Watchdog finds 81% of all political late night show jokes in 2023 targeted conservatives
NY Post
A new study from the Media Research Center found that 81% of all political jokes told on major late-night comedy shows in 2023 targeted conservatives.
The media watchdog analyzed each of the 9,518 political jokes told between six major daily late-night shows from January 3 through December 22, 2023, and found that 7,729 of them took aim at “someone or something on the right side of the political spectrum.”
The shows analyzed were ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show with James Corden” (until its cancelation in April).
MRC also put together a video of some of the “worst late-night moments of the year” to showcase several examples of late-night comedy’s bias against conservatives.
Breaking down the data further, the watchdog found that some shows were more aggressive towards right-wing subjects than others. Kimmel’s show had the highest rate of anti-conservative jokes for a single show out of the six.
Of the 2,215 political jokes made on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” 1,960, or 88% were directed at conservatives. Of the political figures Kimmel roasted, 94 of them were on the right, and only 37 were on the left, with 11 aimed at non-partisan figures.
