Throughout this particularly heated election, media biases with not-so-hidden political agendas continue to run rampant on the major news networks. This happens in such a blatantly obvious way that it often takes everything I have to not scream, “Are you kidding me?!” and kick the TV any time I put myself through the pain of watching the 2012 election coverage.

With mere days left until the election, I’ve found myself switching over to an unlikely channel for political news: Comedy Central.

In an effort to steer clear of the bias and sensationalism brought upon by the conventional networks, many Americans look to comedy shows like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” for truth and journalistic integrity. John Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s use of humor and satire works to shine a light on the mainstream media’s crooked practices and breaks down the facts of their often politically charged claims.

“With the news media unable or unwilling to provide intelligent discussion of the issues, Comedy Central’s satire programming highlights the cracks in the armor of political platforms and the news coverage of those platforms,” said journalism professor Erik Peterson, who teaches an entire course on media bias and the satire shows titled Cable and Comedy.

Despite Colbert’s obnoxiously conservative pundit character, it is evident that both shows have liberal leanings, but their criticism and fact checking of both the left and the right enhances their credibility and allows viewers to make more informed political decisions.

“What seems to make these satire shows more credible is the fact that they’re showing us how our ‘trusted’ news networks are skewing information in order to fit their agendas,” said graduate student Ryann Rumbaugh. “By making fun of things that are said and done on the air, we as viewers can make a better judgment as to what we believe and that ultimately leads us to making our political choices.”

“They highlight how repetitively political campaigns and news networks distort facts and change their values based on context,” added Peterson.

Through their use of satire and juxtaposition, Stewart and Colbert hold both politicians and the media accountable for their words and actions, providing an antithesis to the mainstream news networks whom philosopher Harry Frankfurt accuses of being “engaged in the enterprise of manipulating opinion, not in the enterprise of reporting the facts.”

Because the satire shows mainly focus on reviewing the news coverage from the major networks, viewers cannot solely look to them for political news, but as a form of fact checking, I would argue they are amongst the best.

Named the most trusted man in America in Pew Polls for years, Stewart’s good-humored manipulations and dissections of television news often comes closer to reality than any of the networks.

Both “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” provide an entertaining antithesis to coverage on the major networks and offer an alternative way to break through the media bias and bull in these last few days before the election.

Catch “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central every Monday through Thursday at 10 p.m., followed by “The Colbert Report” at 10:30 p.m.