Fake News!!

I think we are in an age where we get a chance to experience (and relate to) one of what I consider the greatest forms of satire ever: satirical news shows. There are so many to choose from now, but my favorite is Last Week Tonight, hosted by John Oliver, so that will be the focus of today's post.

Last Week Tonight (LTW) is mostly an "American and international news program," but the anchorman, John Oliver, frequently cracks jokes and exaggerates examples to turn it into a parody of every serious nightly news program out there. Here is a link to him discussing standardized testing in schools.

Within the first five minutes, he brings out a dancing monkey mascot, compares "No Child Left Behind" to a campaign about puppies, and says that The Scarlet Letter would be better read through emojis. What makes it funny is that he so effortlessly parodies a nightly-news program that it is difficult to remove oneself from expecting only serious news stories from a charismatic white guy in a suit. Beyond humor, the set makes Oliver innately trustworthy, which only makes him saying ridiculous things (that we would believe if they coming from NBC) even funnier.

However, I think that LWT, and other satirical news shows, have something even more important to offer to modern society. When he's not going on hyperbolically loud rants about student testing, or Brexit, or Trump, Oliver adopts a more serious tone. He actually does supply his audience with facts from relevant and reliable news sources, and bases his jokes off of those.

This pattern of "fact-exaggeration-fact-satire/parody," or more simply: "fact-joke-fact-critique in joke form," is extraordinarily successful, for two reasons. First, it makes fun of the source before getting serious. This takes off the pressure that comes with having to agree with every part of a regular news story or coming to one's own conclusions about it. Oliver picks out the funny part and the serious part for you.

Second, the audience must listen to and think about the depressing and perhaps otherwise boring facts of how teachers' wages are connected to testing scores in order to understand the joke coming after it.

I think that is the perfect formula for teaching people out issues they wouldn't otherwise pay attention to and/or understand, and I think that's where the value in these kinds of programs lie. The audience is there because they want to laugh, but must pay attention to the facts to be able to. This enables the anchor (Oliver) to slowly but surely push an agenda onto the viewers with the facts he presents.

In the standardized testing video above, Oliver starts with just the history of testing and examples of what is on the test. By the end, he suggests "putting the test to the test," and presents articles that say that testing does not close the achievement gap. While that is a tame and factual thesis to have, he has also put out videos in the past encouraging his audience to tweet or buy merchandise to support one of his weekly topics.

To conclude, I believe satirical news shows are an excellent example of contemporary satire being enjoyable and effective at influencing people! They keep their audiences informed, and use that to criticize a current social issue and get the viewers on their side...and I enjoy every second of it!