From buying Russell Crowe’s jock strap to making a sex ed video with appearances from celebrities like Kumail Nanjiani and Laverne Cox, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver doesn’t hold back. But behind the ridiculous stunts and the celebrity cameos is a true journalist.
Now I’ll admit, John Oliver isn’t always the most reliable news source out there. If you want straight facts with no added sugar, you might want to check out the Associated Press, you boring intellectual. But if you need a little sweetener in your news, Last Week Tonight will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth.
I know that some people think that humor and news are mutually exclusive, but someone communicating facts in an interesting and funny way doesn’t make the facts any less true.
I firmly disagree with the idea that comedy has no place in journalism. In fact, I think it’s one of the most valuable tools that journalists have.
Entertainment news shows like Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show, where John Oliver got his start, use comedy to bring attention to important issues. I’ve sat down and happily watched 20-minute John Oliver stories on the USPS and multi-level marketing, topics that would put me to sleep if I ever read a straight news story on them. I recently watched a story he did on the Miss America pageant which, honestly, I couldn’t care less about, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not only was I entertained, but I learned a lot.
In this story, Oliver starts with the usual critiques of beauty pageants: they’re shallow, they’re degrading, Donald Trump ran one. I mean, let’s be honest, beauty pageants are pretty easy targets. But Oliver doesn’t stop there. He digs deeper into what the Miss America pageant illustrates about the way women are viewed in America.
He gets you laughing at the idea that the Miss America pageant not only brands itself as a scholarship organization, but that it claims to be the largest provider of scholarships to women in the world. Ridiculous, right?
You’re chuckling at the TV thinking, “Largest provider of scholarships for women in the world? Yeah right,” when he tells you that sadly, it’s true. The Miss America Pageant does award the most female-only scholarships in the world. Wow.
See, that’s the beauty of John Oliver. He’s the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. His comedy, stunts and cameos draw you in, but you’ll usually learn something along the way.
He closes out the story on Miss America with a funny skit and a cameo from Kathy Griffin, but this production all serves to drive home his point that it’s insane that there aren’t more scholarships specifically for women and that the largest provider of scholarships for women requires a swimsuit contest.
The bottom line is this: comedy does have a place in journalism. It can expose an audience to a topic that they may never hear about otherwise under the guise of entertainment, and that’s valuable. Our society loves entertainment. We want to laugh and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. If comedy helps us educate ourselves, that’s great! I’ll take the spoonful of sugar with pleasure.