Tim Dillon

“I’ve been researching comedy,” CNN’s Elle Reeve announces grimly at the start of her hour-long interview with comedian Tim Dillon, released this week more than a month after it was recorded. What follows is an extended whine about the manner in which legacy broadcast media in America has ceded its status as the gatekeeper of the American cultural narrative to podcasters. Is it the most satisfying piece of television I've ever watched? Possibly, yes. The irony – and it’s almost too perfect to articulate – is that had Dillon not demanded, while appearing recently on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, that CNN release the interview in full rather than packaged into a tightly edited segment to fit a specific narrative, it probably would never have seen the light of day.