I like it when John Oliver or whoever goes after corruption and incompetence, but it still has to be said that popular comedy news shows are kind of the left’s version of Fox News in terms of shrillness, pandering, and brainwashing. While episodes on many topics are cringey to watch, at least they aren’t completely post-truth yet. When the writers do wade all the way in to culture war nonsense, I think they do this with a certain self awareness and I like to think they feel bad about it.
It would be easier to tolerate bias or low-brow ad hominem in comedy news if it wasn’t also still better than most “real” news. I don’t really want to hold a comedian to a journalist’s standard, but the real question is where are the journalists at anyway?
NPR (my old favorite) has jumped the shark. Other outlets generally harass me with paywalls when I’m already forced to sift through a total shit show of a website with op Ed’s no one asked for, celebrity gossip, and lengthy gpt-powered regurgitation all fluffing up the same few short blurbs from the AP wire.
Mainstream media for both the left and the right, domestic and foreign, all have websites with ads like “free WiFi for senior citizens” and “Just add this one weird thing to your toothpaste” next to big brain articles about dealing with disinformation in the next round of elections.
None of this is very confidence inspiring, so no, I doubt they’ll sell many subscriptions, and yeah, I expect quality will continue to decline. So I guess comedian-journalism is probably here to stay, regardless of whether I like the format