily Show as in the nightly news.
So is this surprising to me? Not at all. Networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc) compete with eachother all the time to gain ratings, and that isn’t limited to prime-time entertainment. That whole idea of whatever sells has induced itself into their respective nightly news broadcasts. After all, these news broadcasts are run by large corporations which have shareholders to answer to. So instead of focussing on the real issues at hand, we get filtered content which drives up the ratings. Not real news.
Now the conclusion Fox comes up with is quite surprising. She goes on to explain that if people are looking for real in-depth coverage of the issues at hand, then they should look elsewhere, because neither the Daily Show nor network news broadcasts cut it. Personally, I don’t look to either for any of the sort. 
Although The Daily Show serves its purpose by providing humour (and I agree with Afreen, this guy should be president of the United States (link)), the network news broadcasts serve no purpose whatsoever other than providing news equivalent to cheap tabloid gossip. I have found the BBC as well as CBC to be a more reliable news source. Its sad that millions of people choose CBS/ABC/NBC as their primary source of world and domestic news. Sad indeed…
