John Oliver examines journalism’s many problems:
Describing the industry’s ‘dire straits’, Oliver devoted the whole episode of his HBO show to analysing the depressing financial state of journalism.
Comedian John Oliver took aim at his latest target: the state of journalism.
Describing the industry’s “dire straits”, Oliver devoted the latest episode of his HBO show to analysing the depressing financial state of journalism and the subsequent tendency for news outlets to focus on stories that get the most traffic. He also talked about the movie "spotlight" saying that newspapers finally received some recognition.
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But the comedian stressed the importance of traditional reporting by citing the number of times newspapers are quoted by television news channels.
“It’s pretty obvious without newspapers around to cite, TV news would just be Wolf Blitzer endlessly batting a ball of yarn around,” Oliver concluded.
“The media is a food chain which would fall apart without local newspapers.”
Oliver noted one of the main problems at the lower end of his food chain: the drop in newspaper advertising revenue. He pointed out the decline in print advertising revenue and how digital advertising has failed to make up the difference.“A big part of the blame for this industry’s dire straits is on us and our unwillingness to pay for the work journalists produce,” Oliver said.
“We’ve just grown accustomed to getting our news for free and the longer that we get something for free, the less willing we are to pay for it.”
Oliver used the example of the Oregonian newspaper. In 2014 it was revealed reporters would have to publish a minimum of three blogposts a day. (That rule has since been rescinded.)
“If journalists are constantly required to write, edit, shoot videos and tweet, mistakes are going to get made,” he said.
“It is clearly smart for newspapers to expand online. But the danger in doing that is the temptation to gravitate towards getting the most clicks,” Oliver said.