Well well well.
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post agrees with my critique of Jon Stewart. And implicitly demonstrates why attempts to defend his attacks on CNBC and Jim Cramer do not hold up to scrutiny.
In a nutshell Stewart accused Cramer and CNBC of putting “entertainment above journalism”. They failed to do their jobs – which he assumed? asserted? insisted? is investigative journalism (focusing on the economy and finance).
I point out some problems with this line of attack.
- That is not the purpose of “Mad Money” which is neither entertainment nor journalism – it is a show about finance and investment which attempts to be entertain-ing.
- If they “failed” – then who succeeded? Anyone?
- Even if they had wanted to “investigate corporate deceit” – how pray tell would they have obtained the necessary evidence?
Richard Cohen – to my knowledge neither particularly conservative nor liberal – summarizes:
But the role that Cramer and other financial journalists played was incidental. There was not much they could do, anyway. They do not have subpoena power. They cannot barge into AIG and demand to see the books, and even if they could, they would not have known what they were looking at. The financial instruments that Wall Street firms were both peddling and buying are the functional equivalent of particle physics. To this day, no one knows their true worth. …
Stewart, too, rides the zeitgeist. The hunt is on for culprits and scapegoats, and Stewart has served up a cliche: the media. As with the war in Iraq, for which credulous media should take some responsibility, the sins are blown out of proportion. It would be one thing if Wall Street titans by the score were selling their company stock and the media were failing to report it, but when someone puts his money where his mouth is, you have to pay attention. The big shots believed.
Stewart plays a valuable role. He mocks authority, which is good, and he mocks those, such as the media, who take the word of authority as if, well, it’s authoritative. But given the outsize reception to his cheap shot at business media, he ought to turn his wit inward: Mocker, mock thyself.
What has fascinated me is why have people been so impassioned to defend and/or praise Stewart in this instance?
I would like to think no intelligent person fails to recognize there was one and only one reason Stewart – who heretofore had never given a flip about CNBC – turned his guns on them in general and Cramer in particular.
