My current understanding of comedy news is quite good. Although I don’t read that much comedy news (apart from Betoota Advocate and The Onion headlines and occasionally the entire article), I do watch quite a bit of it. I have always been a fan of satirical news comedy especially on shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and with John Stewart before him, The Jim Jefferies Show, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, The Colbert Report, Andrew Schulz and many others I could name (especially considering nearly all late night shows are now becoming more satirical in these interesting political and cultural times). Additionally, last year I was a writer for the satirical news show ‘The Leak’ on Channel 31 produced by RMITV and have some experience making my own smaller satirical news videos in a previous studio.

I believe the purpose of comedy news is, first and foremost, to be funny. If it isn’t funny it doesn’t make the news any easier to palate and digest. Which also happens to be another purpose of the genre. Watching the news can be quite draining, so if it’s delivered in a humerous and more casual manner it becomes easier to deal with. Additionally, another purpose is to enact change. As pretentious as that may sound, comedy is all about seeing different views on topics that most don’t think of. Showing an audience a new view or angle on a topic/issue can help them form new opinions about those topics/issues. Satire makes people scrutinize. Comedy news’ palatable nature, potential for change and general wide spread appeal makes it very useful and impactful to society especially politics.

By the end of the semester I hope to learn more about this genre that I really enjoy watching and creating. Additionally, an appealing part of the studio was gaining more knowledge about the professional production of shows like these with the use of the campus studios, although due to COVID – 19 I doubt that will be happening. However, I do hope to learn more about the production side even during times like these.