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Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

LastWeekTonight · 9.1M views · 2014-05-12 · 4:27

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Overview

A short Last Week Tonight segment where John Oliver stages a statistically representative climate debate, with Bill Nye facing a crowd of dissenters. It satirizes false balance in media coverage.

On Hacker News

Cited to illustrate false balance and the trouble with giving all sides equal weight.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2015–2023

Topics

Media, journalism & propagandaClimate policy, solutions & debateSatire & parody
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john oliverclimate changefalse balancesatiremisinformation

What people said

consp · 2022-07 · Recommendation

There is a nice visual example of this made by John Oliver on his show to illustrate this to a more understandable level: [VIDEO]

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BLKNSLVR · 2022-02 · Recommendation

Exactly, and demonstrated beautifully by John Oliver: [VIDEO] An aim at 'balance' is part of the problem because it's not an aim at facts or truth. Aiming at balance is the media twisting debate to produce maximum outrage, and therefore increase 'consumer engagement'. Aiming at balance is politicians providing themselves supposed reasons to maintain the status quo or move in counter-factual directions.

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lbenes · 2015-10 · Recommendation

Watch Fox new much? Climate deniers love this argument. Jon Stewart answers your question here: [LINK] While looking for the clip I found this gem: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by LastWeekTonight, played through YouTube.

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