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Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

No one said they aren't in-depth enough. They're often quite in-depth. They're just selective with the facts they provide to give a pre-determined impression that often doesn't reflect reality, because giving a more accurate picture would be less entertaining and less prone to get you all fired up about whatever issue he's energetically tackling.

I guess we've gotten to the point where we just accept that everything is fake news now? Did the Trump people succeed that thoroughly in undermining faith in all news reporting? Because I realize a lot of it is garbage that's solely designed to keep your eyes on the screen, but that doesn't mean we should just take it as read that that's the only way it can be. I know it's frustrating to try to sort out the good reporting from the junk, but writing off the whole industry like this is sad and defeatist.

To be clear, no, news broadcasts and outlets and documentaries should not be omitting key facts for entertainment purposes, and there actually are a few people in the business who still do their best to include all of those key facts.

Speaking of "lol", this is an absurd bit of spin. No, it is not intended to provide a "jumping off point" for people to go and educate themselves. That's not at all how his pieces are presented. They're presented as "let John tell you about this problem with our society that you probably haven't given much thought to or possibly haven't ever even noticed".

And if what he gives you gives you a completely skewed first impression of the topic, well, there are plenty of psychological studies to show that those sorts of first impressions are very hard to rectify, even if you're presented with solid evidence of what was missing from the original version of reality you were presented with. If you're not prepared to take it for what it is - a bit of fun - that could be a problem.

As if anyone knows "all the facts" on just about any topic, to say nothing of whatever random thing Oliver is talking about on a given week. Yes, it's entirely his fault if he deliberately or recklessly misleads people because the misleading version of events is more entertaining. Just as it's Sean Hannity's fault when he does it. What a ridiculous thing to say to suggest otherwise.

No, he's incredibly not, and you're incredibly naive for thinking this.

No one's holding him to any standards, per se. He's not a journalist, so he doesn't have to have journalistic integrity. The point is that there is a way to enjoy Last Week Tonight, and it's to realize that you're not being educated, you're being entertained. Don't get worked up about whatever John's getting worked up about, just sit back have a laugh.

All in all, a terrible take. I don't know that I've ever seen that much naivety combined with that much cynicism in one post.

While I generally agree with your overall point that people aren't critical enough of shows like John Oliver's, I think you're going a bit overboard.

Modern comedy news shows aren''t a terrible source of information, and while you shouldn't take anything you hear aa gospel, some of that stuff is still pretty good and I think dismissing people like John Oliver as just an entertainer isn't smart either. Some of the stuff he's worked up about is absolutely worth getting worked up about.

It's kind of like historical movies. Sure movies tend to be terrible at historic accuracy, but you can still pick up quite a lot of actual history by watching them.

You just have to assume that what you learn is only broad strokes, like "this is a thing that happened", but every detail in the story is probably wrong