Very much so. The bush-era daily show wasn’t news, it was release from the news. No actual News show would spend so much time talking about OTHER news shows…nor would they spend so much time making funny noises and photoshopping pictures. Saying, “I get my news from the daily show” doesn’t make the daily show news. It makes the state of the news and people’s choices for their sources of information a problem.

It was intentionally comic relief. People mistaking someone who knew what they were talking about while telling jokes for news isn’t a criticism of Jon Stewart, it’s a criticism of everything else.