I think major reason these kinds of jokes amuse is mostly due to the fact they are relatable. We can understand our own culture, and these jokes are literally ripped from the headlines.
Many people argue that the youth today are getting their news solely from these comedy-based news shows. I'm not denying that. I find myself, especially during the summer when I have more time to watch these shows, hearing about most things from this. It's not necessarily a bad thing though. Yes, I might pick of opinions or criticism that might of not been picked up from more factual and neutral news. But the fact that I'm learning at all about current events that I wouldn't normally learn, must be at least kind of good? No? Well then at least I can make my own opinions because I'm fairly educated and I know a thing or two about politics. No I can't do that either? Well, at least they aren't pushing some information but not all to support their own opinions...
The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, though may not be the best source for news, are just focusing on comedy. They don't have a agenda that supports a certain party or certain ideas, they just want to make us laugh! So what if Stephen Colbert acts like an extreme conservative and slightly makes fun of them, so what if The Daily Show gets accused of being "too liberal" by FOX news, it's all for comedy! They aren't a real news station!
If this little debate sounds familiar to you, you probably watch The Daily Show, and you proabably saw the episode where Jon Stewart and O'Reilly get into a somewhat heated argument about this exact same argument. O'Reilly accuses Stewart of being too liberal on his show, Stewart counters with the fact that O'Reilly is conservative and they are supposed to be reporting actual news, not comedy. If you haven't seen this, it gets a little awkward, but it's definetly enjoyable. Here's the first clip (you can find the other two on Hulu.com).
But it's not just fake news shows that get all the fun current event jokes, most (if not all) late night talk shows do the same thing. Shows with hosts like David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Craig Ferguson. You proabably have heard of and even watched one of these at least once in your life. Maybe noy as obsessively as me, (yes I am in love with Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) but they are on every night you I'm sure most people have turned on their TVs at least once past 10 o'clock. These shows, instead of reporting like they are actually a news station, talk about the current events in a stand-up comedy fashion. This a tradition passed down from each late night talk show, and it seems to have always been popular. Plus, it's not really inserting any opinions, it's strictly just making jokes about anything news, whether it's political or not.
From it's success we can see that fake news is popular. Current events are important to us, and when they are a part of comedy, it only makes them better. This may be a way of being misleading and inserting your own opinions, but I don't think anyone has really taken advantage of that. So everyone needs to just take a deep breath, calm down, and enjoy comedy at it's best.
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