The 24-hour news cycle arrived with the advent of television channels dedicated to news, and brought about a much faster pace of news production with increased demand for stories that can be presented as news, as opposed to the day-by-day pace of the news cycle of printed daily newspapers. A high premium on faster reporting would see a further increase with the advent of online news.

A complete news cycle consists of the media reporting on some event, followed by the media reporting on public and other reactions to the earlier reports. The advent of 24-hour cable and satellite television news channels and, in more recent times, news sources on the World Wide Web (including blogs), have considerably shortened this process.

According to former journalists Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, 24 hour news creates ferocious competition among media organizations for audience share. This, coupled with the profit demand of their corporate ownership, has led to a decline in journalistic standards. In their book Warp Speed: America in the Age of Mixed Media, they write that "the press has moved toward sensationalism, entertainment, and opinion" and away from traditional values of verification, proportion, relevance, depth, and quality of interpretation. They fear these values will be replaced by a "journalism of assertion" which de-emphasizes whether a claim is valid and encourages putting a claim into the arena of public discussion as quickly as possible.

The 24-hour clock is a convention of time keeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours, indicated by the hours passed since midnight, from 0 to 23. This system is the most commonly used time notation in the world today. It is the international standard notation of time (ISO 8601). In the practice of medicine, the 24-hour clock is generally used in documentation of care as it prevents any ambiguity as to when events occurred in a patient's medical history. It is popularly referred to as military time or astronomical time in the United States and Canada, where the 12-hour clock is still dominant (in addition to a handful of other countries).

Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian. He is widely known as host of The Daily Show, a satirical news program that airs on Comedy Central.

Stewart started as a stand-up comedian, but branched into television as host of Short Attention Span Theater for Comedy Central. He went on to host his own show on MTV, called The Jon Stewart Show, and then hosted another show on MTV called You Wrote It, You Watch It. He has also had several film roles as an actor. Stewart became the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central in early 1999. He is also a writer and co-executive-producer of the show. After Stewart joined, The Daily Show steadily gained popularity and critical acclaim, resulting in his sixteen Emmy Awards.

Stewart has gained acclaim as an acerbic, satirical critic of personality-driven media shows, in particular those of the US media networks such as CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. Critics say Stewart benefits from a double standard: he critiques other news shows from the safe, removed position of his "fake news" desk. Stewart agrees, saying that neither his show nor his channel purports to be anything other than satire and comedy. In spite of its self-professed entertainment mandate, The Daily Show has been nominated for news and journalism awards. Stewart hosted the 78th and 80th Academy Awards. He is the co-author of America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, which was one of the best-selling books in the U.S. in 2004 and Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race released in 2010.