I firstly met my group mates in the second week of the class, and my role is Graphics Op, and our topic is legal cannabis and Victorian drug laws. After sharing ideas and further discussion, we decided to stand on the agreed site that support the law of legalize the cannabis in Victoria state. Also, we have watched some interesting examples of comedy news, which gives me a further understanding of what “comedy news” is (since I am international student, I didn’t watch many comedy news before). It is much easier to receive the serious news in comedy news’s way instead of read from words. Furthermore, the facial expression and personal opinion of the host can be a highlight of the program — we can gain some different perspectives that we cannot discover by ourselves. Boring news could become funny from the host’s presenting. Therefore, people prefer to watch the TV program such as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver rather than ABC News.
As the summery from the first week says, comedy news makes information more accessible. The host usually explains the news differently, by leading to another news or fact, thus resonate to audience. What’s more, comedy news commonly being a satire, criticizing or showing the fact or person that cannot be saying in real life (mostly about the political topics); or covering two-sides of an event.
The show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver impresses me. The host Oliver usually raises the topic that unseen issue from a news we might have read or the news we ignored in a funny way. The topic about American preachers and high-cost of healthcare problem. He reveals that the preachers or doctors receive money but doing nothing to public, but nobody can sentence them guilty.
As Gray&Jones&Thompson (2009) said, satire is for positive change; satirist is trying to present their anger or contempt to something or somebody. Audience usually come out with deeper thought after laughing, I think that is a positive significance of comedy news.
Reference:
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/07/591457135/john-oliver-finds-humor-in-the-news-no-one-wants-to-hear-about