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The News about Comedy:
Young Audiences,
7KH 'DLO\ 6KRZ, and Evolving Notions of Journalism
A recent poll by The Pew Research Center for People and the Press (2004) reported that
21% of 18-34 year-olds regularly learn about the presidential campaign from comedy shows,
specifically Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Not only is this figure remarkable
in that it is more than twice what it was four years ago (9%)
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, it is also nearly equal to the 23% who
report getting campaign information from network news—and thus contributes to a growing body
of research indicating that young people are increasingly abandoning traditional news sources. This
is particularly true when examined relative to the news consumption patterns of older Americans.
In a 2002 study conducted by The Pew Research Center, only 26% of 18-29 year-olds reported
having read a newspaper yesterday—less than half of that reported by those aged 65 and older
(59%). Television news hardly fared better: Only 40% of 18-29 year-olds reported watching
television news the previous day, as compared to 73% of those 65 and older. And, despite its
promise, the Internet seems to be doing little to close this generational news gap: While 76% of 18-
29 year-olds reported going online in 2002, only 44% claimed to have gone online for news at a
minimum of once per week.
It is not only significant that young people appear to consume very little news comparative
to older Americans, but also that their consumption of news media in general is on the decline. The
Times Mirror Center’s (now The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press) 1990 analysis,
The Age of Indifference: A Study of Young Americans and How They View the News, helps to locate the
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In the 2000 Pew survey, the show Politically Incorrect was listed in place of The Daily Show; it is thus difficult to
discern whether the increase over the last four years speaks to the relative impact of the latter, or to a more general
growth in comedy programs as an information resource. To perhaps put this in perspective, it is worth noting that
13% of young people report learning about the campaign from late-night talk shows like Jay Leno and David
Letterman—a number that did not increase from 2000 (Pew Research Center, 2004).
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