Young Get News From Comedy Central

March 1, 2004 / 4:11 PM EST / AP
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Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather ... and Jon Stewart?

Readers over 30 might scoff at Stewart's inclusion - assuming they know who he is. For many under 30, the host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" is, improbably, a source for news.

A poll released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 21 percent of people aged 18 to 29 cited "The Daily Show" and "Saturday Night Live" as a place where they regularly learned presidential campaign news.

By contrast, 23 percent of the young people mentioned ABC, CBS or NBC's nightly news broadcasts as a source.

Even more startling is the change from just four years ago. When the same question was asked in 2000, Pew found only 9 percent of young people pointing to the comedy shows and 39 percent to the network news shows.

The people at "The Daily Show" ridicule the idea of people looking to their show as a primary news source.

"A lot of them are probably high," Stewart cracked. "I'm not sure, coming off of robots fighting and into our show, what we're dealing with out there."

Think again, Jon.

Random conversations with nine people, aged 19 to 26, waiting to see a taping of "The Daily Show" last week revealed two who admitted they learned much about the news from the program.

None said they regularly watched the network evening news shows.

"I'm not really interested," said Michelle Cohen, a 20-year-old New Yorker. "A lot of those shows focus on topics that have absolutely nothing to do with me, like old people's health care."

As if to drive the Pew survey's point home, "The Daily Show" reached a ratings milestone during the two weeks of the Iowa caucus, New Hampshire primary and State of the Union address. For the first time, Stewart's show had more male viewers aged 18 to 34 than any of the network evening news shows.