The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998. Jon Stewart took over as host in January 1999, bringing a number of changes to the show's content.
Under Stewart, The Daily Show has become more strongly focused around politics and the national media, in contrast with the more character-driven focus during Kilborn's tenure.
Describing itself as a fake news program, The Daily Show draws its comedy and satire from recent news stories, political figures, media organizations, and often, aspects of the show itself. The show typically opens with a long monologue from Jon Stewart relating to recent headlines and frequently features exchanges with one or more of several correspondents, who adopt absurd or humorously exaggerated takes on current events against Stewart's straight man persona.
The final segment is devoted to a celebrity interview, with guests ranging from actors and musicians to nonfiction authors and political figures.
The program has grown in popularity since Jon Stewart took over hosting, with organizations such as the Pew Research Center claiming that it has become a primary source of news for many young people, an assertion the show's staff have repeatedly rejected. Critics, including series co-creator Lizz Winstead, have chastised Stewart for not conducting hard-hitting enough interviews with his political guests, some of whom he may have previously lampooned in other segments; while others have criticized the show as having a liberal bias.
Stewart and other Daily Show writers have responded to both criticisms by saying that they do not have any journalistic responsibility and that as comedians their only duty is to provide entertainment.
In 2005, Comedy Central launched a spin-off show, The Colbert Report, starring long-time Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert. A weekly Global Edition of The Daily Show has been created for overseas markets and airs on foreign networks as well as CNN International.
Format
Jon Stewart hosting an episode of The Daily Show in 2009
Each episode begins with announcer Drew Birns announcing the date and the introduction, "From Comedy Central's World News Headquarters in New York, this is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." The host, Jon Stewart, then opens the show with a monologue drawing from current news stories and issues.
Previously, the show had divided its news commentary into sections known as "Headlines", "Other News", and "This Just In"; these titles were dropped on October 28, 2002. For instance, during the week of August 20, 2007, the show aired a series of segments called "Operation Silent Thunder: The Daily Show in Iraq" in which correspondent Rob Riggle reported from Iraq. In August 2008, Riggle traveled to China for a series of segments titled "Rob Riggle: Chasing the Dragon", which focused on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Additionally, Jason Jones traveled to Iran in early June 2009 to report on the Iranian elections.
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Jones and Stewart inadvertently generated much comedic material when the protests in Iran corresponded roughly to the time immediately after Jones's reporting.
These correspondent segments feature a rotating supporting cast, and involve the show's members traveling to different locations to file comedic reports on current news stories and conduct interviews with people related to the featured issue. Topics have varied widely; during the early years of the show they tended toward character-driven human interest stories such as Bigfoot enthusiasts, but since Stewart began hosting in 1999 the focus of the show has become more political and the field pieces have come to closer reflect current issues and debates. Under Kilborn and the early years of Stewart, most interviewees were not aware or entirely aware of the comedic nature of The Daily Show.
Guests come from a wide range of cultural sources, and include actors, musicians, authors, pundits and political figures. Since Stewart became host, the show's guest list has tended away from celebrities and more towards non-fiction authors and political pundits, as well as many prominent elected officials. While in the show's earlier years it struggled to book high-profile politicians—in 1999, for an Indecision 2000 segment, Steve Carell struggled to talk his way off Republican candidate John McCain's press overflow bus and onto the Straight Talk Express—it has since risen in popularity, particularly following the show's coverage of the 2000 and 2004 elections. The segment was short-lived, and by the end of 2006 it had been discontinued.
In a closing segment sometimes referred to as the toss, Stewart has a short exchange with "our good friend, Stephen Colbert at The Colbert Report", which airs immediately after.
This check-in first appeared following The Colbert Report's premiere in October 2005 and was initially featured daily, but in 2007 was cut back to twice per week, and, as of 2009, is now just once a week. After this, there is a segue to the closing credits in the form of "Your Moment of Zen", a humorous piece of video footage that has been part of the show's wrap-up since the series began in 1996.
Studio
The outside of the current Daily Show studio
The program features Stewart sitting at a desk on an elevated island stage in the style of a traditional news show. The traditional guests' couch, which had been a part of the set since the show's premiere, was done away with in favor of simple upright chairs.
The change was initially not well-received, spawning a backlash among some fans and prompting a "Bring Back the Couch Campaign." The campaign was mentioned on subsequent shows by Stewart and supported by Daily Show contributor Bob Wiltfong. The couch was eventually made the prize in a Daily Show sweepstakes in which the winner received the couch, round trip tickets to New York, tickets to the show and a small sum of money.
The sign over the entryway of the current Daily Show studio
On April 9, 2007 the show debuted a new set. Throughout the morning they work on writing deadline pieces inspired by recent news, as well as longer-term projects.
By lunchtime, Stewart—who describes his role as that of a managing editor—has begun to review headline jokes. The script is submitted by 3 p.m., and at 4:15 there is a rehearsal.
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Whitney Brown. Common segments included "This Day in Hasselhoff History" and "Last Weekend's Top-Grossing Films, Converted into Lira", in parody of entertainment news shows as their tendency to lead out to commercials with trivia such as celebrity birthdays. In each show Kilborn would conduct celebrity interviews, ending with a segment called "Five Questions" in which the guest was made to answer a series of questions that were typically a combination of obscure fact and subjective opinion. These are highlighted in a 1998 book titled The Daily Show: Five Questions, which contains transcripts of Kilborn's best interviews. Each episode concluded with a segment called "Your Moment of Zen" that showed random video clips of humorous and sometimes morbid interest such as visitors at a Chinese zoo feeding baby chicks to the alligators. Originally the show was recorded without a studio audience, featuring only the laughter of its own off-camera staff members. Describing his time as a correspondent under Kilborn, Colbert says, "You wanted to take your soul off, put it on a wire hanger, and leave it in the closet before you got on the plane to do one of these pieces." One New York Times reviewer criticized the show for being too cruel and for lacking a central editorial vision or ideology, describing it as "bereft of an ideological or artistic center...
precocious but empty."
There were reports of backstage friction between Kilborn and some of the female staff, particularly the show's co-creator Lizz Winstead. Winstead had not been involved in the hiring of Kilborn, and disagreed with him over what direction the show should take.
Reruns were shown until Jon Stewart's debut four weeks later.
With Jon Stewart (1999–present)
Shift in content
Comedian Jon Stewart took over as host of the show, which was retitled The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, on January 11, 1999. Stewart had previously hosted Short Attention Span Theater on Comedy Central, two shows on MTV (You Wrote It, You Watch It and an eponymous talk show), as well as a syndicated late-night talk show, and had been cast in films and television. In taking over hosting from Kilborn, Stewart retained much of the same staff and on-air talent, allowing many pieces to transition without much trouble, while other features like "God Stuff", with John Bloom presenting an assortment of actual clips from various televangelists, and "Backfire", an in-studio debate between Brian Unger and A. Since the change, a number of new features have been, and continue to be, developed.
Instrumental in shaping the voice of the show under Stewart was former editor of The Onion Ben Karlin who, along with fellow Onion contributor David Javerbaum, joined the staff in 1999 as head writer and was later promoted to executive producer. Describing his approach to the show, Karlin said, "The main thing, for me, is seeing hypocrisy.
Then-correspondent Stephen Colbert recalls that Stewart specifically asked him to have a political viewpoint, and to allow his passion for issues to carry through into his comedy. Colbert says that whereas under Kilborn the focus was on "human interest-y" pieces, with Stewart as host the show's content became more "issues and news driven", particularly after the beginning of the 2000 election campaign with which the show dealt in its "Indecision 2000" coverage. Stewart himself describes the show's coverage of the 2000 election recount as the point at which the show found its editorial voice. Under Kilborn, Colbert says that his work as a correspondent primarily involved "character driven pieces—like, you know, guys who believe in Bigfoot." However, as the focus of the show has become more news-driven, correspondents have increasingly been used in studio pieces, either as experts discussing issues at the anchor desk or as field journalists reporting from false locations in front of a green screen.
Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer
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Colbert says that this change has allowed correspondents to be more involved with the show, as it has permitted them to work more closely with the host and writers.
The show's 2000 and 2004 election coverage, combined with a new satirical edge, helped to catapult Stewart and The Daily Show to new levels of popularity and critical respect. Since Stewart became host, the show has won thirteen Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards, and its ratings have dramatically increased. In 2003, the show was averaging nearly a million viewers, an increase of nearly threefold since Stewart replaced Kilborn as host. By September 2008, the show averaged nearly 2 million viewers per night. Barack Obama's interview on October 29, 2008 pulled in 3.6 million viewers, the show's highest to date.
The move towards greater involvement in political issues and the increasing popularity of the show in certain key demographics have led to examinations of where the views of the show fit in the political spectrum.
Adam Clymer has argued that The Daily Show is more critical of Republicans than Democrats. Stewart says that while the show does have a more liberal point of view, it is not "a liberal organization" with a political agenda and its duty first and foremost is to be funny. They have 49 percent of the vote and three percent of the power.
At a certain point you go, 'Guys, pick up your game.'" He has targeted them for failing to effectively stand on some issues, such as the war in Iraq, describing them as "incompetent" and "unable... On November 17, 2009 Vice President Joe Biden appeared on the show, making him the first sitting vice president to do so.
Writers' strike
Due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, the show went on hiatus on November 5, 2007.
The survey shows that changing news formats have not made much difference on how much the public knows about national and international affairs, but adds that there is no clear connection between news formats and what audiences know. The Project for Excellence in Journalism released a content analysis report suggesting that The Daily Show comes close to providing the complete daily news.
A 2006 study published by Indiana University tried to compare the substantive amount of information of The Daily Show against prime time network news broadcasts, and concluded that when it comes to substance, there is little difference between The Daily Show and other news outlets. When co-host Carlson argued that Stewart himself had not asked John Kerry substantial questions when Kerry appeared on The Daily Show, Stewart countered that it was not his job to give hard-hitting interviews and that a "fake news" comedy program should not be held to the same standards as real journalism.
"Fans like their dose of 'Daily' news Stewart dishes some seriously funny stuff". http:www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/other_news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003156883&inp=true.
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