University at Albany, State University of New York Scholars Archive Journalism Program Honors College Spring 5-2020 Investigative Comedy: Redefining News and How eW Get It Jeremy Tu University at Albany, State University of New York,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_journalism Part of the Other Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Television Commons Recommended Citation Tu, Jeremy, "Investigative Comedy: Redefining News and How eW Get It" (2020). Journalism Program. 8. https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_journalism/8 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College at Scholars Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journalism Program by an authorized administrator of Scholars Archive. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Investigative Comedy: Redefining News and How We Get It An honors thesis presented to the Department of Communication, University at Albany, State University of New York in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in Journalism and graduation from The Honors College Jeremy Tu Research Advisor: Thomas Bass, Ph.D. May 2020 Abstract The investigative comedy genre rose to prominence over the last two decades and now dominates the late night industry. “The Daily Show” brought political satire to mainstream American television at a time when sensationalized 24/7 cable news coverage and partisanship in the national government dominated political discourse. Jon Stewart, then a little-known comedian from New Jersey, brought younger and more informed audiences to his show through his style of comedy— one that spoke truth to power and called out hypocrisy when he saw it.