Most of us think so, apparently– Jon Stewart finished 4th in a Pew Center survey last year of “most admired journalists”–tied with names like Tom Brokaw and Anderson Cooper!

So what the hell is going on? He’s a comedian, right? His show is satire, albeit brilliant satire, but he’s making jokes, not reporting, correct?

Well…maybe not. At least not all of it. The Pew Center watched the Daily Show for a year (HORRIBLE job to have) and released the following findings:

• The program’s clearest focus is politics, especially in Washington. U.S. foreign affairs, largely dominated by the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq, Washington politics and government accounted for nearly half (47%) of the time spent on the program. Overall, “The Daily Show” news agenda is quite close to those of cable news talk shows.
• The press itself is another significant focus on “The Daily Show.” In all, segments about the press and news media accounted for 8% of program time. That is more than double the amount of coverage of media in the mainstream press overall during the same period.
• A good deal of the news, however, is also absent from “The Daily Show.” In 2007, for example, major events such as the tragic Minneapolis bridge collapse were never discussed. And the shootings at Virginia Tech, the most covered story within a given week in 2007 by the overall press, received only a cursory mention.
• Republicans in 2007 tended to bear the brunt of ridicule from Stewart and his crew. From July 1 through November 1, Stewart’s humor targeted Republicans more than three times as often as Democrats. The Bush administration alone was the focus of almost a quarter (22%) of the segments in this time period.
• The lineup of on-air guests was more evenly balanced by political party. But our subjective sense from viewing the segments is that Republicans faced harsher criticism during their interviews with Stewart. Whether this is because the show is simply liberal or because the Republicans control the White House is harder to pin down.

That’s very….news-ish. Every cable news network has one, or several shows that cover Washington politics exclusively. Covering the press? MSNBC does that. And Fox buries bad news all the time! Of course, we return to reality with the thought that they’re making fun of Republicans more often than Democrats, but I’ll remind you that for most of 2007, the President was driving the news cycles, sooo…. draw your own conclusions. Here’s what, exactly, they chose to ridicule:

Of course, you’ll have a hard time telling that to the American public– they’re already watching him at an amazing clip.  Fully 14% of us watch “The Daily Show” on a regular basis.

[PewCenter]

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