Since its inception in April of 2014, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has attracted remarkably large numbers of viewers—among them many Groton students—with its comedic commentaries on a variety of issues in America, ranging from the “NSA’s detailed programs” to “putting a cowboy hat on a cat.”

Oliver’s sarcastic and ironic take on serious topics—coupled with the widespread accessibility of the show through online mediums—resulted in an average of over four million viewers per week in its inaugural season. Along with its impressive following, the show’s resemblance to journalism has caused many to wonder whether Mr. Oliver’s show is a real, unbiased news show or merely liberal propaganda. The correct answer, as Mr. Oliver would readily agree, is “neither.”

In an NPR interview this past February, Oliver was asked whether he thought he was doing investigative journalism in his show. Oliver responded confidently, “No. It is not. No, we are a comedy show so everything we do is in pursuit of comedy… It’s confusing to me somehow the fact that this is often the line of questioning… It almost makes me feel like: Am I a terrible comedian? … It’s like looking at a sculptor and saying: ‘Well it’s not art, so are you trying to build a wall? What exactly are you working on here?’”

As Oliver himself readily admits, Last Week Tonight is by no means intended to be an investigative news report. It is designed to entertain viewers by pointing out the irony and comical dysfunctions in certain areas of contemporary society. Even so, the claim that the show presents itself as a credible news source is not entirely unfounded.

In the same NPR interview, Oliver impresses upon the interviewer the thoroughness and accuracy with which the show researches its stories. In fact, Oliver would probably argue that his show is more factually sound than some of the established news networks that he satirizes for inaccuracies and falsified evidence. Similar to Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report and Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, Oliver’s show is presented as though it were a real cable news channel with Oliver posing as the anchor. Additionally, Oliver has interviewed a number of influential figures from Stephen Hawking to Edward Snowden, who has rarely consented to live interviews with traditional news outlets.

The primary concern of many critics of Oliver’s show is not a lack of factual evidence in his stories, but rather that the show presents itself as an unbiased news source when it in fact has a defined and left-leaning political agenda. This fear is unfounded, and it is clear that the primary intention of Oliver’s show is not to corrupt the minds of Americans with liberal propaganda, but to entertain the public.

At the same time, however, the show does tend to favor progressives on most issues, and, regardless of one’s political affiliation, it is important to recognize the bias of the show. The large following that the show has attracted, combined with the somewhat partial views that it expresses have led some to worry that it is replacing traditional “impartial” journalism with its more entertaining comedic form of news.

The reality of the left-leaning comedy news shows modeled after Jon Stewart’s Daily Show is that while they are somewhat biased in their views, they are almost as factually correct, if not more so than traditional media outlets. They project their ideologies with the backing of facts and do not intentionally market themselves as unbiased news sources.

The audience demographics of the shows demonstrate that viewers do understand the lack of impartiality in these shows. Polls conducted by the Washington Post, for instance, revealed that only seventeen percent of Colbert Report viewers were Republicans compared to the forty-seven percent who were Democrats.

The shows are certainly biased, but this is because they are intended to entertain individuals with particular ideologies. The accusation that Oliver’s show is intended to brainwash the American public to rally behind a liberal agenda is preposterous given that so many of its viewers already support this agenda.

The object of the show is not to spread the word of liberal philosophy through comedy, but rather to entertain a certain breed of people with a predisposed political ideology by elucidating the comical irony and irrationality of many issues facing Americans.

As for the accuracy and reliability of Oliver’s show as a news source, the show is relatively innocent simply due to its lack of original information. Although Oliver presents the issues in his twenty minute segments as though they have been overlooked by the mainstream media, a closer look reveals that this claim is far from the truth. His arguments are largely supplemented by video clips and articles taken directly from traditional news sources done by real investigative reporters. Oliver does very little original research, instead stringing together reputable news sources in a way that supports his argument and elicits roars of laughter from his viewers around the globe. John Oliver’s show is clever and hilarious, and as long as its viewers understand that it is a comedy routine and not CNN, it is as harmless as it is entertaining.