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Comment by Abishek_Muthian | Hacker News Reader

What's impressive to me as a non-westerner about the satire media in US/Canada is the wonderful exhibition of free speech at a time when reporting factual news can get a journalist into extreme trouble, even in countries wearing 'democracy' banner.

I highly recommend Onion's new podcast - The Topical[1][2] as a detox for real news by the EOD; Ironically some times Onion's news contain more truth than real(air quotes) news!

[1] Google Podcast - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGh...

[2] Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-topical/id14946007...

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IMO a great example of this freedom is the Stephen Colbert character roasting Bush in person at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner. This was when 9/11, Iraq war, Guantanamo Bay, Katrina, etc. were on peoples' minds at the time.

https://youtu.be/6ZnuYKKtpxg

All that's special about it (and not that special) is that the president is there in person, there are lots of countries where comedians can roast the government all day long.

>All that's special about it (and not that special) is that the president is there in person

I cannot fathom how you think this is "not that special". Of _course_ it's a bigger deal to be allowed to roast the president to his face and an audience consisting of his strongest supporters than to be critical of the government to a (probably smaller audience) of people who already agree with you.

If this happened in the current administration it would be met with a severe character assassination by the president, Fox News, OAN, etc. His ego is simply too fragile to handle any sort of criticism.

Of course the only way it could happen in the first place would be to trick them into thinking it wasn't going to be a roast in the first place.

FWIW, people are not that comfortable here exhibiting that free speech.

A lot of the interest comes from seeing how far comedians can go without the much more powerful government doing something we don't agree with happening to them. Usually, if the government wanted, there is some way to make anybody's life miserable.

It is still very easy to piss off powerful people, even though it isn't a routine thing where everyone is afraid of criticizing. People aren't afraid of criticizing.

I agree, if free speech isn't exercised regularly by everyone; it'll become extinct.

Btw, Wisecrack did an interesting episode on News by comedians recently[1] which goes bit deeper on the history and where it is now.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QumeDEv3DyM

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