As newspaper industry continues its fast, brutal downhill slide, what will the inevitable death of newspapers mean for broadcast journalism, which frequently mines print media for stories?
John Oliver has an inkling, and made that the focus of a segment on last night’s edition of “Last Week Tonight”.
“It’s pretty obvious without newspapers around to cite, TV news would just be Wolf Blitzer endlessly batting a ball of yarn around,” said Oliver, noting that media “is a food chain that would fall apart without local newspapers.”
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Oliver drove his point home by gathering an all-star cast for a sly remake of Oscar-winning film “Spotlight”, illustrating the current state of the newspaper biz as newspapers embrace a “digital-first” strategy that favours “clickbait” content over investigative journalism.
In the spoof — titled “Stoplight” — Rose Byrne, Jason Sudeikis and Bobby Cannavale play journalists, with Cannavale’s character dismayed that the hard-hitting piece he’s pitching is dumped on the back burner to make way for a story about a raccoon that looks like a cat (or possibly a cat that looks like a raccoon).
The reviews are in, with critics describing “Stoplight” as “depressingly accurate.” Watch:
