'The Daily Show' a substantial news source

INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- A study conducted at Indiana University shows that "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" contains as much substantial news as the major network news shows.

The study was conducted by Julia Fox, an assistant professor of telecommunications at IU, and graduate students Glory Koloen and Volkan Sahin, The Indiana Daily Student reported Thursday.

They found the Comedy Central news show to be just as substantive as the major television networks. They define substantive news as coverage that referred to political issues and candidate qualifications in 2004's presidential election.

The study, which was created to show the amount of substance found during news coverage of the election, found as much substantive news on "The Daily Show" as on "ABC Evening News," "CBS Evening News" and "NBC Nightly News."

"We coded all of the video and audio that was about the presidential election, and we used the coding scheme that has indicators of what we consider being substance," Fox said. "There were just as many issues and references in 'The Daily Show' as there were in the networks."

But Comedy Central spokesman Steve Albani said "The Daily Show" is not there to educate its viewers about the news, but to make people laugh.

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