Maureen Dowd’s NYT column about Brian Williams — being caught promoting himself with news stories that weren’t exactly true — pointed out something really interesting.

While “hard news” show anchors are deteriorating and covering superficial, stupid news stories and repeating Youtube videos on air, actual comedians like John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher are covering real news. And the comedians are doing it really, really well.

John Oliver just told a news outlet that he’s hiring more researchers with backgrounds in investigative journalism. I don’t have cable but have been able to catch most of the last shows he’s done, and I’m amazed at how intelligently analytical he is. I think he’s passed Jon Stewart for this.

Weird, that we have to get the real news like this.