Daily Show as newsy as actual news

And probably significantly newsier than CBS' latest incarnation of the evening news. Conservatives love to take Jon Stewart to task for the show, although I don't remember any harsh words from the right coming during the Clinton years. The great thing about the show is that-- unlike the mainstream press-- they actually highlight the 'facts in the case,' so to speak, instead of playing stenographer. Not to mention the fine job they do of pointing out the many ways in which "real" news shows fail to inform the public. Bless their hearts. From a University of Indiana study:

Not surprisingly, a second-by-second analysis of The Daily Show's audio and visual content found considerably more humor than substance -- Stewart himself has insisted that he is a comedian and not a journalist. A similar analysis of network coverage found considerably more hype than substance in broadcast newscasts. Examples of such hype included references to polls, political endorsements and photo opportunities.

"Interestingly, the average amounts of video and audio substance in the broadcast network news stories were not significantly different than the average amounts of visual and audio substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stories about the presidential election," she wrote in the paper.

"It should be noted that the broadcast network news stories about the presidential election were significantly shorter, on average, than were The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stories," she added. "The argument could be made that while the amount of substance per story was not significantly different, the proportion of each story devoted to substance was greater in the network news stories ... On the other hand, the proportion of stories per half hour program devoted to the election campaign was greater in The Daily Show."