Could be. Jon Stewart frequently interviews serious writers who couldn't get a phone call returned by the broadcast networks and the show doesn't waste a fraction as much time on Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith as the so-called news networks.
Best of all, the show does something that the Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson newscasts would never do. In the best tradition of H. L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair and Edward R. Murrow Daily actually calls powerful public figures on their bullshit.
A simple and effective technique for eliciting laughs and illuminating hypocrisy was used on the June 14 edition in segment called "Double Impact."
A clip was played from two months ago of Tony Snow spinning the U.S Attorneys scandal, claiming it was "pretty clear" the firings were based on performance and politics had noting to do with it, followed by a newer clip where Snow insists no one at the White House had ever said exactly what he had said himself in the first clip.
A similar segment not long ago featured dueling clips of Alberto Gonzales, testifying before Congress that his biggest mistake in the firings was not involving Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, paired with a clip of Gonzales following McNutlty's resignation where he says "At the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general."
Okay, so it's not investigative reporting on a level with uncovering Watergate or figuring out who was on the grassy knoll. Still the technique is effective, enlightening, easy to understand and finally, what the media news and infotainment machine loves most of all, cheap.
So why will we never see complimentary clips of a Washington official contradicting himself on the nightly news or CNN?
Because the cowardly mavens of the mainstream media are afraid they will offend somebody powerful and lose the thing they crave the most, access.
Though plenty of good reporting can still be found in books, newspapers, magazines and on the internet, journalism on commercial and cable networks is as empty as George Bush's pointy head, rarely doing more than repeating what some confidential government source wants broadcast for his or her own purposes.
Until ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN wake from their torpor and start doing their jobs again Comedy Central will be one of the best place to go for the news on TV.