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The Daily Show (formerly The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn, currently The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) is a half-hour satirical "fake news" program produced by and run on the Comedy Central cable television network in the United States.
Providing comedy/news in the tradition of Michael Moore's TV Nation and Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" segment, Comedy Central's Daily Show reports on the foibles of the real world with a satirical edge. The show has also developed a reputation as one of the sharpest political commentary shows on TV. In addition to news stories, the Daily Show also has celebrities (and semi-celebrities) on for interviews.
The staff of The Daily Show won a Peabody Award for their "Indecision 2000" coverage of the 2000 Presidential Election. In 2003 and 2004, the staff won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series, and for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program.
The show has four new episodes a week, Monday through Thursday, although the program will occasionally go on hiatus for one or two weeks at a time.
An edited version of the show, called The Weekly Daily Show, is run outside of the U.S. on CNN International once a week. The weekly four-episode run is broadcast in Canada on The Comedy Network each night at 11 p.m. and the CTV network each night at midnight.
The Daily Show tapes every Monday through Thursday at the Daily Show studios, located at 513 West 54th Street, New York City. Doors open at 5:45 PM. Audience members must be 18 or over to attend (tickets are required for attendance).
The Daily Show was originally hosted by Craig Kilborn, but he left to take over The Late Late Show on CBS in 1999. Jon Stewart is the current host. The show's format generally consists of "Headlines", "Other News", correspondent pieces, and interviews. The "Headlines" and "Other News" segments are similar to monologues on other late-night television programs, poking fun at the day's news. Sometimes, the show puts correspondents "on location" for remotes, but the correspondents are usually just standing in the studio with a bluescreened backdrop. While generally no note is made of this fact, it is occasionally the subject of jokes, such as a correspondent supposedly being in a press base on Mars.
Correspondent pieces involve the correspondents actually traveling to a remote location to make a report or interview people important to the story. Some segments occur periodically, such as "Mark Your Calendar", "Ed Helms' Digital Watch", "Back in Black" with Lewis Black, and "This Week in God".
Each show ends with a "Moment of Zen" (the version on CNN International ends with the "International Moment of Zen"), which is a short, usually humorous, video clip. Most of the time, it is an extended clip from one of the stories aired during the show, but sometimes it is just a strange video pulled down from the newswires.
According to an 7 October 2003, USA Today article, the show is pulled together in this way: a researcher scans major newspapers, the Associated Press, and cable news channels, then gives possible topics to the ten writers. These meet to discuss headline material for the lead news segment. By 11:15 a.m. they meet with Jon Stewart, and by 12:30 they have come up with jokes for the day's show. The cast hold a Television ratings show that the program generally has about one million viewers nightly, fairly good for cable television. In demographic terms, the viewership is skewed to a relatively young audience compared to other news shows; there is anecdotal evidence that a large chunk of these viewers are university students.
However, the show's writers often repeat the fact that The Daily Show is a comedy program and not a reliable news source by itself. The show does not follow the normal rules of journalistic integrity, but much of the schtick of the program involves questioning whether or not establishment television news sources in the United States, notably the cable news channels CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel, are holding themselves to high journalistic standards. Also, even if one were to rely on The Daily Show for regular information, they'd be slightly out of date as the show usually covers news from the day before (due in part to the taping schedule).
The Washington Post ran an article on August 24, 2004 in which it quoted a "whining" Nightline anchor Ted Koppel, who said to his viewers in a telecast from the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston: "A lot of television viewers—more, quite frankly, than I'm comfortable with—get their news from the Comedy Channel on a program called The Daily Show."
Stewart took issue with Koppel's comment, saying Daily Show fans watch "for comedic interpretation" of the news. "To be informed," Koppel replied, refusing to budge from his position. "They actually think they're coming closer to the truth with your show." Stewart shot back: "Now that's a different thing, that's credibility, that's a different animal." Appearing on each other's shows a few weeks later, Koppel and Stewart downplayed the idea that the two had any animosity toward each other.
Interviews usually take place toward the end of the show, and are most frequently of actors, musicians, and authors, although people important in political circles have often been guests as well. Politically-oriented interviews have begun to attract a considerable amount of attention. Stewart has been known to ask some questions more directly than other interviewers on American television, even though they may be sheathed in a somewhat satirical cloak. He has also been known to stop his guests when they start using talking points or other canned responses, and often disputes the facts behind their claims.
However, things don't always work out as anticipated. A much-publicized interview with U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry fell short of the expectations of many viewers. The show has also asked President George W. Bush to attend, even placing a newspaper ad with an invitation during the 2004 Republican National Convention. It was requested that he mark one of three checkboxes to RSVP: "I will attend alone," "I will attend with my Vice President," or "I am unaware of your existence."
U.S. Sen. John Edwards first announced his candidacy for the 2004 Presidential Election on The Daily Show.
The show's theme music is "Dog on Fire" by Bob Mould, performed by They Might Be Giants.
A book by Jon Stewart entitled The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction is planned for release on September 20, 2004.
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