"The Daily Show" Analysis

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In today’s American society, we are seeing a shift in the way we consume the news; reading newspapers and religiously watching local TV news the way our elders did seem to have become ways of the past. Today, younger generations have almost countless methods to stay up-to-date with current information; some methods, like Twitter, are generated by public interest, while others allow the general public to look at news, especially that involving America’s most powerful and rich, in a satirical light. In this analysis I take a look at the latter, using Jon Stewart’s show on Comedy Central, The Daily Show. This show is an excellent example of alternative journalism commonly consumed today; although its motives are partially humor-based, its willingness to critique and interrogate our political and societal leadership takes advantage of the true freedoms allowed to us in our democracy. From the first minute of watching an episode of the Daily Show, it becomes abundantly clear that it is no ordinary news show; the host’s willingness to mock both the oddities in our society today, and, at times, even his own personal opinions, prove that there are no biases; rather, it shows the viewer that no one, including Jon Stewart himself, is perfect. In the first scene, he refers to a previous episode of his show in which he bashed Chicago deep dish pizza; he follows this with several clips from Chicago news programs talking about Stewart’s rant against the pizza. After the clips are played, he jokes “Get to the news and traffic already!”, to which the audience laughs and applauses. In making this joke, he is directing critique at local news programs, suggesting that the stories they cover aren’t noteworthy or important, and are thus a waste of time. He goes on to explain his rant, saying that he believed New York pizza was simply better. He then cut to a clip in which a
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