John Oliver, host of HBO's Last Week Tonight ripped the deterioration of the separation of advertising and journalistic content by citing the New York Times and The Atlantic in his most recent episode, which aired Sunday. The main target of Oliver's segment was Native Advertising, or the placement of sponsored content made to look like regular reporting amidst other traditional content.

After referencing a recent "article" from the New York Times about U.S. energy needs that was sponsored by Chevron, Oliver played a clip of Meredith Levien, the Times' V.P of advertising, who claimed that the blurring of the line between objective and persuasive content wasn't harming the paper's integrity:

Let me start by vigorously refuting the notion that native advertising has to erode consumer trust or compromise the wall that exists between editorial and advertising. Good native advertising is just not meant to be trickery. It’s meant to be publishers sharing storytelling tools with marketers.

Oliver then cut it, noting "Exactly, it’s not trickery. It’s sharing storytelling tools. And that’s not bull—-. It’s repurposed bovine waste.”