John Oliver is a British/American (naturalized) comedian with a heavy focus on political commentary. In 2006 he was invited by Jon Stewart to join the writers of The Daily Show (TDS) after Stewart was introduced to Oliver’s work by Ricky Gervaise. Oliver rose to prominence in the United Kingdom with his stand up comedy, political satire radio and podcast work.
HBO offered Oliver his own show, Last Week Tonight (LWT), in 2014 after Oliver guest-hosted TDS during the summer of 2013 while Stewart was directing his first film. An anchor was born.
After its 7th season, Oliver and his writers have been critically acclaimed every year since 2015, with 59 awards (out of 61 nominations) as listed on this IMDb site.
Oliver has a special fondness for pouncing on the media, likely carried over from his days at TDS, as can be seen in this short clip, also from “Coal.” He has special distain when there’s an opportunity to call out Fox news.
Fox News is not the only mainstream news media target – Oliver’s early days on TDS indicate his loathing of CNN also: