So, I asked Mr. Oliver: Is he engaging in a kind of new journalism? He muttered an oath, the kind he can say on HBO for comic emphasis, but we don’t say here, adding, “No!”
“We are making jokes about the news and sometimes we need to research things deeply to understand them, but it’s always in service of a joke. If you make jokes about animals, that does not make you a zoologist. We certainly hold ourselves to a high standard and fact-check everything, but the correct term for what we do is ‘comedy.’ ”
Easy cop-out to avoid flak for mistakes or being plain wrong, by one of the most popular shows on the internet at the moment, which prides itself on being so much smarter than everything it mocks. I'm getting pretty turned off from Oliver, tbh. Why not just have the balls to 'fess on your own mistakes and fallibility, instead of backing off saying it's all for jokes. It's more than that, he tries to send a serious message in each episode, so that's bs.
The show makes fun of its "research" often, citing that they've been hard at work since "this morning" etc. They're pretty clear that they don't dig too deep. This in and of itself is part of the joke. His little show turns up facts and information that mainstream journalism either willfully disregards or just plain misses. That's part of the satire. It's not journalism, but by its nature it's a giant fuck-you to journalism, in the same way that the daily show and Colbert are.
Oliver saying he's not a journalist reminds me of Alan Watts saying he's not a guru but a 'Spiritual Entertainer'. I would wager that the research done by the Oliver staff is better than most of the research done by people who would eagerly accept the title 'Journalist'. I think rejecting the title is more about actually getting people to listen than downgrading his shows coverage of important issues.