After a poll found Americans trust Jon Stewart as much as they trust Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, The Pew Research Center conducted a year-long study of The Daily Show to find out how the fake news show held up as an actual news source. Here's some of what they found:

• The program’s clearest focus is politics, especially in Washington. U.S. foreign affairs, largely dominated by the Bush Administration’s policies in Iraq, Washington politics and government accounted for nearly half (47%) of the time spent on the program. Overall, The Daily Show news agenda is quite close to those of cable news talk shows.
• The press itself is another significant focus on The Daily Show. In all, 8% of the time was made up of segments about the press and news media. That is more than double the amount of coverage of media in the mainstream press overall during the same period.
• A good deal of the news, however, is also absent from The Daily Show. In 2007, for example, major events such as the tragic Minneapolis bridge collapse were never discussed. And the shootings at Virginia Tech, the most covered story within a given week in 2007 by the overall press, received only a cursory mention.

Now, I know TDS probably skips over events like Virginia Tech and the bridge collapse because they're sad and sensitive and are difficult to turn into good comedy, but when CNN and Fox take stories like that and turn them into 24-hour tragedy-porn, can you really call that good journalism?

Also, when I search The Daily Show video site for "fart," I get five results. Searching for "fart" on CNN's video site turns up a fat goose-egg. Now whose coverage is incomplete?

For more, check out Journalism, Satire or Just Laughs? "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," Examined.

Meanwhile, a classic Daily Show clip about fart-machines is after the jump.