Eric Alterman confirms what everyone with a brain already knows: those who rely heavily upon Fox News for their news are woefully misinformed, especially when compared to those who rely upon the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
It can be a depressing spectacle indeed watching the sideshow that is Hannity & Colmes as it goes into overdrive attempting to smear Democratic candidates, in particular Sen. Barack Obama -- note that in a one-hour show on Monday (5/5/08), there were 26 mentions or video clips of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and 33 mentions of former Weather Underground member William Ayers, according to Nexis. (Accounting for commercials, that's a combined rate of nearly 1.5 mentions every minute). One wonders, of course, what exactly is being seen -- is this journalism? An infomercial for conservatives or, rather, against liberals? Or, if you're not familiar with Fox News, you might wonder: Could this be satirical --- are these guys serious?
Hannity & Colmes draws an average of 1.9 million viewers per night. Unsettling, until you find out that Comedy Central's The Daily Show gets about the same -- 1.8 million. The Daily Show also poses similar questions to viewers: Am I watching satire, or -- given the often political content and the nature of the jokes, which often puncture misguided dialogue like that of Sean Hannity -- am I watching a real bit of journalism?
The Project for Excellence in Journalism has attempted to measure some aspects of the show that go toward answering these questions. In examining The Daily Show for an entire year (2007), they found that:
[From Media Matters - Put me in, coach]
Like I said, surprising to nobody, here are the findings re: The Daily Show
The program's clearest focus is politics, especially in Washington. U.S. foreign affairs, largely dominated by the Bush administration's policies in Iraq, Washington politics and government accounted for nearly half (47%) of the time spent on the program. Overall, The Daily Show news agenda is quite close to those of cable news talk shows.
The press itself is another significant focus on The Daily Show. In all, 8% of the time was made up of segments about the press and news media. That is more than double the amount of coverage of media in the mainstream press overall during the same period.
A good deal of the news, however, is also absent from The Daily Show. In 2007, for example, major events such as the tragic Minneapolis bridge collapse were never discussed. And the shootings at Virginia Tech, the most covered story within a given week in 2007 by the overall press, received only a cursory mention.
Republicans in 2007 tended to bear the brunt of ridicule from Stewart and his crew. From July 1 through November 1, Stewart's humor targeted Republicans more than three times as often as Democrats. The Bush administration alone was the focus of almost a quarter (22%) of the segments in this time period.
The lineup of on-air guests was more evenly balanced by political party. But our subjective sense from viewing the segments is that Republicans faced harsher criticism during the interviews with Stewart. Whether this is because the show is simply liberal or because the Republicans control the White House is harder to pin down.
