John Oliver: Comedy and News

Comedian John Oliver rose to fame as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, especially last summer while he took over as the host. He just completed the first season of his own show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which airs on HBO. While some argue that he has joined his colleagues’ in the ranks of satirical news, other sources claim he has well-surpassed them as a successful satire comedian. He vehemently states that he doesn’t care for journalism, rather the news is a prop for comedy.

His show inevitably educates viewers on national and international issues, making them easier to digest through sharp comedy. There was that time he unintentionally broke the internet and sang about the corrupt prison system with muppets. He’s also featured issues closer to home, making fun of Oregon’s health care, lottery tax, and well, who doesn’t love a good salmon cannon?

My favorite story (besides the salmon cannon) was the passionately developed issue of Afghan and Iraqi interpreters who cannot get visas to come to the US, even though they live in danger…protecting American troops. For KBOO Community Radio, we talked about these interpreters, the FCC and becoming American, when he joined me by phone from New York.

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Air date: 11/20/2014