Are late-night satirists becoming the better journalists?
Since Jon Stewart has retired from The Daily Show in 2015, leaving a gap many do not ever see being closed by any of his successors, US late-night television has nevertheless been swamped by his fosterlings. Stewart quit the field at a moment that was very fruitful for them to follow into his footsteps: the US election campaigns had just begun. Does their election coverage make them — perhaps even the better — journalists?
The attention the US media pays to touring candidates, the primaries and the presidential debates has even pushed some new shows that had initially not been planned as formats satirising the news as such into this category of entertainment. John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Stewart’s immediate successor on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, and in particular Stephen Colbert have shown the same perplexity over the election results — which some of them even covered with live broadcasts — as most other mainstream media representatives. However, their mediate advice to stunned and disillusioned Democratic voters has been vastly different from their non-comedic counterparts, who have widely joined the chorus of “Give Trump a chance!” Hillary Clinton intoned during her concession speech. Noah, Colbert and Bee have announced to closely follow the president-elect’s every step and in the season finale of Last Week Tonight, Oliver warns of normalizing someone as unpredictable as Donald Trump, who has proposed policies that constitute human rights violations on countless occasions during his election campaign.
From the beginning, Last Week Tonight has been praised for its investigative approach to issues that go far beyond the time restriction set by the title. Charlie Rose said that the show does not satirize news makers, it takes subjects that other people are not addressing, which has supposedly influenced state legislation and has therefore even been called the “John Oliver effect”. Since then, The Guardian has jumped on virtually every major story John Oliver covered on his show. Asked whether he considers himself a journalist by the hosts of CBS This Morning, the man himself however decidedly responded: “I am not a journalist at all, obviously! I am a comedian,” who is — by nature — disruptive.
In his final piece of the year, he admitted to the obvious bias of his show, and I openly admit that in the past months I have often relied on these television jesters to explain complex issues in a comedic and easily digestible, yet no less diverse manner to me. But I do not believe that this is due to me simply sharing their “bias”. They are striking a blow for political correctness while the mainstream media fails to comment on many politicians compromising theirs, because they hope it will get white working-class males to vote for them (not just in the US btw… Seriously, how unauthentic can we get? This woman was called “Zensursula” only a couple of years ago!)
Right-wing populist groups are gaining credence, because they address issues like the shrinking of the middle class, which moderate political parties have avoided at best, promoted most realistically. However, rightists feign that the political correctness of their opponents has led to these problems, and the mainstream media is not holding either of them accountable. They fail to stand up for political correctness by comprehensibly providing the context needed to remind people that it is neither a joke, nor an inconvenience. Late-night satirists are filling the gap between colourless, compromising politicians and the mainstream media that fails to call them out on — frankly — their shit.
Political correctness should obviously not be promoted through mere censorship, but it is by no means left-wing, liberal bias. It is the linguistic implementation of human rights and it has been desperately fought for for centuries. It ensures neutrality, and it looks to protects those that are not able to protect themselves in public discourse. Words are actions and the responsibility to hold politicians accountable cannot remain with comedians. Right now, they may well be the better journalists. I hope they will not continue to be.
