On “Last Tonight,” Oliver shows a commitment to accuracy and truth, but he couldn’t care less about balance week. In Sunday’s feature portion, as an example, Oliver eviscerated legislators in new york, Texas, Wisconsin as well as other states for implementing voter ID laws, which he criticizes as thinly veiled efforts to suppress voter turnout among teams that have a tendency to help Democrats. As Oliver points away, the reality on this issue are unmistakably clear: Voter impersonation is incredibly uncommon when you look at the U.S., with just a few documented situations each election; the voter ID regulations designed to fix this “problem” disproportionately impact African United states and Latino voters, whom historically are more inclined to help Democrats; and also the backers associated with the voter ID rules are nearly solely Republicans.
A conventional journalist, wanting to avoid costs of partisanship or bias, would feel compelled to steadfastly keep up neutrality and stability while creating a tale about voter ID regulations. Oliver alternatively did this. I’ll leave you to definitely measure the merits.
Making the News Fun
Amid all of the hype about their chops that are journalistic Oliver has insisted that their show is “comedy first, plus it’s comedy second,” as he told The regular Beast in 2014. “It’s a comedy show, more or less things that we’re interested in.” But perhaps journalism and humor don’t need certainly to be mutually exclusive. In reality, whenever addressing problems as esoteric as web neutrality, a periodic laugh about dingos may be what it really takes to obtain the market to your complete line.
Needless to say, it is not likely feasible (or recommended) for reporters to suit Oliver’s chops that are comedic. But also without snappy one liners, there are lots of means that journalists will make the news headlines more enjoyable. The online news book Grist, for instance, as soon as combined an account concerning the discount price in financial environment modeling with adorable but entirely random pictures of otters. And projects that are experimental interested City and Serial purchased “discovery journalism” to engage audiences because of the means of how reporting comes together.
Because hey, if the target is to keep audiences involved with quality journalism, incorporating a splash of fun can’t hurt. ohn Oliver talks in the 7th Annual Crunchies Awards in san francisco bay area. Picture by TechCrunch on Flickr and utilized here with Creative Commons permit.
Utilizing Archives to incorporate Depth and Context
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia’s death on Saturday sparked what’s quickly becoming the greatest governmental showdown associated with 12 months, with Senate bulk frontrunner Mitch McConnell vowing to block President Obama from setting up an alternative over the last 11 months of their presidency.
Definitely, there’s been lots of good reporting about this whole tale by conventional reporters. The latest York occasions, for instance, developed a visual showing how many times from nomination to confirmation for each Supreme Court justice ever; PolitiFact offered a thorough fact check always of reviews made at Saturday’s Republican presidential debate; and SCOTUSblog explained the implications of a eight user Supreme Court when it comes to situations nevertheless pending this session.
Exactly what many of these news stories missed was a crucial bit of context that Oliver supplied on Sunday night. During their opening section, Oliver plays a classic CSPAN clip that displays McConnell ripping in to the so named “Thurmond Rule” the same the one that Republicans are now citing as precedent for maybe not confirming judges when you look at the months just before an election that is presidential. This obsession that is seeming this rule that doesn’t exist,” McConnell says within the “Last Week Tonight” clip, “is simply a justification for the peers to perform out of the clock on qualified nominees who’re waiting to fill badly required vacancies.”
Oh, the irony. And oh, the charged energy of archives. When you look at the period of approximately ten moments, Oliver cut through the governmental heat and exposed McConnell’s partisanship to brilliant impact. It’s one thing journalists could do more frequently, therefore into the character of walking that stroll, right here’s just what MIT’s William Uricchio said about archives within my post a week ago. History exists for the good reason,” he said. “The archive is a tremendously helpful option to show where these problems result from and just how these debates play away in the long run.” Ben DeJarnette could be the editor that is associate MediaShift. He could be additionally a freelance factor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, unemployment payday loans 1 hour Oregon Quarterly among others. He’s on Twitter
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