Can stand-up comedy be a platform for investigative journalism? It may seem like an odd question, but that’s exactly what The Center for Investigative Reporting and WFMU, an independent radio station in New Jersey, set out to explore with Toxic Comedy, a series of stand-up comedy shows based on reporting about environmental contamination.
Our hunch was that, without reading a word, audiences would walk away knowing a lot more about toxic contamination in New Jersey. And, in the process, they would have burned a significant number of calories through belly-busting laughter.
In the spring of 2016, after a year of the Dirty Little Secrets reporting collaboration, CIR partnered with WFMU to make the stand-up comedy dream a reality, billed as the Toxic Comedy World Tour (even the name was a joke – the tour began and ended in Jersey City, New Jersey).
To better understand the effect of the comedy show on the audience, I partnered with Caty Borum Chattoo, who directs the Center for Media & Social Impact housed at American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C. She has been researching comedy’s ability to influence audiences’ attitudes and perspectives about serious social issues.
We conducted audience surveys and interviews with the comedians and reporters. A full report will be published in 2017, but we thought a good way to end 2016 would be to share some positive news about the potential of investigative comedy.
A few quick takeaways:
1. Audience members thought the Toxic Comedy show was funny – and enlightening.
A whopping 100 percent of those who responded found the show to be both entertaining and informative. Why does this matter? According to Chattoo’s upcoming report, “The Laughter Effect: The [Serious] Role of Comedy in Social Change,” not everyone will seek out serious information about potentially overwhelming social issues, so packaging it up into comedy could be a great idea.
2. People learned something new.
All audience members surveyed said they left the show knowing more about toxic contamination than when they arrived.
3. The audience members knew that we wanted them to learn about toxic contamination in New Jersey, and they believed the comedy was based on facts.
4. The audience found the comics to be credible.
Four of the five comics were rated as “very credible” by the audience. For people to believe information, it has to come from a credible source, so it is promising that the comics were credible. To extrapolate: An audience can see an entertainment source – like a comedian – as a bona fide source of information and a comedy show as a place to learn something new.
5. Comedy is likely to be shared or discussed.
This has serious implications (and seriously exciting) implications for journalists and others trying to engage audiences in complex issues. We know that word of mouth is an important conduit for the spread of information – whether it’s fact-based or not. That audience members reported they were likely to talk to friends and family about this show means the information will spread far beyond the 60 or so people who attended, increasing the impact of this show and the investigative reporting underlying it.
Based on our experience collaborating with WFMU and reporters in New York and New Jersey and the feedback from the audience of the Toxic Comedy World Tour, we see ample opportunity for further collaboration between comics and reporters. Keep an eye out for a report we’ll release in early 2017 with more details about the process and impact of the comedy show.
Lindsay Green-Barber can be reached at lgreenbarber@revealnews.org.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Republish Our Content
Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work with as many people as possible. You are free to embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines:
-
Do not change the story. Do not edit our material, except only to reflect changes in time and location. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
-
Please credit us early in the coverage. Our reporter(s) must be bylined. We prefer the following format: By Will Evans, Reveal.
-
If republishing our stories, please also include this language at the end of the story: “This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.”
-
Include all links from the story, and please link to us at https://www.revealnews.org.
PHOTOS
-
You can republish Reveal photos only if you run them in or alongside the stories with which they originally appeared and do not change them.
-
If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting Digital Engagement Producer Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org. Reveal often uses photos we purchase from Getty and The Associated Press; those are not available for republication.
DATA
-
If you want to republish Reveal graphics or data, please contact Data Editor Soo Oh, soh@revealnews.org.
IN GENERAL
-
We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If you plan to republish our content, you must notify us republish@revealnews.org or email Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately.
-
Please note, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis.
If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org.