Since John Oliver has taken the desk for his new show, “Last Week Tonight,” he has become something of a sensation, with nearly 4 million viewers per episode on Sunday nights and around 2 million views for each of his online segments. While “Last Week Tonight” is more or less the HBO version of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” John Oliver has taken a different approach that emphasizes analysis of current problems instead of critiquing them. John Oliver presents viewers with a different story each week, and he probes them with a journalistic style that combines the right amount of comedy and factual education into one seamless whole. Lately, his segments have actually been creating change in the social and political atmosphere with different instances of his show causing real world changes.
Here are five times “Last Week Tonight” has gone beyond the story.
1. New parents are getting more paid time off.
After having a segment regarding the terrible parental leave policies within U.S. businesses, companies like Microsoft, Adobe, and even Netflix, have begun to revise their parental leave policies with better benefits.
2. Revealing unfair bail requirements.
One of the multiple problems regarding the United States' prison system is the unyielding requirements of the bail system. Oliver noted that people who cannot afford bail are forced to either plead guilty to avoid waiting in prison in months for a trial or to do the exact opposite and face the financial consequences. Recently, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has taken steps to peel back bail requirements for people charged with nonviolent crimes.
3. Getting people to care about the FCC.
With a story that centered around the problem of net neutrality and the FCC’s unwillingness to back it, John Oliver decided to direct viewers to the core of the problem as he convinced them to take to their website to voice their opinions. The aftermath resulted in the FCC website crashing due to the amount of people complaining over its' rigid stance, and have since voted to keep net neutrality.
4. Bringing more attention to the D.C. problem.
The United States is one of the only democratic countries in the world that drastically limits legislative power to the citizens of its capital, simply because it does not count as a state. One of the stories from “Last Week Tonight” brought more attention to this bizarre situation and reignited a movement to give statehood to our nation’s capitol.
5. Showing FIFA for what it is.
Though it is a stretch to say that this last one has any direct correlation to John Oliver’s expose on the corruption of FIFA officials, it is nonetheless hilarious and suspicious that FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, resigned four days after being destroyed on “Last Week Tonight.”