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(Lack of) Substance Abuse

As evidenced by the many clips which populate my blog, I am a big fan of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Which is one reason why I was perturbed by a study that came out some months ago claiming Daily Show viewers tended to be more cynical toward politics and politicians. Now for me, a little cynicism towards ones elected leaders can go along way. The issue of how detrimental TDS's brand of "news" was to the political discourse in this country seemed rather ridiculous. But it had people seriously asking the question: Is Jon Stewart bad for democracy?

Well turns out, probably no more than what you get from other sources of "news". According to a new study due out next summer, The Daily Show has about the same mount of substantive news coverage as other broadcast news programs.

So for my money, I'm sticking with The Daily Show. At least their humor is intentional.

(Filed at State of the Day)