Watching the Watchdogs

Newsmakers and newsbreakers, beware: The media watchdogs are getting savvier ... and funnier.

The 2008 election fracas has proven so far to be a banner year for women, minorities, news junkies, political websites, "Saturday Night Live," and comedians poking fun at the entire process. In fact, if Wall Street had decided to buy stock in Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, America might not be in this economic mess.

CNN and Comedy Central are finally cashing in on the electorate's inclination to laugh at others, including the media itself. "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News" puts one of the original kings of comedy on the Cable News Network Saturday nights. News about the "News" got anticipatory searches pumping for Hughley, boosting his online profile into our top 60,000 search terms. In a TV Guide Q&A, Hughley calls it a different sort of late-night talk show with less celebs and more interesting real folk like the sheriff who refused to evict people from foreclosed homes. He also points out that he'll be CNN's first intentional comedian. (Sorry, Wolf Blitzer, you had your chance.)

His Oct. 25 premiere lags just 10 days behind David Alan Grier, one of the original "In Living Color" kings who wasn't a Wayan brother. The presidential Democratic nomination of Barack Obama spurred Comedy Central to move up the news satire "Chocolate News" from its originally scheduled 2009 debut to October 15. Grier's slant—which the Hollywood Reporter lauds as "TV's first black-supremacist parody"—is less concerned with real news than its comic essence and spoofing media, like a bit on biracial Siamese twins. Searches from the day of its premiere pushed Grier's buzz past Stewart or Colbert, and his show's buzz higher than "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report." 

While Hughley and Grier latch onto the funnybone, armchair watchdogs may soon be able to literally highlight media bias on their own: The New York Times profiled SpinSpotter's plug-in, which allows readers to insert red flags into an online article's objectional passages and explain why in a pop-up box.

Many kinks still need to be worked out, but the Seattle company hopes to make money by selling the service ... to reporters, politicians and public relations. On second thought, someone put a watchdog on the watchdog.