Opinion: Comedy shows aren't meant to inform

11/08/04This is the information age. Virtually unlimited knowledge is available to the average American. News from around the world is accessible almost instantaneously, through the internet, television, and radio.

Despite this abundance of knowledge, however, Americans remain one of the most uninformed peoples in the developed world. Most have no idea what is going on in their own country, much less what is happening abroad.

Do Americans just not care? The average American watches nearly six hours of television per day, and more than 50 percent have of American households internet access. With all of this information being consumed, Americans must be getting their news from somewhere.

A survey conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 21 percent of people under the age of 30 regularly get their political news from comedy shows, such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live. By contrast, 23 percent of people in the same age group cited network nightly news broadcasts as their source for political news.

This is a drastically different picture from just a decade ago, when a Pew study found that nine percent of young people turned to comedy shows for their news, while 39 percent preferred network news.

The influence of these comedy shows can't be ignored. Senator John Edwards announced his candidacy for the presidency on the Daily Show. Senator John Kerry also appeared on Stewart's show, drawing an audience of over 1.5 m viewers.

Reliance upon these shows for political news is indicative of Americans' ignorance. Daily Show Executive Producer Ben Karlin said that viewers who do not supplement information from the Daily Show with other news sources are not well informed. The Pew study confirmed this idea, finding that those who regularly get their news from comedy shows were less likely to know basic facts about the presidential campaigns.

This is not surprising. It is easy to become misinformed when your only source of news is Jon Stewart or Jay Leno. These shows rarely present all of the facts about an issue, and often skew information for a laugh.

This is to be expected, however. These shows are not meant to be informational; they are meant to be funny. Nobody expects Tom Brokaw to provide his audience with comic relief. Nobody should expect John Stewart to provide his audience with the news.

How can this problem be remedied? Young people need to take responsibility for their own education. In the age of the internet and 24-hour news channels this is easier than ever before. It doesn't take much effort to turn on CNN for ten minutes in the morning or to browse news websites between classes. It's that simple. And very important.