Lot's of media blowhards, especially retarded ones like Bill "falafel" O'Reilly, Geraldo "the troops are here" Rivera, and Count Novakula have been hard on good old Jon Stewart for his fake news show. In particular, they've accused him of capitalizing on a pothead viewing audience, mocking old ladies falling over (don't remember that one happening) and fart jokes (don't recall many of those either).

But time after time, when people study the show, it seems that it leaves its viewers more informed than the traditional news. How could this be?

Again today, I see this article suggesting Jon Stewart's show is more informative than traditional media sources.

The researchers looked at coverage of the 2004 Democratic and Republican national conventions and the first presidential debate of the fall campaign, all of which were covered by the mainstream broadcast news outlets and The Daily Show. Individual broadcasts of the nightly news and corresponding episodes of The Daily Show were analyzed by the researchers, who found that the "average amounts of video and audio substance in the broadcast network news stories" were no different from The Daily Show. Perhaps more telling, The Daily Show delivered longer stories on the topic.
...
Using the entire half-hour programs as the basis of analysis yielded the same results: there was just as much substance to The Daily Show's coverage as there was on the network news. And The Daily Show was much funnier, with less of the hype—references to photo ops, political endorsements, and polls—that typically overshadows substantive coverage on network news, according to the study.

And the interviews are better too, and harder hitting believe it or not.

I think it's official, there is no more need for network or cable news, we can just watch the Daily Show. And if you're serious about hard news? The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Via slashdot.