this is one of the silliest and obnoxious things that gets repeated so often on this site. seriously.. no, the daily show doesn't do a better job reporting the news than actual news outfits.

If the metric for good reporting is how often you chuckle, then sure, the daily show is the clear winner. For up-to-date information presented in a way that allows you to understand the state of current affairs in the world, then no, the daily show, for example, isn't going to inform you adequately about pretty much anything.

Comedy political shows, like john oliver's show, get to fit and trim down a day or a week's worth of news into an hour. They get to choose more interesting things to report on. Just because you're more engaged as a result of their presentation of the material or the material doesn't mean that traditional reporting is poorly executed on account of the fact that they didn't make you laugh as much as the daily show. It's such a strange comparison. It's like judging a museum's effectiveness of educating its patrons by comparing it to how much affected theme park patrons are to the theme park's factoid placards. It's a really stupid comparison and that's something jon stewart would agree with. Time and again he has made clear that he does not consider what he does journalism. And what he reports on is typically as base as double talk by big names. Such political sliminess, while entertaining, is, much more often than not, not substantial. Is nancy's grace's most recent gaffe really that important? No. Was it very entertaining to see it exposed on the daily show? Yes. I mean, i remember him spending like 10 minutes on donald trump's toupe in a ~40 minute long show.

Nobody's saying that cable news or media outfits are perfect. They're only just saying that the daily show does not do a better job reporting the news than actual reporters. This whole thing is something that actually grinds my gears because it's such a poorly thought out thought.