John Oliver, the host of the new satirical news show “Last Week Tonight”, has diverged from his straight and satirical news predecessors by becoming more than just a narrator of worldly events—he helps shape them.
In his segment on the the Tobacco Industry last week, Oliver delivered a scathing commentary of the industry’s practices of threatening to sue countries wanting “plain packaging” in hopes of decreasing smoking rates. Unlike a straight news show that would end the report there, Oliver seemed to think this wasn’t enough, and instead ended the show by calling for the audience to actually do something, i.e. spreading Jeff the Diseased Lung around the world
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The embedded activism that distinguishes “Last Week Tonight” , especially in this segment, is its “lack of commercial breaks, coupled with its status as a weekly show“(The Atlantic). This offers logistical benefits that allow “Last Week Tonight” to make a greater impact than many other news programs as Oliver can discuss topics that are dull, complicated, or unknown to the general public, which mainstream news media usually avoids.
With only two or three segments (compared to straight news’s myriad of short segments) Oliver also has uninterrupted time to delve much deeper into the history and problems of the event (such as the ridiculous legal actions taken by the Tobacco industry). And, unlike in straight news where context is limited due to time, placing the news event in context allows audiences to fully understand the situation without requiring extensive background knowledge.
The lack of sponsorship and longer segments in comparison to traditional news–to me– also lends Oliver a higher degree of trust. With no obligations or contracts, and a high volume of informative context behind him, Oliver can express his own uncensored opinion (usually incredulous) of topics, putting his own voice into the public sphere and opening a dialogue between himself, the audience, and his news subjects.
John Oliver does not pander to the idea of “balancing” opinion with fact to appease the gods of “objectivity”
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