Ted Cruz thinks the FCC stepped over the line in ordering Disney's ABC to file for an accelerated renewal of broadcast licenses of its eight local TV stations -- seemingly in response to a joke Jimmy Kimmel told about Melania Trump on late-night television.
I get your point but I do think it’s a little reductive to gloss over the fact that Oliver and Stewart have done an actually-good job of covering news all these years.
I was sort of intentionally being reductive to make the point that it’s pretty fucked up that our bravest and most trustworthy media figures all come out of comedy, some of it pretty low-brow.
There’s some decent voices in the American mainstream media, but most of them are so terrified of getting canceled by the so-called free-speech absolutists that the satirists (if one can even call Kimmel that) are having to do real work in spreading information and speaking truth to power.
The “Veejay” of a clip show of shortened airline-food standup sets.
I got that the latter two were Jimmy Kimmel and John Oliver. You lost me on this one.
Edit: Also, don’t forget 4. The man so good at satire that he simultaneously convinced stupid right wingers he represented them and only slightly less stupid left wingers that satirizing the right meant that he actually represented them until he got a new non-satire show and turns out he’s just a left leaning centrist with an expert level knowledge of The Lord Of The Rings lore, but still calls a fascist a fascist.
Number 1 is Jon Stewart, though to be fair I had kinda thought he was on the 80s game show “Remote Control” on MTV and had to pivot when I learned he was not. :-)
We’re at a point where America’s great public protectors of free speech and baseline decency are:
They’re doing good work, but christ on a cracker they shouldn’t have been tasked with this job.
I get your point but I do think it’s a little reductive to gloss over the fact that Oliver and Stewart have done an actually-good job of covering news all these years.
I was sort of intentionally being reductive to make the point that it’s pretty fucked up that our bravest and most trustworthy media figures all come out of comedy, some of it pretty low-brow.
There’s some decent voices in the American mainstream media, but most of them are so terrified of getting canceled by the so-called free-speech absolutists that the satirists (if one can even call Kimmel that) are having to do real work in spreading information and speaking truth to power.
I got that the latter two were Jimmy Kimmel and John Oliver. You lost me on this one.
Edit: Also, don’t forget 4. The man so good at satire that he simultaneously convinced stupid right wingers he represented them and only slightly less stupid left wingers that satirizing the right meant that he actually represented them until he got a new non-satire show and turns out he’s just a left leaning centrist with an expert level knowledge of The Lord Of The Rings lore, but still calls a fascist a fascist.
Number 1 is Jon Stewart, though to be fair I had kinda thought he was on the 80s game show “Remote Control” on MTV and had to pivot when I learned he was not. :-)