4 ms·

A lot of American comedians are more truthful and balanced about their news reporting than the American news media.

• krapp 11y ago
  It's worth keeping in mind, however, that the goal of satirists like John Oliver isn't necessarily to communicate truth, or to be fair, but to lead the viewer to accept one specific, and hopefully humorous, interpretation of the narrative they present. Truth and balance are often at cross-purposes to effective comedy.
  • jkmcf 11y ago
    My takeaway has been that Stewart, Oliver, and others are humorously pointing out hypocrisy and trying to get people to question the completely one sided, superficial portrayals of the mainstream media. Stewart would go after CNN just as much as Fox, though perhaps for different reasons...
    • krapp 11y ago
      The media, at least, has a standard to fail to meet when it falls prey to bias, becomes a mouthpiece for the government, or panders to sponsors or corporate interests. Even if Stewart, Oliver, etc. do call out the media, government, and corporations for their hypocrisy (and they deserve to be called out) they have no standards to meet other than to be funny. They have no incentive to be honest or fair about what they do - arguably, their incentive is to be dishonest and biased if doing so meets the expectations of their audience.