Satirical News Coverage of Universal Healthcare

Satirical news is a genre of media that seeks to cover news topics in a lighthearted and comedic way. Most often these are done in a late night show setting, but they can also be done in other formats similar to actual news coverage. The University of South Australia explains that news satire "is a type of parody presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism, and called satire because of its content. News satire relies heavily on irony and deadpan humor... Two slightly different types of news satire exist. One form uses satirical commentary and sketch comedy to comment on real-world news events, while the other presents wholly fictionalized news stories" (https://guides.library.unisa.edu.au/NewsMedia/Satirical). There are plenty of examples of news satire, including The Onion, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, to name a few. Today we'll be looking at how this genre covers the topic of Universal Healthcare.

Last Week Tonight is, in my opinion, by far the best example of satirical news coverage of global and American political topics. While most late night shows focus on recent news and funny political moments, John Oliver takes an in-depth dive into issues that are far broader than a single news week could capture. Funny enough, Last Week Tonight is one of the only late night shows that focuses on more than just last week's news cycle. In this video about Medicare for All, John Oliver points out the factual inaccuracies in Fox News' coverage of Bernie Sander's "Medicare for All" plan. He gives several examples to drive home just how bad our current healthcare system is. One example was people crossing into Mexico to get cheaper medication there. Another example was a volunteer group who sought to provide basic medical treatment in poor countries that needed it, but found that many American towns actually needed as much help as these poorer countries. Mixed within these examples was plenty of stats and data that added to the argument, as well as completely random comedic tangents to keep the audience entertained. Typical Last Week Tonight, very good.

The Onion - I Don't Want Healthcare If Just Anyone Can Have It

The Onion is perhaps the most unique and trailblazing group in the news satire scene. Unlike late night shows, The Onion seeks to entirely parody newspapers and news channels. The jokes aren't told to the viewer directly, in fact the articles tend to take a serious tone. The comedy is in the absolute absurdity of the writing, often mocking politicians and news channels or pointing out hypocrisies in common political positions. In this article, The Onion acts as a hypothetical "concerned citizen" who is opposed to Universal Healthcare because they like feeling superior for having expensive health insurance. This hypothetical person explains that they like showing off their expensive insurance card, and belonging to an "elite club" that people are "literally dying" to get into. This rant from this made up person, being so bluntly selfish by not denying that universal healthcare saves lives, but rather just arguing that it would make them personally feel less special, seems to make a mockery of wealthier people on premium insurance plans who advocate against universal healthcare. It makes the reader wonder what motivations might really be behind those kinds of advocates.

Full Frontal is a very stereotypical example of news satire, and one that I personally don't care for. Samantha Bee typically sticks to very current hot political topics, and argues for her positions by using some quick data points surrounded by quick jokes and funny political clips. I feel like she makes her show for an audience with 0 attention span, given that she can't go more than a few seconds without making a joke. But she does get to her points quite efficiently, seamlessly using the rapid fire mix of jokes and occasional stats to paint a picture where her conclusion makes a lot of sense. In this clip, which is about 3min (far shorter than our others), Samantha advocates for democrats embracing universal healthcare. At first she brings up the midterms, which in 2018 (when the episode was released) was very relevant. She brings up the democratic strategy for the midterms, and argues that they should focus on supporting universal healthcare. She brings up data points that show flaws in our current healthcare system. Then she concludes by pointing out that democrats may avoid universal healthcare because Fox News will use it to call them socialist and make them lose supporters. All that info in a 3 minute comedy video, pretty impressive.

Something you may have noticed about my previous 3 examples, is that they all take a generally left-leaning stance on universal healthcare. It seems that almost all news satire has a bias left of center, with the exceptions of people like Greg Gutfeld, and yes, Steven Crowder. Now, Crowder is not a good guy, plain and simple. From his past "comedy" of Asian accents and blackface, to his more recent drama where leaked footage showed him yelling at his pregnant wife. With that said, he's the only conservative I could find doing news satire on universal healthcare. Crowder's approach is a more unprofessional setting, where he allows his producers to talk and add on to his commentary. Other than that, he follows a similar format to the rest of our video examples, relying on some data mixed in with jokes and funny political clips. He focuses a lot more on his data than the other examples, and most of his jokes are just mocking democrats or left leaning people. In this episode, he points out data points that counter the typical narrative from democrats and Bernie Sanders about his "Medicare for All" plan. He points to other countries that are often praised as having better healthcare, and shows that in some cases they actually have worse outcomes than the U.S. He also argues that people who are unhealthy "by choice", like smokers or obese people, shouldn't be covered by taxpayer money. These are interesting arguments that provide a counter-narrative to the usual leftist arguments, but I'm not sold on this guy's morality.

All in all I would consider news satire a very important form of media for political topics. Many people are easily bored by politics, and an entertaining alternative can help inform massive audiences about very important political issues, like Universal Healthcare. Popular programs like Last Week Tonight or Full Frontal showing the flaws with Fox News' coverage of Universal Healthcare as 'radical socialist policies' is a great defense for Universal Healthcare in the endless war that is the political media landscape.