John Moneybags Oliver

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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