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Media Relations

What do you do when the news is a joke?

Chicago Sun-Times
Oct. 8, 2006

By Doug Elfman

This week, Jon Stewart gave us a lengthy look at a video clip of Rep. Tom Reynolds, who is embroiled in the sex scandal of Mark "Do I make you a little horny" Foley. Reynolds surrounded himself with children at a news conference so reporters wouldn't ask him lurid questions.

Scum looked like the evil bastard at the end of Stephen King's "The Dead Zone." Stewart's studio audience laughed. It was damning.

This is the kind of segment that defines Stewart's "The Daily Show." Broadcast newscasts gloss over such videos, if they show them at all. The tone is less outrageous. There's no laughing.

The spectacular value of "The Daily Show" is that it's an instant B.S. meter. If you're a public figure and you say or do something B.S.-y, it will not fly on "The Daily Show" unless it flies right into a fan.

Evidently, such in-depth stories make "The Daily Show" as substantive as network newscasts. A new study from Indiana University suggests the Comedy Central show covers substantive news as much as ABC, CBS and NBC do.

Actually, during the 2004 elections, "the proportion of stories per half hour program devoted to the election campaign was greater in 'The Daily Show,' " claims the study, overseen by assistant professor Julia R. Fox.

Read the entire article at: http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/elfman/87822,CST-CONT-elf08.article

For more information about the study's author, Julia R. Fox, visit: http://www.indiana.edu/~telecom/faculty/fox.html

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