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I love the Daily Show but this made me think twice about it's content. There's some extreme trolling going on here that will make me look at their skewering of the right in a different way - which is probably a good thing.

With all the real crazy stuff going on, I'd expect The Daily Show not to have to invent fake stories, but I guess even they have airtime to fill.



I think the issue of kids being manipulated by mobile games is a legitimate issue.

That aside, the Daily Show is comedy. It's astonishing that people are surprised that their sketches aren't factually accurate. They have 'live' reports from heaven and hell for fks sake. Enjoy it, try not to form opinions based on it.


People keep using the "it's a fake news show" as a defense but I don't buy into that. I've always thought of the Daily Show as satire, holding up real news stories to ridicule has a long and glowing history of influencing the public - once you start twisting stories to fit in with a joke you've lost the high ground.

The fact that gamification's effect on kids is a legitimate issue makes it worse - there's enough real craziness around to make fun of without inventing some.


>I think the issue of kids being manipulated by mobile games is a legitimate issue.

Unfortunately, the DS seem to have targeted a fairly legit company to "expose" this issue. I mean, it's not as if there is a massive dearth of shady companies on the app store they could of featured... the Daily Show just took advantage of one legit company's openness and naivity.


I don't agree to this. Stewart does a whole bunch of political commentry and lots of people treat it as real satire (me included).


Dan Barker, of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, wrote an account of being a Daily Show interview subject: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/04/14/behi...

They work hard to get a funny story from their interviews, and correctness isn't the priority.


Despite popular belief the Daily Show is not a real news show. People treat it as such and this is unfortunate.


I don't watch the Daily Show beyond the occasional clip, but it seems to me the difference in this case is that many (most?) people are not informed about the issue from another news source, so they have nothing to compare to. Unavoidably some of it will get taken for true...


If they didn't have information from elsewhere, they wouldn't get most of the jokes.


That's the point!


Maybe it's not a 'real new show' but it is designed to influence public thought so there are some ethics involved, see my satire remark above.


'designed to influence public thought'

It's designed to make people laugh and it references topical news. I think you're confusing The Daily Show with Fox News.




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