Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” was compared with traditional news media outlets in a spring 2004 Journalism and Mass Communications course.

The course, Mock News and Democracy, offered by professor Paul Brewer, coincided with Brewer’s study of the difference between traditional and mock news media.

Critics of “The Daily Show” argue its content doesn’t give equal coverage to political policy as traditional news media is supposed to. A Sept. 21, 2004, Penn University study through the National Annenberg Election Survey proved otherwise.

National Annenberg polling of 19,013 adults conducted between July 15, 2004, and Sept. 19, 2004, showed that on a six-item political knowledge test, people who did not watch any late-night comedy programs in the past week answered 2.62 items correctly, while viewers of Letterman answered 2.91, viewers of Leno answered 2.95 and viewers of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” answered 3.59 items correctly.

That meant there was a difference of 16 percentage points between “Daily Show” viewers and people who did not watch any late-night programming.

“Partly I think that traditional media have a lot of problems,” Brewer said. “I think that they cover the news in ways that don’t really resonate with a lot of people in public.”

The Penn University study concluded that the younger generation is up-to-date with political news because of “The Daily Show.” Brewer’s study concluded that because of the way “The Daily Show” covers its news, younger viewers are up to date on political occurrences.

Brewer and his class began the study by analyzing the first 52 new episodes from January 4, 2005, to April 19, 2005.

“I’m a fan of ‘The Daily Show,’ so that makes it fun to study it as well,” Brewer said. “But there has also been a lot of research lately on the role that entertainment-oriented media play in the political process.”

Brewer decided to design his class on the way entertainment news can be compared to traditional news outlets, especially the way that younger audiences use mock and entertainment news as a direct news source. This idea was just the starting point.

“There hadn’t been nearly as much research on what political comedy shows are like and what ‘The Daily Show’ is like in particular,” Brewer said.

Brewer found that of the 222 stories presented on the show, 56 percent of the stories were about political topics.

“We expected this to some extent, but I was still surprised by the numbers,” Brewer said. “And this was not during a presidential election.”

The study also showed 53 percent of the stories included a joke about a political figure and 35 percent included a longer sound bite compared with traditional news outlets.

“I think that’s important because we don’t always hear the voices of the politicians on traditional news outlets,” Brewer said. “We hear the reporter’s voice and the sound bite tends to be very short.”

Brewer noted that half of the guests on “The Daily Show” were “serious guests” who were there to partake in political debate and discussion. “Serious guests” are non- promotional entertainment guests, including politicians, government officials and authors on public affairs and issues, Brewer said.

While Stewart and others on the show tended to focus on political topics and issues as stories, 15 percent of the stories poked fun at news media, including “The Daily Show” itself. The show used 41 percent of its video clips from traditional news media, often times incorporating that into the joke.

“I also think that if people who wouldn’t be tuning in (to traditional news shows) are watching ‘The Daily Show,’ then they may learn something they wouldn’t otherwise,” said Brewer. “While it’s not the Washington Post, I do think it has a surprising amount of information in it.”

Junior Justin Einerson watches “The Daily Show” for the humor.

“It’s hilarious. It’s the only thing worth watching at ten o’clock,” Einerson said.

Others like junior Amanda Lambright watch it because it explains politics in different way.

“When I do watch it, I understand politics and current issues better because of the way Stewart presents them,” she said.

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On the Net: Paul Brewer’s “Daily Show” study: http://publicbrewery.blogspot.com/2005/05/analyzing-daily-show.html and http://publicbrewery.blogspot.com/2005/08/analyzing-daily-show-ii.html

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