Communication professor Tom Hollihan said on KPCC's AirTalk that political candidates have both gained and lost from a writers' strike that has kept late night talk shows from airing new episodes.

"Candidates have a love-hate relationship with these shows," Hollihan said. "They love the fact that such shows give them the opportunity to demonstrate their humanity and their character, and to see them in an unscripted sort of way can be a terrific benefit. On the other hand, the shows can also be savage in undermining candidates’ weakness that are either real or perceived."

He used Hillary and Bill Clintons' marital troubles as an example of what the hosts often grab onto.

"I imagine that to a large extent the candidates were somewhat ambivalent toward the strike," he said.

He also said many people consider this type of programming genuine news and declare it as a place where they get much of their political information.

"Because these are people who are probably not actively reading the newspaper or watching TV network news or tuning into AirTalk, the absence of such shows probably diminishes the sort of general background knowledge they have about the candidates and the campaign and the issues being surfaced," he said.

Listen (starts at 20:25 mark)
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