"And Now, THIS"

     One of my favorite shows on television that I watch is a show called Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.  It is a show that goes over important current events such as politics and education.  It is quite a fun show that can be very insightful at times, however I just now realized how closely it ties in with most of Neil Postman's main ideas in Amusing Ourselves to Death.  This is because it covers many issues in a very short thirty minute segment, involves entertainment as a form of discussing the events it covers, and most notably and obviously, uses the phrase " Now... This" to transition from points.
     One of the first things that I noticed about it was how quickly it covered multiple topics.  The first fifteen minutes would be about the Olympics and then as soon as I knew it, it would switch to discussing the Democratic National Convention (DNC).  This is something that showed me how people today now have a lower attention span and don't take things serious enough to listen to a decently long conversation.  At times, I felt that I didn't have enough information even after watching the show.
     Another thing that got my attention while I was watching the show was all of the comedy that was involved.  There are so many jokes in every episode and I would always just walk away from the television laughing.  This to me just shows how television can tend to make things less serious and sometimes takes the importance away from important issues.
     Next, and most importantly, after talking for fifteen minutes on important events,  the host goes on to transition to a short joke segment involving the issues he discussed in the episode using the phrase "Now ... This".  It always has the same effect on me that Postman warns the reader about in his book.  As I mentioned earlier, I always walk away from my television set laughing because of the humor displayed on the end segment.  This clearly displays that television, and even the phrase "Now...This" on its own have a large effect on public discourse.
     Finally, I would like to point out that I am not making this blog post just so I can talk about one of my favorite shows.  I am actually doing this to show that the effects of television as a medium for discussion are serious and  provide a real life example of those effects.  Also, I am not saying that nobody should watch the show, because it is actually very interesting, I just don't think that it should be a person's only source for information for the reasons I have stated above.
     In conclusion, the point I want to get across is that television shows can actually have a great impact on the news and information that we are given.  With short segments of discussion, and overload of comedy, and certain transitions in between topics such as "Now...This" it is clear that if we are not careful,  information and news could soon be seen by everyone a decontextualized,  laughing matter that has no value.