New research confirms what we already knew — The Daily Show is as “substantive” a source of US political news as the real news shows.

Using the entire half-hour programs as the basis of analysis yielded the same results: there was just as much substance to The Daily Show’s coverage as there was on the network news. And The Daily Show was much funnier, with less of the hype—references to photo ops, political endorsements, and polls—that typically overshadows substantive coverage on network news, according to the study.

The Daily Show is as substantive as the “real” news

Fox News is actually funnier than The Daily Show, but Fox is trying to be serious.