Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of you earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.
How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.
If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 3rd) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
This was originally posted on April 3, 2010 on my old blog.
Best Informed Viewers Get Their News From Comedy Central
I was struck by a headline I ran across that read, “Daily Show/Colbert Viewers Most Knowledgeable.” Also of note is that the headline went on to say, “Fox News Viewers Rank Lowest.” What a shocker that is!
I am a fan of both Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report, In a previous post on this blog, I commented that these two shows are the funniest, most relevant, and, at the same time, most irreverent shows on TV. I’m apparently not alone in my assessment.
It seems that the faux news Daily Show and the faux conservative pundit Stephen Colbert, appearing nightly (Monday through Thursday) on Comedy Central at 11:00 and 11:30 p.m ET, respectively, have the most well-informed, knowledgeable viewers of all forms of media, including network news shows, cable news channels, newspapers, and magazines.
These findings came from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center to gauge public knowledge of current affairs and how people get their information about events in the news.
The Pew survey showed that there is no clear connection between news formats and what audiences know. The survey found that “Well-informed audiences come from cable (Daily Show/Colbert Report, O’Reilly Factor), the internet (especially major newspaper websites), broadcast TV (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) and radio (NPR, Rush Limbaugh). The less informed audiences also frequent a mix of formats: broadcast television (network morning news shows, local news), cable (Fox News Channel), and the internet (online blogs where people discuss news events).”
Granted, this survey is three years old, but I don’t think things have changed all that much since April 2007. Oh wait, that’s probably not true. The Fox News channel’s audience has probably grown with the addition of such personalities as Glenn Beck and, most recently, Sarah Palin.
Isn’t that great? Now there are even more people who are ill-informed.
This, That, and the Other 
As a European this leaves me with the thought ‘Only in America’…
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think we do need to think about the credibility of our news sources. I think we need to be careful, too, because the sources we tend to follow have a similar slant to us, and therefore just confirm our view of the world. Even if a news source appears to be objective, it will have had editorial input. Somebody will have decided which stories to tell us about, and which to bury.
What I find interesting is when people hear a news story they don’t like – they tend to bury it themselves, rather than allow it to change their view of the world.
LikeLiked by 1 person
True, we tend to dismiss that which doesn’t reinforce our own perspectives.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some things don’t change, do they. I still miss Jon Stewart, although Trevor Noah is funny too. I wonder what a survey done today would show.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey folks, thanks for reading as always… please stay safe and sane,
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for the prompt and interesting flashback post, Fandango. This is my entry, from April 3, 2018:
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do miss Jon Stewart. I watched the Colbert video you highlighted a few days ago and had a nice surprise: the one that followed was hilarious. He showed a video of a woman who had trained her retriever to pick up a grocery list from an elderly neighbor and then bring her the groceries. He then called his own dog into action and…well it’s worth watching…
Here’s my last year’s take on the Mueller Report, in rhyme, which I tend to turn to as a balm for my spirits.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I miss Jon Stewart as well. My wife said to me just this morning that she would love to hear what he would have to say about what’s going on.
And I saw the Colbert bit about the dog and the grocery list. You’re right — worth watching.
LikeLike
My far from serious share of an ‘oldie moldie’ from my archives:
http://sparksfromacombustiblemind.com/2020/04/03/flashback-friday-fandango-style-2/
LikeLiked by 1 person
And a fine (and fun) “oldie moldie) it is!
LikeLike