King of the News: An Agenda-Setting Approach to the John Oliver Effect Page: 81
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were - you know, you try and be as rigorous as you can in terms of fact-checking because
your responsibility is to make sure that your joke is structurally sound.
MCEVERS: Right, but there's a lot of people out there telling great jokes and not
tackling the issues that you are tackling.
OLIVER: But that's a different question. Like, in terms of making sure that the things
that you're making jokes about are rooted in facts, that is one thing. Now, in terms of
what we talk about then that's just kind of a choice. It's confusing to me somehow, the
fact that this is often the line of questioning that people want.
MCEVERS: 'Cause we're all journalists and we're all totally paranoid. (Laughter).
OLIVER: Yeah - it almost makes me feel like when people say, oh, but this is journalism,
this is - it almost makes me feel like, am I a terrible comedian? It this almost like, well,
this definitely isn't comedy so what is this?
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
OLIVER: Is it like looking at a sculptor and saying, well, it's not art so are you trying to
build a wall? What exactly are you working on here?" (McEvers, 2016)
As noted in the literature review, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is satirical, and, as
such, comedic, insofar as it employs humor in place of journalism (Ruiz, p. 15, 2011).
Journalism's social responsibility involves a journalistic devotion to producing media agendas
that harmonize with the overall social good (McCombs, 2005, p. 556). Many journalists hail
comedic journalist as a persuasive, even revolutionary social force (Morris, 2009, p. 82).
In her e-mail, HBO's Tobe Becker said it well:
I just received an interview request the other day from Businessweek asking to speak to
someone about the John Oliver effect and he is not speaking to them either-here is a
bit of insight I have picked up having done this job for many, many years. If you feel
you've reached a conclusion on something, you ought to seek out third parties to support81
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Ryan, Kevin (Journalist). King of the News: An Agenda-Setting Approach to the John Oliver Effect, thesis, August 2017; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1011854/m1/86/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .