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Ben Clemence, Debate Paper #2 October 18, 2011 Comedy News Word Count: 1818 **Does comedy news enhance political and environmental literacy?** Political literacy is something that news providers should strive to achieve universally. To be politically literate, one must be aware of current issues, the history that led up to the issue, what the leading arguments are from both sides, and be able to articulate why they believe one side over the other. A general understand of the way the US political system works is also necessary to be able to formulate well grounded arguments. A news station should present the current news to viewers in a truthful, non-biased way that enhances everyone’s understanding of the issue being presented. Enhancing the public’s political literacy leads to more informed decision making because the public can now be more involved in creating new policies. Informed citizens can also work to overturn legislation that is not in the best interest of the people. Better citizen involvement will lead to a truer form of democracy where everyone’s voice is heard and is then represented through their elected official. This makes the stakeholders in this issue just about everyone. To look more at why everyone is not already politically literate it becomes necessary to looks at how news is typically presented. The typical mediums are through TV broadcasts, print, the internet, and radio. While television would seem to be the easiest and quickest way to get up to date news with little effort, it is often chosen after other TV shows. This is especially true for younger generations where they would rather watch reality shows or sitcoms before taking the time to watch the news. Some news shows, such as 60 Minutes, are more similar to the hour longs programming that typically runs on TV. Unfortunately there have been more than a few instances of the football game preceding 60 Minutes to run late and into the time when 60 Minutes should be on. This shows the typical viewer is much more interested in seeing the football game than hearing about current news and reports on US and world issues. The public wants more information, but wants it quickly and efficiently. Instant gratification in the news is something that is hard to provide but is what viewers want. Kids from a young age are being programmed to want everything instantly and to continuously work. This point is clearly illustrated in the film “Race to Nowhere” where they depict the typical lives of kids in the public schooling system. By forcing kids to do many things at once they are trained to want information fast and don’t have the attention span to watch the news for an hour at a time (Abeles). While the paradigm of learning has changed, for better or worse, the media has not adapted fully to fulfill their need for instant gratification.

In an article entitled “America is a Joke” by Chris Smith, he writes in support of comedy news enhancing political and environmental literacy. The article begins with an amusing anecdote about some of the lowbrow humor that is displayed in host Jon Stewart’s show, The Daily Show. While a swift kick to the groin may produce several laughs, they also include a thought behind the joke that gives information about a current news story. The jokes are not made just to be funny but also to inform viewers about actual news. As described in the article, “mainstream TV networks have steadily shed seriousness and viewers.” The original channels through which news was distributed have not done a good job of presenting the news in a proper and appealing way which has caused them to lose many of their viewers. “’Jon has chronicled the death of shame in politics and journalism,’ says Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly News anchor who is a frequent Daily Show guest. ‘Many of us on this side of the journalism tracks often wish we were on Jon’s side. I envy his platform to shout from the mountaintop. He’s a necessary branch of government’ ("America is a Joke").” This excerpt from the article indicates Williams strong advocacy for the way that The Daily Show presents news and describes it as a “necessary branch of government.” Often times it seems that the news is presented in such a biased way that it becomes necessary for someone to shout out that it is extreme and that people need to consider whether or not they take the information given to them at face value or not. The Daily Show points out these far left and right individuals and puts what they say into question in an often amusing way. The bottom line is that the joke still has a theme to it and enhances the viewers understanding of the current issue.

There are some things that the article fails to mention, most importantly if the message is actually interpreted as news and not just a good laugh. While comedy may be a great medium to convey information about current issues, there is no guarantee that the viewer will take away more than just a funny quote from some extreme political figure. By juxtaposing presendential candidates with characters from South Park you are making a mockery of the whole election system and those running for president. This can lead to misinformed decisions because viewers have this association of these candidates with negative images. Whether or not Jon Stewart admits it, the stories that are presented are all political statements with real effects and cause bias in their viewers.

A group that is often critical of comedy news and its benefit is Fox News and this becomes very apparent in an interview of Jon Stewart by Chris Wallace. Wallace brings up how Stewart describes Fox News as a, “24 hour news driven propaganda delivery system.” He questions how Stewart can possibly come up with these to which Stewart’s response is that he just, “feels it.” The point that Wallace is trying to prove is that Fox News is not trying to push a political agenda anymore than stations such as MSNBC and The New York Times. He argues that Fox News is the counterpart of the liberal agenda of MSNBC. What Wallace goes on to do is provide examples of how Jon Stewart presents information in such a way that he has a political agenda. What Stewart argues is that he is a comedian first, and that his show points out absurdity and corruption in politics. What Wallace is trying to get across is that The Daily Show is pushing a liberal agenda and they do this mostly by taking shots at conservatives. The news that is presented on The Daily Show, according to Wallace, skews the news by either leaving certain facts out or by juxtaposing certain politicians with other clips that associate them with something negative. By leaving out certain information, The Daily Show presents information in a way that suggests that conservative ideas are wrong, leaving their viewers misinformed. Wallace believes that what Stewart truly wants it to a political player, and to have some real influence over the opinions of his viewers.

In the interview Stewart points out several things that help to defend his show and that fact that they have no political agenda other than to point out how absurd the things that politicians say are. Another point that Stewart makes is that Fox viewers are the most consistently misinformed viewers of any news station which is true according to the Washington Daily (Benen). While the viewers of Fox News may not be disappointed in what they are hearing, they are not learning anything either. The viewers of Fox News are not enhancing their political literacy because the news that is presented to them is so biased. The Daily Show points out how absurdly biased news stations such as Fox News are and makes fun of them. There is not an underlying political agenda of The Daily Show according to Stewart and his show only exists to point out corruption in politics.

An additional article that further elaborates on this issue is about how Fox News has the most consistently misinformed viewers of any news station. Evidence from a study at the university of Maryland points to the fact that viewers that relied on republican news sources were, “three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions — about WMD in Iraq, Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, and foreign support for the U.S. position on the war in Iraq.” The bias in the way they present news is present in every story they cover. To illustrate a recent news story example, Fox News has been describing the occupy wall street movement as anti-capitalist. The aims of this movement are not to eliminate capitalism. They are instead trying to end the flow of money between corporations and congress and end the control that the rich have over politics. The interesting thing is that the article states that, “Fox News viewers would have done better, statistically speaking, if they had received no news at all and simply guessed.” This was in response to the statistics on how misinformed their viewers were about many current issues. Whether this is a case of Fox News presenting the wrong or misleading information, or the viewers only hearing and believing what they want is a different story. The bottom line is that if an actual news station is leading their viewers to false conclusions, then comedy news must serve to enhance political literacy by pointing out how absurdly biased news stations such as Fox News are.

In my opinion there is no way to argue that comedy news does not enhance political literacy. The viewers of shows like The Daily Show are seeing how absurd the news stories that are presented are and they are actually news stories that are covered. Station such as Fox News are so biased that they lead to “the most consistently misinformed viewers” (Benen). A political station such as this should be the one called into question and asked the question of whether or not it is enhancing political and environmental literacy. Comedy news helps to provide news in a way that makes viewers want to watch and because the main goal is comedy, there is not political agenda behind the stories they present to try and influence their viewers. Comedy then becomes an excellent medium for relaying news in an unbiased way that appeals to the widest range of viewers.

References: Abeles, Vicki, Dir. Race to Nowhere. Dir. Vicki Abeles, Jessica Congdon. Reel Link, 2010. Film. .

Benen, Steve. The 'most consistantly misinformed media viewers'. Washington Monthly, n.d. Web. 18 Oct 2011. .

Stewart, Jon. "Exclusive: 'Jon Stewart on Fox News Sunday." Fox News. Interview by Chris Wallace. 19 June 2011. TV. .

"TV Profiles." America is a Joke. New York TV, 12 Sep 2010. Web. 18 Oct 2011. .