Last Week Tonight Last Night
If you didn’t see Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver last night, the Main Story was on stings by local police. It's a very interesting report, at times galling, as well as very funny -- though I have mixed feelings about it. As interesting as it is, and though they do address their point throughout, it isn't until the last 2-3 minutes that they really, fully make their in-depth point. And when they do, all their outrage becomes properly focused. Until then, though, there's a lot of anger about a situation they rightly do keep pointing out is wrong and unfair, but skirt over that crimes (some very tiny, but some huge) were actually being committed.
Happily, they do impactfully put the proper perspective on it all at the very end. I can't do it justice in two sentences what the show finally takes several minutes to explain in full, but to move that ending up front here in a very brief summary, the complete point they eventually make is -- There are very real, extremely serious crimes for which stings absolutely should be that put into operation and investigated, including stings against people with known criminal records or against plans they've learned from informants are being prepared. But police should not "create" crimes to investigate that didn't exist before the police themselves put together a sting, most especially against people with no criminal records.
Knowing that that's their point (in brief...) -- rather than only pointing out how unnecessary, wrong or often just mean many individual stings are in order to make it look like they're doing something to fight crime -- makes the story more focused.
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