>>2439(I'm not OP)
I don't know how it is today, but late night TV was a pretty important environment for writers, similar to SNL. You read the news of the day and you've got a team to assemble relevant jokes in a matter of hours. You also write skits to perform later on in the week or month, but you also need topical stuff to write about that
just happened. If you can involve the guests on the show that day, it's even better. It also somewhat functioned as a source of news, even if it was in joke format. "Did you hear? Blahblah happened at blahblah. [joke here]". I think the job became a bit easier once they started looking to the internet for "inspiration".
I really respected those writers back then, it's a rather thankless position because the "content" is gone the next week whereas people still watch fictional TV shows 50 years after release. I got angry at the various hosts when they'd abruptly switch networks or formats and left their writers behind, since they were a very important part of what made them popular in the first place.
This might be a kissu demographic thing, since I'm really not familiar with any current shows that are popular for their writing. The biggest stuff seems to be adaptations from books and the like, or the 50 CSI shows that my mom watches that don't seem particularly creative.