Infotainment isn’t news

Whatever you do, don’t get your news from comedians

I was recently watching WTF 101, which is CollegeHumor’s parody of The Magic School Bus. In every episode, Professor Foxtrot takes her students through space and time to see the horrors of history and the natural world. This episode was about torture, and in one scene, the professor was describing a peculiar torture method used by the Persians called Scaphism or “the boats.” This method involves tying a person in between two boats and covering them in milk and honey (hell yes). The victim is then left out in the open until vermin eats them alive (hell no).

The problem with this alleged torture method is that it’s wildly impractical. A person is far more likely to die first of dehydration than to be eaten by flies. It almost sounds like someone just made it up, which makes sense once you consider that the primary historical account we have for Scaphism comes from the Greek writer Plutarch, who was no friend of the Persians. It would be like reading Intro to Mexican history as written by Donald Trump. Scaphism probably came from Plutarch’s xenophobic imagination, but the WTF 101 writer’s desire for novelty trumped fact-checking something that was easily Googleable.

I am a comedian (at least, according to my husband).

I also love Infotainment, otherwise known as the practice of breaking down academic subject matter in a funny way. I will be the first to tell you, however, that you shouldn’t be using comedians as your primary source of news.

Infotainment is increasingly common in this new era of television. From Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act, to John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, to Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal, there are a lot of comedians whose entire career involves breaking down information to the American public. Infotainment’s focus on novelty, however, means that most comedians prioritize scandalous bits of information with widespread appeal, regardless of whether or not that information is important, or even true.

A good example is the TruTv show Adam Ruins Everything, which is a show where the host Adam Conover “ruins” popular subject matters by revealing the existential horrors of existing power structures (sort of like Tumblr). In the episode Adam Ruins Animals, the host, Adam, tackles trophy hunting…