John Oliver resumed his role as host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” in its season four premiere last Sunday. The show fulfills a similar purpose as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” — now hosted by Trevor Noah — where Oliver got his start. It lies at the intersection of news and entertainment, but the two never interfere with each other. The validity of the news presented is never sacrificed for humor’s sake.
“Last Week Tonight” makes it a point to always fact-check and encourages its viewers to do the same. In fact, fact-checking is precisely the issue the show took on as its primary subject in the season premiere.
The show’s setup is essentially a 30-minute tirade on recent political developments, with periodic comedic breaks. These tirades, though, are not just partisan spewing — they are thought-out, rational counterpoints to decisions made by the government.
Another benefit of the show is its programming. Because “Last Week Tonight” is on HBO, it’s free of commercial breaks — meaning it has less corporate pressures or ties to adhere to. As a result, Oliver has no pressure when reporting on some issue that would hurt his corporate sponsors.
After remaining off the air during the inauguration and first several weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, Oliver had much to catch up on. For his first episode, he focused on a simple concern — truth, or the matter of what constitutes a fact. Oliver tries to revitalize the most basic premise to any scientific or logical theory — an individual must have evidence for his or her’s claims.
Oliver, by drawing on unbiased sources like PolitiFact, showed that nearly two-thirds of Trump’s claims are false. As Oliver points out, Trump has stated he would have won the popular vote had not millions of illegal aliens voted for Hillary Clinton — something there is no evidence of.
At this point in the show, Oliver lost his comedian’s temperament. Viewers could see the frustration that Oliver normally keeps at bay so well. He lamented what appears to be the death of truth in the Trump presidency, as well as in the American public.
With this in mind, Oliver had no choice but to end the show with a caveat to his faith viewers — he urged everyone to fact-check their sources and demand real evidence for claims made by anyone, especially by those in power.
What does it mean that people are increasingly getting their news from these comedy sources? Is this a red flag for democracy? Or is it more alarming that comedy sources now serve as fact-checkers for traditional news? Oliver reminded viewers in the fourth season premiere of “Last Week Tonight” that logic and open dialogue have not been forgotten in Trump’s America.
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