When news stories fall through the cracks, we here at Colbert News Hub find them for a post we call, In The Press.
I usually try to keep these intros light, but it’s been a tough week. Hopefully it will get better soon. I have really missed the boys this past week with everything that’s been going on in the news. I have a feeling Jon is exasperated with the news coverage of Robin Williams, I know I’ve seen some stuff that’s made me mad.
However, we press on. Oh, there it is. I just made it light. Ya see, cuz I said ‘press’ and it’s “In The Press”. Okay! In this edition, we have a video from “The Young Turks” praising Stephen, and a couple more pieces about that overnight sensation, John Oliver. He’s going places. Read on!
Stephen Colbert
“I’m a little surprised that Colbert did produce a larger effect than other news sources. What does that mean? Does that mean all news should take a Colbert approach or participate in the political process?” said Hardy.While he says we don’t necessarily want our news sources to start forming their own Super PACs so they can write about it, they should take note of the effectiveness of a narrative news model.“We should think about why it was successful,” said Hardy, while also suggesting that a narrative structure, accumulated on over time, could increase learning engagement between news providers and their viewers.
- Why Stephen Colbert Should Be Proud & The Media Should Be Ashamed – The Young Turks
The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, discusses “Stephen Colbert’s Civic Lesson” and breaks down why The Colbert Report is more effective at informing viewers about campaign financing and the role of money in politics than traditional news sources.
“The reason for that is first of all narrative story telling. He brings you in and assuming gives the punch line at the end. Where a lot of journalists, are here is the most important thing in the first paragraph and the rest is just details you can ignore. He is a better story teller.”
Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart
- 10 @Midnight Guests We’d Really Like To See – Uproxx
Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert
Okay, maybe this one is a bit of wishful thinking, but it would it really kill either of them to spend one night competing for some POINTS? Especially with Colbert making the move to CBS next year, it would great to have the two compete against each other as a send-off of sorts. My guess is they would try to be super-friendly, but each of them would secretly want to humiliate the other. And who would the third guest be? Colbert replacement Larry Wilmore would be logical, but it also might be fun to have a lesser-known comic try his luck against the two comedy titans. Imagine Stewart and Colbert losing to someone you’ve barely heard of – now that would be a show!
The Colbert Report and The Daily Show
“SnapStream not only records hours of television, but searches for key words and phrases through closed captioning. Because the service for hearing-impaired viewers is federally mandated, companies like SnapStream can use it to track whatever shows need.If Stewart and his writers need material on open-carry activists bringing firearms into restaurants, they can use SnapStream to find cable news reports with words and phrases like “guns,” and “Chipotle.””
Late Night TV
“We ain’t gonna let any other brothers do it now — we gave him a chance,” he jokes. “That’s the pressure right there.”
- How John Oliver and HBO Shattered TV’s Comedy-News Format – Variey
Brian Steinberg examines the evolution of the comedy news format and political satire from “The Week That Was” to “The Daily Show”, and how “Last Week with John Oliver” is breaking new ground by writing material in which “the humour is there to serve the story”, and rather than including “background information and context about major stories … to serve the jokes”.
“I see Oliver as the next logical extension of the genre,” said Dannagal Young, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware who studies the use of political satire. Oliver, she said, “is going beyond traditional satire to give audience members specific directives that allow them to take action on the issues he deconstructs on the show.“
- John Oliver and Clickhole Take Fake News in Opposite Directions – The New York Times
In an Internet era dominated by consistent change, fake news programs, such as Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” and “The Daily Show” have often chosen to cling to the same old consistent formats which satirise increasingly familiar targets. But Jason Zinoman identities new hope in an age of the Internet and fake news familiarity, citing John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” and “Clickhole”, an online offshoot of The Onion.
Like his former boss on “The Daily Show,” he [John Oliver] reacts incredulously (and righteously) to clips of newsmakers and juxtaposes a multitude of politicians or journalists saying the same thing.But Mr. Oliver departs from Mr. Stewart’s template in a few critical ways. He wisely focuses less on the low-hanging, and much-gnawed-on, fruit of cable news and gravitates to foreign affairs. (It’s hard to imagine Mr. Stewart starting a question for a guest with “The Times of India had a really interesting article yesterday.”) Mr. Oliver also prefers to add dashes of theatricality, with varying degrees of success. (Using lottery balls to illustrate a point about income inequality on Sunday was weak prop comedy.)What distinguishes Mr. Oliver is that his half-hour show is dominated by one very long, rigorously reported segment on a single issue, often running longer than 10 minutes.
But sustained thought on an under covered topic is smart counter-programming in our age of multitasking and tweeting. And Mr. Oliver has a gift for bringing technical, wonky subjects to vivid life.
- Study: Jimmy Fallon Spends Less Time Talking Than Jay Leno, Late Night Peers – The Hollywood Reporter
A recent study conducted by Stephen Winzenburg, a communications professor at Grand View University and author of the book TV’s Greatest Talk Shows, found that on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon engages in “talk” only 37 percent of the time, down 51 percent from his predecessors Jay Leno and Johnny Carson. In terms of “talk”, the study also found that Fallon is well below his peers who dedicated 43 to 53 percent of the show to “talk”.
“Fallon has overhauled the format to the point that Tonight may no longer be able to be called a talk show,” Winzenburg said. “His relatively small amount of talk time is closer to that used by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert … The Tonight Show has become successful by looking more like a comedy variety series than a traditional talk show.”
In the Press – August 14, 2014
I usually try to keep these intros light, but it’s been a tough week. Hopefully it will get better soon. I have really missed the boys this past week with everything that’s been going on in the news. I have a feeling Jon is exasperated with the news coverage of Robin Williams, I know I’ve seen some stuff that’s made me mad.
However, we press on. Oh, there it is. I just made it light. Ya see, cuz I said ‘press’ and it’s “In The Press”. Okay! In this edition, we have a video from “The Young Turks” praising Stephen, and a couple more pieces about that overnight sensation, John Oliver. He’s going places. Read on!
Stephen Colbert
“I’m a little surprised that Colbert did produce a larger effect than other news sources. What does that mean? Does that mean all news should take a Colbert approach or participate in the political process?” said Hardy.While he says we don’t necessarily want our news sources to start forming their own Super PACs so they can write about it, they should take note of the effectiveness of a narrative news model.“We should think about why it was successful,” said Hardy, while also suggesting that a narrative structure, accumulated on over time, could increase learning engagement between news providers and their viewers.
The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, discusses “Stephen Colbert’s Civic Lesson” and breaks down why The Colbert Report is more effective at informing viewers about campaign financing and the role of money in politics than traditional news sources.
“The reason for that is first of all narrative story telling. He brings you in and assuming gives the punch line at the end. Where a lot of journalists, are here is the most important thing in the first paragraph and the rest is just details you can ignore. He is a better story teller.”
Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert
Okay, maybe this one is a bit of wishful thinking, but it would it really kill either of them to spend one night competing for some POINTS? Especially with Colbert making the move to CBS next year, it would great to have the two compete against each other as a send-off of sorts. My guess is they would try to be super-friendly, but each of them would secretly want to humiliate the other. And who would the third guest be? Colbert replacement Larry Wilmore would be logical, but it also might be fun to have a lesser-known comic try his luck against the two comedy titans. Imagine Stewart and Colbert losing to someone you’ve barely heard of – now that would be a show!
The Colbert Report and The Daily Show
“SnapStream not only records hours of television, but searches for key words and phrases through closed captioning. Because the service for hearing-impaired viewers is federally mandated, companies like SnapStream can use it to track whatever shows need.If Stewart and his writers need material on open-carry activists bringing firearms into restaurants, they can use SnapStream to find cable news reports with words and phrases like “guns,” and “Chipotle.””
Late Night TV
“We ain’t gonna let any other brothers do it now — we gave him a chance,” he jokes. “That’s the pressure right there.”
Brian Steinberg examines the evolution of the comedy news format and political satire from “The Week That Was” to “The Daily Show”, and how “Last Week with John Oliver” is breaking new ground by writing material in which “the humour is there to serve the story”, and rather than including “background information and context about major stories … to serve the jokes”.
“I see Oliver as the next logical extension of the genre,” said Dannagal Young, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware who studies the use of political satire. Oliver, she said, “is going beyond traditional satire to give audience members specific directives that allow them to take action on the issues he deconstructs on the show.“
In an Internet era dominated by consistent change, fake news programs, such as Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” and “The Daily Show” have often chosen to cling to the same old consistent formats which satirise increasingly familiar targets. But Jason Zinoman identities new hope in an age of the Internet and fake news familiarity, citing John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” and “Clickhole”, an online offshoot of The Onion.
Like his former boss on “The Daily Show,” he [John Oliver] reacts incredulously (and righteously) to clips of newsmakers and juxtaposes a multitude of politicians or journalists saying the same thing.But Mr. Oliver departs from Mr. Stewart’s template in a few critical ways. He wisely focuses less on the low-hanging, and much-gnawed-on, fruit of cable news and gravitates to foreign affairs. (It’s hard to imagine Mr. Stewart starting a question for a guest with “The Times of India had a really interesting article yesterday.”) Mr. Oliver also prefers to add dashes of theatricality, with varying degrees of success. (Using lottery balls to illustrate a point about income inequality on Sunday was weak prop comedy.)What distinguishes Mr. Oliver is that his half-hour show is dominated by one very long, rigorously reported segment on a single issue, often running longer than 10 minutes.
But sustained thought on an under covered topic is smart counter-programming in our age of multitasking and tweeting. And Mr. Oliver has a gift for bringing technical, wonky subjects to vivid life.
A recent study conducted by Stephen Winzenburg, a communications professor at Grand View University and author of the book TV’s Greatest Talk Shows, found that on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon engages in “talk” only 37 percent of the time, down 51 percent from his predecessors Jay Leno and Johnny Carson. In terms of “talk”, the study also found that Fallon is well below his peers who dedicated 43 to 53 percent of the show to “talk”.
“Fallon has overhauled the format to the point that Tonight may no longer be able to be called a talk show,” Winzenburg said. “His relatively small amount of talk time is closer to that used by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert … The Tonight Show has become successful by looking more like a comedy variety series than a traditional talk show.”