Yesterday I attended a presentation by Craig Minassian on the intersection of politics and comedy in the media. Craig is the former assistant press secretary for President Clinton and now is a consultant for political satire programs The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central.
One point he kept making throughout the presentation was that the hosts of both shows, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are both aware that their shows are jokes, not real news. However, he also pointed out that The Daily Show averages one million viewers a night. That's one million people who are receiving some sort of news from Jon Stewart. Certainly many of these people watch other nightly news programs or read some sort of news online or in the newspaper, but it has been proven that many young people rely on these satirical shows as their main source of news.
What does this mean for the future of news and the future of the audience? Only recently has political satire earned the popularity it receives today. If this popularity continues to grow, could it prove to be another distraction from hard news? Will journalists begin to be replaced by comedians? For the benefit of journalists, and of our nation, I would certainly hope not. But hey, I love The Daily Show too.
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