From my own opinion and from other classmate’s, it seems that we all agree that satirical news such as The Daily Show and the Rick Mercer Report, as equally as, if not more, good as your regular 6 o’clock news. Both provide facts and details about an event or happening, but the satirical news does so with humour and from a mindset that is more relatable to a younger audience that is more aware of what is going on in the world, and that isn’t as naive as other people.
One classmate states “I think this type of report (satirical) is very beneficial to the public sphere because it adds some comedy and entertainment to the way that news is portrayed to people. Although it can sometimes cause disruption in the news and media world, I think it is very beneficial for community members and news watchers”. When watching the regular 6 o’clock news, it can be a bit dry and you might miss some of the facts too when watching because it is making you fall half asleep, whereas the satirical news is very upbeat and enjoyable to watch. They also are a bit more down to earth and include humour. Since news are on stations, they have to revolve around a certain ideology of the advertisers, so they tend to have biased, whereas satirical news say a bit more how it really is. As one classmate put it, “To watch these shows is a great way to get a second opinion of what is being reported and even a more truthful depiction of political characters” and put a real claim that the satirical news are in fact more useful than regular news since it gives the straight fact, which seems to be more real and not about money than the regular news. As megan put it, the news should be viewed with caution. She also reminds us that when news is reported incorrectly by mistake or just by design, it can indeed cause a lot of problems amongst the public. It seems the news uses the emotion of fear to drive people to watch their program, and to buy whatever the sponsors are putting on in the commercials in between.
The implications that the majority of us students would rather get our information from satirical news than the “6 o’clock” news is that people nowadays are more aware of what is going on than ever, which is due to various reasons. I think our younger generation are definitely not right wing, since we are environmentally aware, and our philosophy is not as much about money but more about being happy, albeit sometimes the two can go hand in hand. But naturally that makes us not so much of a conservative, and I can see in the future some of us being activists protesting for change of the way the news is delivered to us, and it should be. It should come to us in the most unbiased way as possible, and not revolve around money. And since we have the internet and just about anybody can make a news channel from their own opinion which could be more relatable to viewers, that could also force big corporate stations to change how they do the news just to appeal more to viewers to keep them. All in all, most of us do agree the satirical news provides a more relatable source to information of what’s going on in the world than the regular 6 o’clock news.
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