I understand the sentiment, but disagree with the conclusion.

There are some unbiased and quality sources of reporting, even on television. E.g. PBS's Newshour does a good job.

More importantly, there is a lot of useful material outside of television land. For instance, Foreign Affairs does a good job covering both sides of defense issues. HIR, Brown Journal of World Affairs, and similar publications are also high-quality.

I think the real problem is that we want our news to be entertaining (or at least not work-like), but truly understanding any given issue in the news requires consuming large quantities of evidence prepared and presented from various perspectives. And that's not always as fun as watching (or making fun of) Fox/CNN/NBC/etc. In fact, sometimes it's pretty boring.

I can't, I do the same thing. (use comedy shows as one tool to expose myself to "what's going on in the world").

It's a really sad statement on the current state of things; but there's a degree of personal responsibility in not taking this narrative unilaterally, we have these amazing tools of message boards and other channels with which to chat with people firsthand around the world, and while I can't say it's any substitute for proper reporting, it is certainly "another tool" for constructing a more accurate picture of things.

Can you support this? So you don't think comedy shows have any advertising agenda simply because their main purpose is to entertain? I would suggest that they have an additional tool at their disposal (humor) to help put a spin on matters.

My theory is that most of the comedy shows (The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, etc.) make jokes out of showing the opposite end of extreme viewpoints or stories that show up on news. You might be laughing at the absurdity, but you're more informed.