“..John Oliver Confronts Swiss UN Ambassador On Neutrality During World War II ..”(VIDEO)
“..On last night’s “Daily Show”, correspondent John Oliver followed up a segment on a recent vote in Switzerland to ban the building of minarets ..
.. with an interview that displayed the sort of journalistic guts so sadly absent among the landed gentry in our press.
I hesitate, greatly, to blow a comedy bit out of undue proportion ..
.. but there are nevertheless some key journalistic virtues at work in the piece that deserve some magnification .. if you’ll allow the indulgence.
Oliver used the news story to make a point about the overall character of the nation of Switzerland.
Rather than take the glib remarks of Switzerland’s UN Ambassador Peter Maurer at face value ..
.. presenting them as stenography .. and letting it stand as just another “interesting viewpoint” in the marketplace of ideas ..
.. he confronted the illogic and batted it back ..
.. unconcerned that it would make his interviewee upset .. or ruin someone’s opportunity to have “access.”
This is precisely what “meeting the press” should look like.
The key exchange occurs at 7:50 in this video below .. after several minutes of comedy beat-sweetening ..
.. that’s all just a set-up to the actual prosecution of a viewpoint.
Watch as Maurer attempts to advance precisely the sort of point of view that flourishes in a media culture that privileges nonsense at the same level of intelligence ..
.. and how Oliver reacts:
OLIVER: How hard was it to remind neutral during World War II?..”
go to source/story>>John Oliver Confronts Swiss UN Ambassador On Neutrality During World War II (VIDEO)