O'Reilly, Daily Show, and Nielson

I just ripped this from another message board:

Comedy Central Unspins O'Reilly

Determined not to be caught up in a spin zone created by Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, Comedy Central on Monday refuted O'Reilly's assertion that the audience for the network's The Daily Show was composed of "stoned slackers." The channel extracted data from Nielsen Media Research to indicate that Daily Show host Jon Stewart's viewers are more likely to have completed college than O'Reilly's. O'Reilly made his remarks when Stewart appeared on his show a few weeks ago. "You know what's really frightening?" O'Reilly said. "You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it's true. You've got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night and they can vote." O'Reilly is due to face the slackers directly when he appears on Stewart's show on Oct. 7.

'Daily Show' Viewers Among Best Informed Voters Concerns that people who receive their political information from late-night comedy shows may not be adequately familiar with the issues in order to vote knowledgeably appeared to be laid to rest Monday by a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey. In a poll conducted between July 15 and Sept. 19, nearly 20,000 young adults were asked six questions about the presidential candidates' stands on various issues. Those who watched no late-night comedy shows answered 2.62 questions correctly. David Letterman 's viewers answered 2.91; Jay Leno 's 2.95; and Jon Stewart The Daily Show 3.59. The results for Stewart appeared particularly striking to the pollsters, who noted that his viewers "have higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers."

Different source here:
http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/tv/mmx-040929-tv-dailyshow,0,6032637.story?coll=mmx-television_top_heds

the daily show is the ONLY news show i watch, because it isnt bullshitted. and its entertaining. and informative. all the others seems so assholeish and lame.

Goat said:

the daily show is the ONLY news show i watch, because it isnt bullshitted. and its entertaining. and informative. all the others seems so assholeish and lame.

ROFL!!!!!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!

Goat said:

the daily show is the ONLY news show i watch, because it isnt bullshitted. and its entertaining. and informative. all the others seems so assholeish and lame.

Agreed. Jon Stewart rules!

There's a maddox link for everything.

Fuck Oreilly

lol. A true left-wing, flaming liberal. He insults a person who's name he can't properly spell & write out and then uses a vulgar word to make it sound "cooler."

BTW, I don't know if your kidding or not...but the Daily Show really isn't a reliable resource for news.... Mostly because he takes most of his messages out of context like other people *cough* Moore *cough*.

S1lent said:

lol. A true left-wing, flaming liberal. He insults a person who's name he can't properly spell & write out and then uses a vulgar word to make it sound "cooler."

You may wish to reevaluate that statement...

S1lent said:

BTW, I don't know if your kidding or not...but the Daily Show really isn't a reliable resource for news.... Mostly because he takes most of his messages out of context like other people *cough* Moore *cough*.

As opposed to the sober, truthful... Rush Limbaugh?

yay for the daily show. long live jew$

S1lent said:

BTW, I don't know if your kidding or not...but the Daily Show really isn't a reliable resource for news.... Mostly because he takes most of his messages out of context like other people *cough* Moore *cough*.

One could argue that the Daily show presents as much "news" as Fox. Only the Daily show doesn't claim to be real news.

Unfortunately, the Daily show doesn't hawk their warez nearly as frequently as the "journalists" on fox.

Oh and don't forget to pick up my copy of "Who's looking out for Action Doom" in stores now.

The Daily Show, in my opinion, is the best news show that has ever come along EVER. I watch it every night and laugh my ass off.

Finally Viacom does something good for a change. Enough with the MTV, VH1, and all the other shitty channels.

COMEDY CENTRAL OWNZ YOU ALL!!!

I find it funny that Fox News is actually on TV in England. That must be some major contrast between that and BBC which manages to suck far less than any major news network here in the US. I also find it funny that Fox News is getting in trouble for breaking truth in broadcasting laws in England. And This should be pretty good.

MagnuM said:

The Daily Show, in my opinion, is the best news show that has ever come along EVER.

The Daily Show is not a news show...it's a comedy show composed of cheesy jokes and altered information taken from other major news networks. It's meant to be a joke...not a real news show. And if you consider it to be a news network and you actually believe most of it...than there's something wrong with your...mentally.

S1lent said:

The Daily Show is not a news show...it's a comedy show composed of cheesy jokes and altered information taken from other major news networks. It's meant to be a joke...not a real news show. And if you consider it to be a news network and you actually believe most of it...than there's something wrong with your...mentally.

Quite insightful, all of it.

There's something wrong with your mentally!

S1lent said:
lol. A true left-wing, flaming liberal. He insults a person who's name he can't properly spell & write out and then uses a vulgar word to make it sound "cooler."

Maddox isn't left wing, he's just anti-idiot..

heh

S1lent said:

lol. A true left-wing, flaming liberal. He insults a person who's name he can't properly spell & write out and then uses a vulgar word to make it sound "cooler."

If you actually read his page you should have come across...

Maddox said here:
That reminds me, I'm going to set up a filter to delete any email containing the word "liberal" or "conservative;" consider this a fair warning: get a new mantra you boring, unoriginal, cry baby pussies. Email addresses containing any combination of the phrase "Blink 182" or "Limp Bizkit" will also be deleted. I'm tired of getting email from you dipshits calling me a "liberal" or a "conservative" (I get the same amount from both camps). There are more than two ideologies out there you morons, quit emailing me with your stupid theories. Stop listening to bullshit political radio if you can't form your own opinion without grouping yourself under the convenient umbrella of a "liberal" or "conservative." Quit having your opinions fed to you by Rush Limbaugh, you twats.

Maddox: Hippies, Liberals and communists suck.

Maddox fans: Yeah! Stick it to 'em!

Maddox: Bill O'Reilly is full of shit.

Maddox fans: WHAT? FUCK YOU MADDOX YOU LEFT WING NUTCASE.

Anyone mentioning Maddox again will be losered

Well, barring discussion of "that other person," I'd still have to say that the Daily Show owns you all...

S1lent said:

BTW, I don't know if your kidding or not...but the Daily Show really isn't a reliable resource for news.... Mostly because he takes most of his messages out of context like other people *cough* Moore *cough*.

Of course it isn't because it's a comedy show. Taking things out of context lightens the mood.

S1lent said:

The Daily Show is not a news show...it's a comedy show composed of cheesy jokes and altered information taken from other major news networks.

Cheesy, eh... a bit touchy, are we?

The point is that the Daily Show doesn't TRY to be a news show any more than it is one in the first place. It's on a comedy network. I'd agree with you that anyone who can't see it as a comedy show, or anyone who gets their opinions fed to them solely by Stewart, may have a screw or two loose. But O'Reilly? I'd be lucky to have any screws left if I listened to him for too long.

The thing that pisses me off about O'Reilly is his tactics. Almost every time he has a guest on his show that he doesn't like, he runs their arguments into the ground by belittling and/or shaming them. I wish I still had the text I had of one of his arguments... it was a perfect example. Then again, this one is, too. "Stoned slackers?" A perfect example of how to fuel the fire in the worst way possible.

That said, I'm certainly not going to miss this thing on October 7.

On a side note: Ten bucks says O'Reilly takes Stewart and/or Comedy Central to court when (not if; "if" isn't in the equation here) he gets pissed off.

Doom Marine said:

As opposed to the sober, truthful... Rush Limbaugh?

ROFL.

John Stewart: was funny. Gets more and more "edgy" the closer to the election we get. Wonder why?

O'Reilly: Sometimes obnoxious, but at least he's maintained the same level of editorialism.

Limbaugh: Over-simplifies, but even if you don't like him he makes a lot of sense a lot of the time.

Don't be angry, liberals. I know life is a horrible experience, but try being thankful for what you have and you'll feel all better.

COBALT said:
Don't be angry, liberals. I know life is a horrible experience, but try being thankful for what you have and you'll feel all better.

Huh?

COBALT said:

John Stewart: was funny. Gets more and more "edgy" the closer to the election we get. Wonder why?

O'Reilly: Sometimes obnoxious, but at least he's maintained the same level of editorialism.

Limbaugh: Over-simplifies, but even if you don't like him he makes a lot of sense a lot of the time.

Evidence? Logic? Why? How?

COBALT said:

Don't be angry, liberals. I know life is a horrible experience, but try being thankful for what you have and you'll feel all better.

Yes, because that makes a lot of sense. (what?)

Anyway, the Daily Show just tries to be funny, it doesn't try to be a real news source, but oddly enough I can get more information and truth from a half hour of it than I can from watching two hours of any major news network. I think that pretty much shows the state journalism is in these days.

I still think The Newshour with Jim Lehrer is the finest news program on American television. Due to the fact that it's a full hour (more or less) with no commercial breaks (yay PBS), they actually manage to go deeper on issues than the meaningless clipshows and catch-phrases thrown around on commercial network TV. Most of the time the people they bring in to discuss the major events of the day get into some pretty good arguments... And the hosts don't let them get away with evasive answers or completely contradictory statements. The show with Wayne LaPierre and the Seattle Chief of Police (talking about that weapon ban that expired) was very entertaining; LaPierre refused to directly respond to any of the specific points raised by the Chief and basically kept repeating the same thing over and over.

Unfortunately most people either haven't heard of the show or seem to ignore it.

The reason Daily Show viewers are more educated and more politically informed, is not because of the daily show, it's because the people who watch the show and understand it's humor, are up to date with current events, and find John Stewarts jokes on the fallacies of the talking points for the day. Viewers know it isn't real journalism and I highly doubt anyone who watches the Daily show takes more away than a good laugh. That being said however, the show occasionally makes light of contradictory or terrible arguments that politicians have made... filling the job that the real news should be picking up.

P.S. Maddox

Every liberal I know have several things in common:

1. They hate the president...as if he personally did something to them so horrible he deserves their contempt - to the point they compare him to hitler, and call his wife a whore. Nice. So their strategy for voting in a new president is "anyone but Bush", so they're willing to elect a completely foolish, rhetorical, and completely out of touch elitist like John Kerry who didn't even bother to do his job as a Senator. They don't know a thing about him, or really like him, or really care. He's just NOT BUSH.

2. They get angrier and angrier the closer to the election we get. They spend their time plastering bumper stickers all over their cars, and making hand made signs to stick in their living room windows about how horrible their lives are because Bush is president - even though their lives haven't been affected in the least unless they go to the airport to get on a plane. Someone else has gone off and made the sacrifices they seem to be whining about.

3. They have personal convictions about being anti-war, but for some reason they have no plan on what would be the alternative except idiodic and ignorant ideals like "let the UN do it!" - they just know war is bad, and we shouldn't be doing it.

John Stewart's interview with Charile Rose last night convinced me that even though Stewart is a funny man in front of the camera, and he denies that the popular media is "activist" in what he called "democratic" preferences, he admits he's still angry with Bush and the war in Iraq, and admits professionals in the media feel the same way. If the media wasn't actively anti-bush how do you expain the fake memos CBS decided to let Dan Rather report on?

david_a said:

I still think The Newshour with Jim Lehrer

Is that the show that had the 9/11 commison report? Because that was a pretty good program I saw.

Also, I heard a discussion today on MPR with their overseas reporter. It was a good discussion and it told the story of Iraq through the eyes and mouth of a journalist who spent alot of time there.

COBALT said:

...a completely foolish, rhetorical, and completely out of touch elitist like John Kerry who didn't even bother to do his job as a Senator....

Please, with all due respect... elaborate.

COBALT said:

Every liberal I know have several things in common:

1. They hate the president...as if he personally did something to them so horrible he deserves their contempt - to the point they compare him to hitler, and call his wife a whore. Nice. So their strategy for voting in a new president is "anyone but Bush", so they're willing to elect a completely foolish, rhetorical, and completely out of touch elitist like John Kerry who didn't even bother to do his job as a Senator. They don't know a thing about him, or really like him, or really care. He's just NOT BUSH.

For some of us that is indeed the case... but you have to understand that this isn't the norm. Democrats used to count their blessings (to an extent), but at this point our choices of presidents can't sink much farther. So "not Bush" isn't as stupid an idea as it seems at this time.

Which is not to say I really like Kerry... he's got some good ideas, yeah, but he really lacks some of the character he needs to put this election in the bag. Bush's "god sent me, now plz let me do my job kthx" attitude is very asinine IMO, but there are a lot of people out there who will cling to anyone who uses "the G-word." (And I'm not dissing any religion here; every group will do this) That said, I'm going with Kerry not only because he's "not Bush..." but that's certainly a part of it.

COBALT said:

2. They get angrier and angrier the closer to the election we get. They spend their time plastering bumper stickers all over their cars, and making hand made signs to stick in their living room windows about how horrible their lives are because Bush is president - even though their lives haven't been affected in the least unless they go to the airport to get on a plane. Someone else has gone off and made the sacrifices they seem to be whining about.

Pray tell, what kind of life do YOU have? Not all of us are the high-and-mighty types that don't get affected by Bush's plans. Just because one person can't see problems doesn't mean they aren't there. And it's incredibly ignorant to label people as "whiners" just because you can't see or understand their problems (although some liberal whining-topics I don't like either... be more specific maybe?).

COBALT said:

3. They have personal convictions about being anti-war, but for some reason they have no plan on what would be the alternative except idiodic and ignorant ideals like "let the UN do it!" - they just know war is bad, and we shouldn't be doing it.

Well think about it, Bush isn't giving them much to work with. You turn around twice and we're at war already. We're going to be screwed either way, because if Kerry is elected he and his administration will have a lot of crap to clean up (and you watch as every critic he has complains about him not doing it fast enough, as if he were somehow responsible)... but it's better than letting said crap continue. The UN isn't an ideal, BTW, but it's something we (or Bush, anyway) should have paid more attention to.

Hurray for Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley etc etc. Thank God for PBS.