John
Oliver is the Walter Cronkite of our generation.
His
show, Last Week Tonight, is leading the charge of investigative journalism, and
with only half an hour, puts 60 Minutes,
Frontline and Meet The Press completely to shame. He’s exposed the most critical
issues that affect our lives while making us laugh, and he’s arguably risen
above Jon Stewart, the man who launched his career by having him on as an
extra.
And
yet…
I
can’t help but notice how frivolous HBO is being with its budget regarding Last
Week Tonight. Two weeks ago, John Oliver bought up an entire line of Russel
Crowe memorabilia. Before that, he built an entire model train display for a
local TV station. Before that, he bought several wax replicas of U.S.
presidents from a closing wax museum. He’s bought up millions of dollars of
student debt and then forgiven it. And last Sunday, he made a huge ad buy to
put the “catheter cowboy” on Sean Hannity’s commercial time so that he could
tell Donald Trump not to destroy the Iran nuclear deal. The ad must have cost
at least a million to specifically target that block of airtime, since the
cable network in D.C. knows that the president watches Hannity’s show
religiously. That’s all well and good, but…
Wasn’t
the real problem with investigative news journalism the fact that it didn’t
make any money?
Everywhere
in the news business, things have been dialing down. The number of journalists
has dropped because TV networks couldn’t afford them. Newspapers merged their
morning and afternoon editions into one paper, resulting in hybrid names like
“Journal Sentinel” “News Tribune” or “Times Picayune.” Then they all became
nationalized under the USA Today umbrella. Local television stations started
working with a skeleton crew. A.M. radio has become dominated by nationalized
syndicates, almost all of it conservative-leaning. In fact, part of why
companies like Clearchannel and Sinclair were able to buy up so many radio and
television stations is because those stations were too broke to avoid selling
out. (Aside from Bill Clinton’s disastrous 1996 communications bill.)
Couldn’t
HBO take some of those millions of dollars and, I dunno, bring actual news to
people that can’t afford HBO? You know, the people who really need it?
Right
now, there’s a frightening inequality, not just of income, but of information
distribution. While Facebook ensures that only one political side is favored by
its users, Sinclair and Newscorp make sure that those who can’t afford a cable
or streaming service only have news that is laced with propaganda - if not
outright blasting said propaganda. Not only do people live in their own bubble,
but the truth is put in a bubble as well, and only those who can afford to pay
can get inside that bubble to learn what they really need to know to be
informed voters. And so the only people who are aware, and know what must be
done for America to survive, are suburban liberals, urban sophisticates, and
their college kids.
That’s
no way to have an informed electorate!
So
come on, HBO! You’re almost done with Game of Thrones. How about spending some
of that money on buying back some of the local stations and giving them some
real journalistic autonomy?
Eric
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