The Daily Show,
now hosted by comedian Trevor Noah, is a satirical and comedic news program on
Comedy Central. The episode of The Daily
Show that I watched was its most recent and aired Monday June 13th.
Its focus was mainly on the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida and the
conversation around gun control. It had one other segment which was devoted to
a contentious delegate race in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The episode ended, as
it always does, with a “moment of Zen”. For this particular episode, the moment
was of Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the musical Hamilton, and his acceptance speech at this year’s Tony Awards. In
the speech, he spoke about the Orlando shooting.
Having watched The Daily
Show for years, the format and comedy are very familiar to me. I began watching
the show as a young teenager, around the age of 15 or 16, and, at the time, it
was one of my only news sources. It provided the highlights (and even stories
that were not being talked about on major news outlets), but it was still funny
and entertaining. There would be musical guests, or interviews with
celebrities, journalists, or even presidential candidates. It was also short,
clocking in at only 30 minutes. A show about the news that was also witty,
entertaining, and short was a winning combination able to keep the attention of
a teenager. It also made me feel informed.
Despite being such a highly rated and entertaining show, The Daily Show has not been without its
fair share of criticism. While many young audience members use The Daily Show as a news source, the
premise of the show is still that of a comedy program. Even The Daily Show itself has argued that it
is a “fake news” program (Peacock, 2015). But does the comedic nature of the
show degrade the seriousness of the topics discussed by its host and
correspondents? Can a comedic show like The
Daily Show really talk about such heavy topics like the Orlando shooting? In
my opinion, yes. Yes it can and it has.
The Daily Show has
won countless awards, both for its comedy as well as its news. Even though the
show has been described as “fake” news, Time
argues that the jokes still mattered: “What
[The Daily Show] did with comedy was
a kind of journalism nonetheless, using satire and some thorough research of
source material to analyze the news and analyze its analysis” (, 2015). Just because The Daily Show delivers the news in a way people pay attention to,
and in a way that sparks laughter, shouldn’t categorize it as something other than news. It entertains while it
informs and that blend brings in an audience that may have otherwise not been informed at all. In a 2009 Time poll, former Daily Show host Jon Stewart was ranked as the most trusted
newscaster in America (, 2015).
The Daily
Show has also spawned several
other satirical news programs like Full
Frontal with former Daily Show correspondent
Samantha Bee, and Last Week Tonight with
yet another former correspondent, John Oliver. These shows (and there are plenty
more) prove that there is an audience for this type of programming — shows that
inform, amuse, and educate. I believe this to be beneficial to society. Would
we as a nation be informed without these
shows? Of course — for years before the program aired, audiences sought
information from various news outlets. However, I believe that younger
audiences, or even audiences who also want entertainment, enjoy satirical news
programs. They enjoy them and they watch them. They receive their news from
them. This in itself makes the shows a beneficial addition to our society.
Works Cited
Peacock, C. (2015, September 01). Is The Daily Show's 'fake
news' legitimate journalism? Retrieved June 14, 2016, from
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/201768045/is-the-daily-show's-'fake-news'-legitimate-journalism
Poniewozik, J. (2015, February 10). Jon Stewart, the Fake
Newsman Who Made a Real Difference. Retrieved June 14, 2016, from
http://time.com/3704321/jon-stewart-daily-show-fake-news/
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