Meatstick Opinion: You have to love CNBC and The Daily Show

You have to admire CNBC for their ability to keep it real. I sometimes watch CNBC to see if there is any breaking news in the financial world that interests me. But, more often than not there isn't so I turn it off after a few minutes. However, there are times that I turn it on and leave it on because I know what I can expect from them. During the height of the Anna Nicole Smith debacle, CNBC was the only 24 hour news network that completely avoided that nonsensical story. They again showed honor and integrity last week by ignoring the Imus story. Today I flipped it on and noticed that they aren't even tempted to talk about the 22 people killed at Virginia Tech. Instead their breaking news on the bottom of the screen is, "Power Lunch: The Mind of a Trader."

So, no matter how important or trendy the news that is breaking on other 24 hour yap channels CNBC keeps it real by sticking to financial news only.

The second topic I would like to talk about today is about a new study released by Pew Research Center about the knowledge of cable news watchers. They found the following:

Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot -- with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct.

This next finding is by far the best:

Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. Fox topped only network morning show viewers.
Told that Shia was one group of Muslims struggling in Iraq, only 32% of the total sample could name "Sunni" as the other key group.
The percentage of those who knew their state's governor dropped to 2 in 3. Almost half know that Rep. Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House and 2 in 3 know that Condi Rice is secretary of state. But just 29% can identify Scooter Libby.

Why does this not surprise me?