I am, at least theoretically, writing a paper about language usage in The Daily Show and NBC’s Nightly News. To begin, I typed up transcripts of the respective episodes aired on Thursday, April 27th. I was hoping that the differences in language would jump out at me once I’d completed that tedious task and the 8-10 page paper would write itself from there. Instead of language differences, though, what I noticed most was a content difference. The Daily Show covered a lot more news.
Brian Williams was reporting from New Orleans. Most of the stories centered on New Orleans — mostly, will the levees be ready for the coming hurricane season, and should FEMA be dismantled. The other two big stories were about gas prices and the Sago mine survivor.
The Daily Show mentioned Rove’s court appearance, Rumsfeld & Rice’s visit to Iraq, the president’s approval ratings, the Ken Lay trial, the New Orleans mayoral race, new tapes from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden, Zacarias Moussaoui’s sentencing, and the appointment of FOX News commentator Tony Snow to White House Press Secretary. Granted, it didn’t cover any of these topics in any depth, but it was a much better overview of what’s going on in the world than was offered by the Nightly News.
According to FootnoteTV, “A 2004 study found that 21 percent of young people regularly were getting their campaign news from comedy shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live.” No wonder, if shows like these are the only places where actual news gets any air time.
FootnoteTV’s solution? Provide footnotes for shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live, and even West Wing, among others.
Watch funny news, read bite-sized footnotes on FootnoteTV.com, and be better informed than those watching the “real” news. Ah, the 21st century.