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Kristen Becker
Issue date: 11/9/05 Section: Opinion
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The young are notoriously apathetic when it comes to politics. Too many of us don't vote or even seem to care about what is taking place in the world. Why then are we clearing our calendars to get nightly doses of brainy political satire on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"?
A 2004 Pew Research Center poll found that only 23 percent of people aged 18-29 got their news from ABC, CBS and NBC.
That's not to say they were uninformed; 21 percent said they got their election information from sources like "The Daily Show" and "Saturday Night Live."
"Either that says something terrible about news organizations or something terrible about the comedy we're doing, or [something] terrible about teenagers," "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
If that says something terrible about news organizations, it's because truth hurts. There is a general suspicion, at least among the young adults I know, that the media are not presenting us the full truth.
Opinion is reported as fact. Partisan bickering has replaced investigation and analysis. And the major news organizations seem afraid of saying anything that may be construed as critical of the current administration.
The recent legal claim by Fox News that it had patented the phrase "Fair and Balanced" is no more ridiculous than the sight of CNN's Nancy Grace's nostrils flaring at the scent of a sensational story.
But viewers are not confused about Stewart's views on the state of politics and the media.
He does not claim to offer a fair and balanced perspective; he continually reminds his audience that he is a comedian doing a fake news show.
"We flagrantly manipulate footage," former correspondent Stephen Colbert has gleefully admitted. Like traditional news outlets, the "Daily Show" adds music to footage which, according to Colbert, "distorts in a way that doesn't seem to add to information, just entertainment quality. And we come out and say we're doing that."
A 2004 Pew Research Center poll found that only 23 percent of people aged 18-29 got their news from ABC, CBS and NBC.
That's not to say they were uninformed; 21 percent said they got their election information from sources like "The Daily Show" and "Saturday Night Live."
"Either that says something terrible about news organizations or something terrible about the comedy we're doing, or [something] terrible about teenagers," "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
If that says something terrible about news organizations, it's because truth hurts. There is a general suspicion, at least among the young adults I know, that the media are not presenting us the full truth.
Opinion is reported as fact. Partisan bickering has replaced investigation and analysis. And the major news organizations seem afraid of saying anything that may be construed as critical of the current administration.
The recent legal claim by Fox News that it had patented the phrase "Fair and Balanced" is no more ridiculous than the sight of CNN's Nancy Grace's nostrils flaring at the scent of a sensational story.
But viewers are not confused about Stewart's views on the state of politics and the media.
He does not claim to offer a fair and balanced perspective; he continually reminds his audience that he is a comedian doing a fake news show.
"We flagrantly manipulate footage," former correspondent Stephen Colbert has gleefully admitted. Like traditional news outlets, the "Daily Show" adds music to footage which, according to Colbert, "distorts in a way that doesn't seem to add to information, just entertainment quality. And we come out and say we're doing that."
