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Rumsfeld [video clip]: Uh, I think that...uh (scratches his head)...I’m not a lawyer, my impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe, technically, is different from torture (audience groans), and therefore I’m not gonna address the torture word.

Stewart:  I’m also not a lawyer, so I don’t know, technically, if you’re human, but as a fake news person, I can tell you, what we’ve been reading about in the newspapers, the pictures we’ve been seeing...it’s f***ing torture.

    This comic and brutally honest joke is typical of the “news” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  The show is an anomaly. By claiming to be “fake news”, it sheds the overbearing standards of journalism and is free to report subjective opinions.  In stark contrast to network news shows, The Daily Show does not have to abide by the usual journalistic constraints.  It is a humor show first and foremost, but despite what Stewart and his colleagues may claim, there is a surprising amount of factual substance as well.  A substantial number of Americans are even turning to The Daily Show, a self-proclaimed “fake” news show, to get their hard news (Pew).  Over a million people tune in to watch Stewart mock politics, pop culture, and the news media every night.  What is it about this show that makes it a more popular source of hard news than many “real” news networks?  The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is more than just a comedy show, but a new form of journalism that blends entertainment, news and political analysis.  This paper will examine The Daily Show as what it claims to be, what it actually is, and what it is not.

    Jon Stewart is my focus because he took over what was once a variety comedy show featuring Craig Kilborn and has turned it into one of the leading news sources for people my age.  A Pew Research Center study showed that 21% of young people from ages 18 to 24 cited The Daily Show as a regular source of news, compared to just 23% of America’s youth citing ABC, NBC or CBS nightly news broadcasts combined (Long).  I will keep my focus on Stewart and The Daily Show, as the topic of contemporary political satire in general encompasses too wide a field to adequately tackle and because the show embodies the type of satire that can also be informative and substantive. This issue is particularly significant because Stewart’s cynical jokes resonate with his young audience.  America’s youth prefers to get their news and political information from a comedian who insists his show is “fake news”.  There is something much more serious than vulgarity and parody at work behind Stewart’s poignant humor. 

The Basics

    For those who may not be avid fans of the show, here are the basics.  It begins with an introduction much like that of any other nightly news introduction.   Graphics of the globe and American flag fill the screen as a booming, unheard voice states the date and says, “From Comedy Central’s world news headquarters in New York, this is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”  The tone of the show then takes a sharp turn from prestigious, serious news to late-night variety show.  The camera swoops over a cheering studio audience as the show’s rock-and-roll theme song blares.  The introduction divulges the two main roots of the show: late-night variety acts and nightly news.  These two influences are evident in the three sections of the show, namely a news satire segment, a parody piece and an interview.

    The Daily Show is not the first to have a news satire segment, but the nature of its jokes makes it more politically conscious.  Other shows like Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update”, Jay Leno and David Letterman all play news clips and crack jokes as well.  But Stewart’s punch lines are uniquely political in nature, setting him apart from the others (Baym, 263).  Leno and Letterman use current events to set up punch lines that usually avoid the political realm and rather attack the personal defects of celebrities and politicians.  They move quickly from one target to the next, cracking a one-liner then moving on to the next topic.  Stewart, while often just as silly and trivial as the others, tends to attack the political realm in his jokes where Leno and Letterman would avoid it.  He tackles significant political issues for more than just one joke.  Stewart’s style is like a dialogue, alternating between video clips, sound bites or photographs and his own commentary as opposed to the one-liner-and-change-the-topic style of the late-night hosts.  In his dialogue, Stewart plays the role of common sense.  He makes witty remarks in response to video clips that often catch politicians in compromising positions.  Vicious political commentary is just as common as silly, vulgar humor in Stewart’s dialogue with the news clip, and he has a unique knack for mixing the two in the same joke.  He has a gift for maintaining just the right balance of humor and political commentary.

    The next segment of The Daily Show is usually a parody piece.  One of the show’s “correspondents” will take on a seemingly expert title and do a news piece on a specific issue.  The issue is generally a topic in the news, either political or pop culture, such as whether gays should be allowed in the military (The Daily Show, September 18, 2006).  The piece consists of a series of interviews in which the “expert correspondent” interviews people who are serious about the issue from both sides.  The questions start out serious to allow the interviewee to introduce their side of the issue, but turn absurdly silly and sarcastic to please the audience.  The piece is usually noticeably biased and it shows one side to be drastically wrong.  For example, Daily Show “senior correspondent” James Jones clearly favors Bleu Copas, a former Arabic translator who was discharged from the US Army for breaking the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuality, in a piece aired September 18, 2006 (PageOneQ).  He emphasizes the need for Arabic translators and even “proves” that Copas could perform his duties despite his homosexuality by acting like a male stripper while Copas translates a paragraph. The piece cuts back and forth between Copas and a second interview with Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute, a staunch opponent of gays serving in the military.  It made Cameron seem outrageous and insensitive, showing him making such absurd remarks as “a large proportion of homosexuals enjoy drinking each other’s urine.”  Jones remains sarcastic throughout, clearly favoring the side of Copas and doing all he can to show it in the interest of humor.  As we will see, The Daily Show does not abide by the general rule of objective journalism, and constantly makes its opinions known.

    The Daily Show concludes with a high-profile interview.  The style is based on the late-night talk show interviews, with Stewart behind his desk and his interviewee on a couch beside him.  Unlike the usual talk shows, however, most of the guests are politicians, journalists, or commentators.  Between May and Election Day 2004, 50 of the 78 guests were from the fields of government, news, or politics (Baym, 271).  The guests included John Kerry, John McCain, Ralph Nader, Bill Clinton, and Wolf Blitzer among many other big names.  John Edwards even announced his intention to run for president during his interview on The Daily Show.  Much like late-night talk shows, the guests are generally there to plug a new book or documentary, and Stewart entertains their interests.  Pakistani President Musharraf went on the show during a trip to the US in September 2006, and The Daily Show had a big graphic of his recently released memoir in the background.  Stewart keeps the interviews light but digs into some issues as well.  Stewart welcomed Musharraf by offering him the traditional Pakistani jasmine green tea as well an American delicacy, a Twinkie.  The tone shifted after Stewart opened the interview by asking “Where is Osama bin Laden?”  The two discussed the difficulty Musharraf faces having to “tight-rope walk” between supporting Bush for fear of an American “onslaught” despite his citizens being largely anti-American.  The result is an entertaining yet thoughtful discussion of international affairs with a significant world leader.  Stewart will bring other viewpoints into the discussion, sometimes his own and sometimes playing devil’s advocate, making for an intelligent, funny and honest discourse.  He asks Musharraf if he omitted mention of the Iraq war in his memoir because it “has gone so well”.  Musharraf laughs and replies, “It has led certainly to more extremism and terrorism around the world" (USA Today).  As Musharraf’s comment shows, the interview ends up covering a substantial amount of discussion of important political issues while still keeping the viewer laughing.

    In general, the audience of The Daily Show is primarily young, left-leaning Americans.   It is the youth’s answer to the nightly news.  A Pew Research Center survey reported that 48% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 watch The Daily Show at least occasionally (Pew).  The numbers of Daily Show viewers decrease as the age group increases.  The trend is opposite for nightly and 24 hour news broadcasts.  Between 33% and 37% of their viewers are over the age of 50 compared to just 17% of Daily Show watchers (Pew).  

    It is important to note that many Daily Show watchers do not get their news solely from Jon Stewart.  23% of them reported following hard news in newspapers and televised news daily (Baumgartner).  Many other viewers supplement their news with The Daily Show, making them informed viewers who pick up tidbits of information from Stewart and his cast.  During its coverage of the 2004 election, 54% of young (18-24) viewers reported learning something new from The Daily Show whereas only 15% of older audience (45 and over) did.  These statistics suggest that Stewart’s audience already knows a good amount about politics and chooses to watch the show for an intelligent laugh, but a good proportion of its impressionable young audience still learns something new.

    The audience is generally well informed about issues; in fact, a National Annenberg Election Survey found that Daily Show watchers knew more about election issues in 2004 than people who regularly read newspapers or watch television news (Long).  Another Annenberg survey also showed that on a six question US politics quiz, people who watch television acts like Leno, Letterman and Stewart were more informed about issues of the 2004 election than those who do not, and Stewart’s audience had the highest score of anyone by a full 10%.  So while the audience may be young and impressionable, it is also knowledgeable about current events.

Who’s real and who’s fake?

    There are many factors that lead young people to turn to The Daily Show instead of nightly news or 24-hour news networks.  Many consider The Daily Show to be more truthful than other forms of news because of its fearless subjectivity.  Modern journalism values objectivity because it does not influence the viewer’s opinion and maintains the network’s reputation for being unbiased.  The Daily Show has no reputation to uphold and has no problem influencing its viewers’ opinions.  It also targets the faults of the news media for many of its jokes, discrediting the media in a way that attracts many viewers.  Many find Stewart’s light-hearted conversations with guests to be a more favorable form of analysis than the news networks’ heated debates like Crossfire and Hardball.  These debate shows pit the defenders of two extreme stances on an issue against each other and let them argue back and forth.  Some people think this is a good way to expose the audience to different sides of an issue and let them decide which argument they agree with more.  The problem with this format is that the dialogue is a closed-minded argument that rarely reaches any kind of conclusion.  The bickering of debate shows widens the ideological gap and fails to create an intelligent sharing of ideas.

    The Daily Show is perceived to be more honest than “real” television news because it speaks subjectively.  Satirists, like court jesters in medieval times, can voice their honest opinions as long as they are funny (Kreisler).  Today’s television news tends to be so careful of not upsetting anyone that it sacrifices quality analysis.  I interviewed Jeff Kreisler, a prominent political comedian and author who is interviewing to be a writer for The Daily Show, to find out more about The Daily Show’s style of mock journalism.  He told me, “It’s like the media is afraid of being labeled.  They’re afraid of being the next Dan Rather.  If they show a politician in a bad light they’re afraid of being accused of having bias from all these groups on each side.”  He cites an ongoing movement to discredit the media over the past forty years as the cause for the media’s timidity.  The Daily Show discredits the media not for being biased, but rather for being puppets of the politicians.  The news media is often more of a target for The Daily Show than even the Bush administration. “The idea behind The Daily Show initially, and it’s still there, isn’t so much to make fun of politics but more to make fun of news, making fun of the media and how they cover these stories,” Kreisler explains.  Perhaps The Daily Show’s biggest beef with the media is how politicians use it like a tool by techniques like the soundbite.

    Today’s politicians have made an art out of the soundbite, and The Daily Show attacks this tactic.  Politicians see it as an opportunity to get their entire stance on an issue out to the world in one shiny, polished eight second television clip.  Important policy decisions are no longer debated as heatedly and public discourse has decreased as the politicians have learned to play the media like pawns (Decline of Politics).  News networks broadcast these carefully practiced clips that politicians want them to show and everyone is happy.  Except, as satirists like Jon Stewart point out, there is a lot more going on behind the soundbite.  The Daily Show’s video clips are often less complimentary to politicians, but they are equally accurate.   The opening quote of this paper shows recently resigned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stammering and trying to avoid saying the bad word “torture”.  This soundbite, instead of making Rumsfeld look polished and intelligent, makes him appear conniving and unsure. This clip reveals Rumsfeld trying to downplay the Abu Ghraib scandal, which was the controversy that arose over pictures of prisoner abuse in the Iraq prison, by attempting to make the real news soundbites use the word “abuse” and not “torture”.  By showing a side of the Secretary of Defense that is different from what we are used to seeing on the news, The Daily Show is presenting us with a fresh perspective.  The Daily Show’s more cynical perspective of Rumsfeld, by portraying a different but equally true view of Rumsfeld’s thoughts on Abu Ghraib, contrasts what is normally seen in the news, leaving the viewer with a wider perspective on the truth.  He does not focus only on the unpolished moments, however.  Another tactic he uses is juxtaposition of politician repeating the same tag line over and over in a speech, blatantly trying to make a soundbite shown on the news.  President Bush is a common target of this technique.  Stewart uses this array of tactics to attack the news media’s technique of the soundbite and politicians’ exploitation of it.

    Perhaps the greatest reason that its viewers regard The Daily Show as being honest is Stewart’s fearlessness about making his own opinions known.  Jon Stewart tends to lean left and the majority of his viewers are moderate or liberal (Baym).  Whether in interviews or the satire news segment, Stewart does not hide how he really feels about issues.  Where serious news shows are careful to show the various sides of the issues and let viewers form their own opinions, Stewart asserts his own personal opinions as common sense.  He is able to do this because for him, the bottom line is to be funny.  By insisting he is “fake”, he sheds the expectation of being objective.  Jeff Kreisler believes Stewart’s fearlessness comes also in part from his training as a comedian:

He’s on Comedy Central, not CSPAN or CNN.  All he has to do is be funny… Comedians have a great perspective on life in general; especially the one’s who do socially conscious kind of stuff.  Like what’s the big deal?  Wolf Blitzer, if he lost his job on CNN, his life would fall apart.  Jon Stewart, if he lost his job on Comedy Central, you know what, he had a good run.  He would just find something else to do, like go back to doing stand-up.  And I would take over The Daily Show.

Besides showing his own aspirations, Kreisler also touches on a key point: Stewart is still primarily a comedian.  This training in stand-up gives him the ability to assert his opinions to the tune of a punch line, which no one will object to as long as it is funny. 

Satire: Daily Show-Style

    To Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show, nothing is a funnier target than the state of news networks today.  As mentioned above, The Daily Show usually satirizes the various news outlets as much as the actual news.  The satire is sometimes subtle, like the different “expert” names that Daily Show correspondents are given.  Other times Stewart will overtly attack network news channels in his news segment.  The Daily Show satirizes news networks to expose the shortcomings of the media, a major aspect of American democracy.

    The Daily Show uses subtle satire to mock the expertise of network news analysts and the importance news producers put on reporting “live” from the place of the news.  Guest analysts on network news shows take on florid titles to give them credibility.  Geoffrey Baym claims that “the tenuous claim to expertise broadcast journalists so often make, their revolving credentials emphasize the point that in the contemporary media environment, expertise is a conferred rather than an earned status” (Baym, 269).  Stephen Colbert and other Daily Show correspondents have claimed a wide range of “expert” titles, including “senior convention analyst”, “senior Baghdad bureau chief”, and “senior vice-presidential historian”, none of which were they actually qualified to be called.  The Daily Show also mocks the idea of being “live” in the place where news is taking place, with correspondent Rob Corddry even taking it to such absurdities as claiming to be in Vietnam to report on the controversy over John Kerry’s war record (Baym, 270).  While physically being in a place can be advantageous in some circumstances, it is overemphasized in broadcast news today.  News reporters rarely take advantage of being at the site of the news, instead just using it as a backdrop while they give a report on the story they could have done anywhere.  The Daily Show mocks the widely accepted notion that the correspondent must report live from the place of the news to give an accurate account of the happenings.  This is generally for comic relief, but it may also be interpreted as commentary about the values of many news producers.

    Stewart has no reservations when it comes to discussing his disappointment with the news media, even to their face.  Tensions between Stewart and news shows like Crossfire and The O’Reilly Factor have been seen on these shows themselves.  Stewart appeared on Crossfire in 2004 and told the hosts of the CNN show exactly how he felt.

Stewart wants to change the culture of the media from appeasing politicians to examining them more seriously.  He berates the CNN show and others for being pawns of the politicians rather than honestly analyzing them.  His problem with debate shows like Crossfire is what he calls “partisan hackery”.  Debate shows bring in two guests to argue opposing extremes of an issue.  The resultant partisan arguments do not reach any common ground and only drive the ideological gap wider.  Stewart views this failure at a productive political discussion as harmful to democracy.  Jon Stewart is in some ways an activist for the reform of the way the news media discusses politics.

    On the surface The Daily Show appears to be the latest in America’s long line of political satire, using classic techniques like juxtaposition.  Some people believe that The Daily Show is nothing more than the same old political satire reborn, like an upgraded political cartoon.  Jeff Kreisler points out, “If you look at The Daily Show, the time that Jon Stewart is actually on camera as opposed to the visual media is not that much…(the effect is) through showing, not telling.  It’s easy to say someone lied, but it’s better to show them lying.”  If a picture is worth a thousand words, some of Stewart’s video clips are worth much more.  For example, The Daily Show once showed a clip of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claiming he never said he knew there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Directly following this clip was an older clip of Rumsfeld saying he knew the exact location of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Showing the two clips back-to-back to expose the deceit is a type of undermining humor called juxtaposition.  Undermining humor attacks people in power and undermines their authority and legitimacy, and this is not just limited to Rumsfeld.  Stewart is also criticizing the news media for not pointing out this blatant lie (Baym).  It is a successful and classic type of political satire, but to claim that The Daily Show is nothing more is to ignore its contributions to an intelligent political discourse.  The Daily Show takes the classic political cartoon farther by criticizing not just politicians or policy, but simultaneously the way the media relates to them.

    Some critics of The Daily Show say its sarcastic and pointed humor is too cynical.  In a paper entitled, “The Daily Show Effect: Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and American Youth”, East Carolina University professor Jody Baumgartner describes how the show makes its viewers, especially the impressionable youth, more critical of the electoral process and the news media.  According to Baumgartner, Stewart’s jokes breed cynicism, which in turn decreases the internal efficacy of the viewers laughing at the jokes.  She argues that this makes people who are already politically lazy (i.e. young people) less inclined to participate in politics because they don’t believe their participation matters. 

    Baumgartner’s theory that The Daily Show’s cynical jokes affect viewers’ internal efficacy is not convincing.  As stated above, The Daily Show’s viewers were better informed about the candidates in the election than both the viewers of other late-night comedy acts and people who don’t watch late-night television at all.  It seems far-fetched that the people most informed about an election would be the same people who are least likely to participate in it.  It also depends on the claim that Stewart’s jokes make people cynical, which is not necessarily true at all.  Before a taping of the show in 2004, an audience member asked Stewart if he would continue to “bash” Bush if he wins the election.  Stewart asked the audience who was the most “joked-about” president in history.  "No," he continued. "Not Van Buren. It was Clinton. And he left office with a seventy-five percent approval rating. The truth is, folks, that jokes in actuality defuse criticism of a politician rather than erode his support," (Colapinto).  The jokes don’t change peoples’ minds about the politicians, but rather make their criticism of the politician light-hearted and less cruel.  Viewers may learn something new from The Daily Show, but this only sheds new light on political issues, and learning new things or gaining a different perspective is never a bad thing.  As Jeff Kreisler puts it, “Satire takes the packaged 10 second clip of a shiny politician and says, ‘What’s really behind that?’  If having The Daily Show out there makes people do that exercise on their own, I think it’s only going to help.”

Conclusion

    The Daily Show is a legitimate form of journalism that, although unconventional, provides quality political news and analysis along with humor.  When used to supplement the viewer’s knowledge from other sources, such as newspapers, The Daily Show can be both good entertainment and thought-provoking commentary.  Stewart once said that, “I think you can make really exciting, interesting television news that could become the medium of record for reasonable, moderate people” (Colapinto).  He wasn’t claiming that The Daily Show was doing this yet, but it is certainly moving in that direction.  After closely comparing The Daily Show and the news media, especially with respect to their criticism and analysis of politics and current events, I believe that The Daily Show is a comparable and legitimate news source.  And here’s the kicker: a recent Indiana University study revealed that The Daily Show’s coverage of the 2004 election was just as substantive as the traditional broadcast network newscasts (Fox).  After a second-by-second analysis of the entire half-hour shows Julia R. Fox, an assistant professor of telecommunications at Indiana University, concluded that there was an equal amount of substantive election coverage in each.  This was the first scholarly attempt to systematically examine how the content of The Daily Show compares to traditional broadcast network news.  It turns out that the time The Daily Show spends on humor is equal to what network news spends on hype (defined in the paper as photo opportunities, political endorsements and human interest stories). “Sometimes the banter and questions get a little silly, but there is also substantive dialogue going on… It's a legitimate source of news," Fox concludes.  This study, to be published by the Journal of Broadcast and Electronic Media in the summer of 2007, proves that although The Daily Show is primarily comedy in nature, it is also an innovative form of journalism.

    The Daily Show with Jon Stewart never claims to be a “real” news show, but the fact remains that it is a substantial and legitimate forum for political discourse.  It has become the news source of choice for a young generation in a nation where the media has an invaluable role in politics and government.  Entertainment blended with political discussion and news coverage is an entirely new realm of journalism that could very well be the way of the future.  Comedy Central has recently moved The Daily Show to primetime and added a similar show, The Colbert Report featuring former Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert, to its weeknight hour of “fake” news.  The Daily Show has yet to withstand the test of time, but all signs seem to show that this new form of journalism is here to stay.  It may not be the best place to get hard news, but it is certainly a legitimate source of political discussion and good humor.

Works Cited:

Baumgartner, Jody. "The Daily Show effect: Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and American Youth." American     Politics Research 34(2006): 341-367.

Baym, Geoffrey. "The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism." Political     Communications 22(2005): 259-276.

Colapinto, John.  "The Most Trusted Name in News: How Jon Stewart made 'fake news' a hit."  Sept 2004.          Rolling Stone.  4 Dec 2006.                                                                              <http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6539433/the_most_trusted_name_in_news>

Decline of Politics: Superficial Democracy. Videocassette. Golden Dome Productions , 1992.

"The Daily Show profiles Bleu Copas, discharged from military under 'Don't ask, Don't tell'".  19 Sept 2006.          PageOneQ.  4 Dec 2006. <http://pageoneq.com/news/2006/copas_091806.html>

Fox, Julia R.  "It's no joke: IU study finds The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to be as substantive as network         news."  04 Oct 2006.  Indiana University.  4 Dec 2006.           <http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/4159.html>

Kreisler, Jeff. Telephone interview. 09 Nov 2006.

Long, Bryan. 'Daily Show' viewers ace political quiz. 29 Sep 2004. CNN. 2 Dec 2006                               <http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/28/comedy.politics/>.

"News Audiences Increasingly Politicized." Survey Report. 08 June 2004. The Pew Research Center for People     and the Press. 2 Dec 2006 <http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=833>.

Strange, Mary Zeiss.  "The Daily Show generation." USA Today 18 Sep 2006, natl. ed.: 15a.