'John Oliver: Last Week Tonight'

I often find that news is hard to watch, because it often holds very upsetting stories — which makes sense obviously. But because of this, I barely watch the news, and instead wait for the facts to come up online. Sometimes, I want to hear news stories that I can take in, in a easier way, one that won't make me panic at first, but instead understand the situation, and then if need-panic. This is why I find the John Oliver: Last Week Tonight host so great. Even though he presents issues, he presents them in ways that show "what can we do about this" instead of "look, it's horrible," and then feel like there's nothing I can do. Not that the news is trying to be like that — but you get my point.

Here is an article I wrote a while ago, but never shared about John Oliver, and how I find his way of news is a viable source for topics that are important, but also easier to get a better understanding with more detail. After all, the show is an hour long, and he thoroughly covers the topics.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome to Last Week Tonight!” John Oliver catches the viewer's attention immediately. How is a show like Last Week Tonight: John Oliver a viable alternative to regular news shows? The amount of research and effort put into each episode to make it funny, understandable, and reliable makes John Oliver's show more than a viable alternative to regular news shows.

News is a big show of "Why is this happening?" But John Oliver presents news in a different way — one that grabs our attention because we can actually help change the things he talks about. His show isn't "Why is this happening?" It's "Why ISN'T this happening?" Over the years of hosting Last Week Tonight, John Oliver has covered a variety of topics, from civil forfeiture to beauty pageants. In each one he has something new, and effective, to say. He not only talks about what can help, and how we can help, but gives us suggestions and actual links and tools to do so. "... The Last Week Tonight team has found a way to take a seemingly complicated issue, remove the talking points and cultural baggage surrounding it, break it into understandable parts — and then slowly rebuild it. It’s an ingenious formula that’s making a difference in the real world" (The Atlantic, Ross, p.5). The article goes on to talk about the tweet John Oliver made after his "Net Neutrality" episode, where he gave us a link for the FCC website, "from overwhelming web traffic the day after Oliver’s segment originally aired." John tweets "Whoops. It seems that you've all crashed part of the FCC website. I hope you’re proud of yourselves." He then proceeds to link his video. He has done this with many things, most recently trying to influence people to vote in the 2016 presidential election. Though the outcome was something people did not really expect to happen, John proceeded to finish his season spending the entire hour on just one segment — why not to move to Canada, and to stay in America, to fight for their rights and freedom continuously. Though a heavier topic, John Oliver always has something funny and engaging in his episode, and with the finale it was no different. He finished it off with a "F*** 2016" montage where he interviewed people about why they hated 2016. It was a recap of the worst things that happened in this year and finished it off with blowing up a giant 2016 sign — literally.

An episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is an hour in length. You'd think it would get boring, right? But John Oliver presents news in a way that's entertaining and keeps us, the viewers, engaged! Not only is this done in a way to get us involved, but it's done in a way that keeps us entertained. He uses his comedy to make important subjects easier to understand and hear about. Every episode starts off with some sort of funny statement. "Canada, the country you think about so little — that's it, end of sentence." Then the segment proceeded to talk about the Canadian election of Justin Trudeau. It was the night before, about 50 minutes before, the day of the election. John proceeds to say that "...you have waited until literally almost the last moment to learn the first thing about the Canadian election." He continues the episode making fun of certain candidates, that even I — a Canadian citizen — didn't realize had campaigned, and going into the deeper, more important, facts of why these ridiculous people actually had an effect on Canadians and the election.

It's not always politics that he talks about though — one of his episodes had a segment on civil forfeiture. Though a heavy topic, he proceeded to make it easy to listen to and think about. It's like in middle school when a teacher says not to do drugs because it will kill you. Okay — that's a possibility — but why? And how? Sometimes when they talk to their students about it, it's in an upsetting manner. It's the fact that upsetting topics are hard to deal with, that makes news difficult to listen to, but John Oliver does a good job at changing that. Civil forfeiture is the act of arresting things, rather than people, under the suspicion of illegal activity. And though it has helped stopped lots of drug trafficking, as referred to in John's segment, it also causes lots of harm. There was a police department whose Captain had responded to a question of deciding forfeiture funds, “... You know it's usually based on a need... There's some limitations on it... Actually there's not really on the forfeiture stuff…” There was even a police department in Texas that bought a margarita machine from taking money from people's cars when travelling! The people who are travelling aren't always guilty either — a man who had proof and clarified that he had the large sum of cash to go across state and buy a car had still had his money taken away — just because the officer could. This episode proceeded for the usual timeslot — ending with a skit of Last Week Tonight show put together. It was a parody of Law and Order but with inanimate objects. It showed the ridiculousness of the situation and keeping it light, but it did not take away from the seriousness of the topic. Rather than making fun of the topic itself, it made fun of the people who were doing wrong, to further prove the point that it shouldn't be happening. The show leaves you remembering the subject, even if it's only the skit, and that's important. A lot of the time people try to forget about the news — it's upsetting — but when watching John Oliver's show, the news they present is factual but digestible. You can talk about it in a manner with more understanding and remember it by remembering the lighter content such as humour. The show never goes to make an episode which they do not have guaranteed facts on though — so the audience can always know to trust and rely on the information given, even when, presented in a funny way.

Whenever watching news, there's the question, how reliable is this information? Once a week, every week, John Oliver presents a new show. Between each episode (or earlier if it's on a more general topic rather than something that happened the week before) the show has a week to find its new information, contact its sources, and debunk certain rumours. In fact, according to a Fortune article, "HBO's John Oliver just debunked most of the scientific studies you've heard about." (Fortune, Lee, title.) This article continues to talk about how on Mother's Day 2016 John Oliver looked at many scientific studies and debunk them! The show puts their sources and research into a topic to give us the most reliable information they can. Lee (2016) says, "Problem A, according to the British satirist’s report, is a rush to marketplace that finds scientists under constant pressure to publish research papers in order to land funding and academic tenure.” Unlike the rush of the marketplace for scientists to find new information, John Oliver isn’t under pressure to put out information like these scientists, as he is putting out the information to actually inform us. It isn't a matter of just getting an audience for him--it's informing his audience. With one week between each story he can develop them and create a segment for his show that his viewers can rely on.

John Oliver isn’t only hilarious, but, his show Last Week Tonight: John Oliver has a great amount of research and effort put into each episode. They are funny, understandable, and reliable. John Oliver’s show is a great way to get information and is a viable alternative to regular news shows.

REFERENCES

HBO. (2014). Civil Forfeiture: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). Retrieved

December 04, 2016, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

HBO. (2015). Canadian Election: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). Retrieved

December 4, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V5ckcTSYu8&t=46s

HBO. (2016). Scientific Studies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). Retrieved

December 04, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw

Kowitt, B. (2015). The John Oliver Effect: Why the British comedian’s impact is no

joke. Retrieved December 04, 2016, from http://fortune.com/2015/09/29/john-oliver-impact/

Lee, C. (2016). HBO’s John Oliver Just Debunked Most of the Scientific Studies You’ve

Heard About. Retrieved December 04, 2016, from http://fortune.com/2016/05/09/john-oliver-scientific-studies/

Luckerson, V. (2015). How the 'John Oliver Effect' Is Having a Real-Life Impact. (n.d.).

Retrieved December 4, 2016, from http://time.com/3674807/john-oliver-net-neutrality-civil-forfeiture-miss-america/

Orac. (2016). John Oliver teaches us how to interpret medical and scientific studies.

Retrieved December 04, 2016, from

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/05/10/john-oliver-teaches-us-how-to-interpret-medical-and-scientific-studies/

Ross, T. (2014). How John Oliver Beats Apathy. Retrieved December 04, 2016, from

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/08/how-john-oliver-is-procuring-latent-activism/376036/