Sad truth: not everyone watches the news. I do not always watch it. In fact, I learn of most of my news from the internet, especially when it is trending on social media. However, once a week I get to sit down for half an hour and watch the news. No, not from a far right source like FOX News or a far left and down the drain source like CNN, but from a more unlikely source: HBO. (Or more accurately, HBO GO. And it isn't even my account, it's my friends. And she doesn't even pay for it. But its okay because it allowed me to catch up on Game of Thrones. For the Watch...!) Anyways, I'm not here to about how I totally think Jon Snow is going to come back from the dead, and how maybe some leaked set photos support that theory. I'm here to talk about another John, John Oliver.
A former correspondent on The Daily Show, HBO trusted Sunday nights to John Oliver to bring us the news. And not just using funny slap stick jokes and hilarious imagery, but with an underline of truth. In between every laugh, you will learn something from John Oliver. Just this past episode, which aired last night, he talked about the current refugee crisis in Europe. Most news outlets have negative statements and accusations to make about the refugees, with FOX News even using a video from 2010 to try to paint the refugees as terrorists. In reality, most people fleeing the middle east and Northern Africa are scared, hard working people looking for another chance at life. We learned about a sweet, innocent 16 year old, disabled girl who was leaving a life where she wasn't sure if she would be alive the next day.
We would not have learned about this girl from American news, American news is focused on two extremes: fear and chaos, or the obscure and unnecessary. If you turned on the news in the last week, the anchors were probably hating on the Pope (which is crazy! Right wing crazies watch FOX News, right wing crazies are predominately religious, and the Pope is the leader of the western religious world, a.k.a. the Catholic church). Or you could have read some news on the internet, such as this ultra-important
Huffington Post article. (really? That was found on their front page section..)
What John Oliver cares about is more simple: the truth, and comedy. What could be more important?
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