Comedy Central’s The Daily Show won the prize for “outstanding news and information programming” at the 20th annual Television Critics Association awards last Saturday night. I think the show is just hilarious, and I think it’s even funnier that a comedy show that billing as “the fake news” beat out all other network news programs for the award. The MetaFilter thread on this topic has several incisive comments on this irony, including:
i find that stewart is a less biased host than many on the news today, regularly features people from conservative and liberal camps, and is a pretty damn good interviewer, spending more time asking about things people care about and less time grinding an axe. he’s also very good at getting his (mostly liberal) audience to respond politely to conservative guests. so why can’t i find that in a real news show?
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Something else you won’t find in a “real” news show – the willingness to call politicians on their lies and other outrageous statements. Among my favorite examples – replaying tape from the interview where the Vice-President is saying the very words he denied ever having said in a subsequent interview. This used to be called ‘doing your job’ if you were a journalist – now its ‘comedy’.
John Stewart, the host of the show, makes no bones about his liberal political views, but as some of the commenters noted, he still manages to present both sides of the issues; having watched the show regularly for some time now, I’ve seen him lambaste both sides of the political spectrum with equal hilarity.
I’m really happy to see that The Daily Show is being appreciated. It also won an Emmy last year for “best show and writing in the variety, music or comedy category,” which makes this award all the more ironic. Try and catch the show if you haven’t already; it airs regularly at 11 PM, and reruns are broadcasted pretty often during the day.
