John Oliver Is Horrified That NPR’s Terry Gross Gets Her News from His Show
John Oliver appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air Thursday afternoon and while he was there he discovered something very disturbing about host Terry Gross: She gets (at least some of) her news from his HBO show, Last Week Tonight. Oliver lamented what it means for America when a well-respected journalist like Gross is learning things about the world from his late night comedy show.
At the top of her 40-minute interview with Oliver, Gross summed up his show as taking topics that are “too boring or too complicated” and turning them into both interesting and funny satire.
Over the course of his first seven shows on HBO, Oliver has covered complex issues like the death penalty, General Motors’ recall and net neutrality, which he described as “the most important thing that is honestly too boring to care about, and yet it is a pivotal moment in a very, very key issue.”
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“The weird thing is that I learn things from watching your show,” Gross said, noting that she had not been paying attention to the Indian elections until she saw his segment about them. “It’s embarrassing for me to admit that,” she said.
“I can take that from people in the street,” an audibly distressed Oliver said. “But if Terry Gross is saying that, we’re in such trouble as a nation. You’re the canary in the coal mine. If Terry Gross doesn’t know about the Indian election, we’re in serious trouble.”
“Well, thanks for embarrassing me more than I was already embarrassed,” Gross replied.
Listen to audio below, via NPR:
Hear the entire interview at npr.org.
[Photos via HBO/NPR]
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