As per the findings from the Media Research Center, a significant majority of jokes delivered by late-night hosts are aimed squarely at conservatives. In the year 2023 alone, a staggering 81% of these political wisecracks took a decidedly negative stance towards those with right-leaning views.
From News Busters:
From January 3 through December 22, MRC analysts analyzed all six of the daily late night shows: Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show with James Corden until its April cancellation.
A complete breakdown of all 9,518 jokes can be found here, but detailed below is a summary of all six shows both collectively and individually, but first here is a montage put together by NewsBusters media editor Bill D'Agostino that summarizes the type of jokes told in 2023 inspired by the worst late night moments of the year.
Of the remaining jokes, 1,601 targeted the left and 186 were directed at people, groups, or institutions not associated with either side. Additionally, 493 unique targets were joked about, 285 of which were on the right, 167 of which were on the left, and 41 of which were non-partisan.
The top ten included nine right-leaners and only one-left leaner. In order, they were Donald Trump (2,440), Joe Biden (912), George Santos (835), Republicans (371), Ron DeSantis (310), Tucker Carlson (265), Rudy Giuliani (242), Mike Pence (205), and Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene (196 each).
Compared with the former vice president getting 205 jokes, the current vice president, Kamala Harris, was targeted for only 34 jokes.
When it came to Congressional leadership, Republican leaders were targeted way more often than Democrats to the tune of 338-9 (Mike Johnson: 103, Mitch McConnell: 39 vs. Chuck Schumer: 9). Mike Johnson assumed the Speaker's office on October 25. Somehow, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jefferies was never joked about.
It's clear as day that our media, news channels included, tend to lean left. However, getting a glimpse of the actual numbers that reflect this extreme bias is truly eye-opening.
Nowadays, even forms of entertainment like late-night comedy, which one might expect to be light on politics, are practically saturated with liberal ideology.
