It blurs the lines and honestly as terrifying as it sounds, some politically active, white collar, college educated, liberal people I know genuinely consume the majority of their news through these types of shows. The Daily Show, Patriot Act, Last Week Tonight, etc.
I constantly get told by these people, who openly admit to not reading local news and are blissfully unaware of things in their own neighborhood, that I should watch X episode of Y news comedy hour so that I can "understand" issue Z.
Sorry, but I'm literate and capable of reading, I don't need my news fed to me on a spoon while a comedian makes airplane noises.
Chappelle never did a news show, and Peter Jennings never had a stand up tour. I prefer it that way.
Seinfeld was funny, and his jokes never came across as being necessarily purely true.. but his whole shtick wasn't about being constantly persecuted for being a Jew or that say, Hispanics are mean to him.
Chappelle told outlandish stories, but even his stuff was never like "let me tell you a particular story about the FBI trying to entrap my family / being the subject of a terror incident / etc". His stories were always more low stakes.