• Associated Press, Friday, May 9, 2008 10:45 AM

Pundits like to claim that young people learn more about national and world news from Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" than they do from traditional news sources. Journalism think tank The Project for Excellence in Journalism decided to test that premise.

Their conclusion: To understand the jokes, viewers have to already know the news. "The show is not making jokes that you could understand if you're not watching the [traditional] news," says Tom Rosenstiel, project director.

The Washington-based organization asked its researchers to study a year's worth of "The Daily Show" tapes. Rather than a news source for young audiences, they found that Stewart is a source of political satire for people who know the events of the day, says Rosenstiel.

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