Jon Stewart puts spotlight on CNBC and meltdown

[FreakinDJ]

Source: DAVID BAUDER, AP

NEW YORK – The feud between Jon Stewart and CNBC's Jim Cramer has been good for laughs — and ratings — but has also raised the serious question of whether the experts at TV's No. 1 financial news network should have seen the meltdown coming and warned the public.

Over the past two weeks, Stewart's "Daily Show" on Comedy Central has ridiculed CNBC personalities, including Cramer, the manic host of "Mad Money," by airing video clips of them making exuberantly bullish statements about the market and various investment banks shortly before they collapsed.

Stewart has charged that people at CNBC knew what was going on behind the scenes on Wall Street but didn't tell the public. He has accused CNBC anchors and pundits of abandoning their journalistic duties and acting like cheerleaders for the market.

"In a tremendous boom period, they covered the boom and people wanted to believe in the boom," said Andrew Leckey, a former CNBC anchor and now president of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University. "They didn't uncover the lies that were told to them. Nobody did. But they should be held to a higher responsibility."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090313/ap_on_re_us/meltdown_financial_reporters

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Don't forget to rate the story - This is the kind of news that Americans need to know

[SlingBlade]

1. Edward R. Murrow Award for this Comedian

Sad but so true, He deserves it.

"They didn't uncover the lies that were told to them. Nobody did. But they should be held to a higher responsibility."

That’s because NOBODY tried to uncover the lies, Save Jon Stewart

[tavalon]

4. I've known he was on the side of good journalism, albeit with a comedic twist

for a long time. Many people have. People are only half joking when they say they get the best news coverage from The Daily Show.

[curiousdemo]

30. It takes a comedian like Stewart exposes the

lies and deception by CNBC and "Fox No Business" channel. He showed the American people that corporate "big wigs" controls the media and journalists that cover wall street. He slice Cramer up like a bad habit. I predict Cramer won't have a job for long. I also see these Networks will be recalibrating their coverage of wall street because Stewart, not the lazy ass SEC will keep a close eye on these idiots.

[Double T]

2. cnbc is nothing but a cheer leading network for corporate america and wall street.

The cnbc crew stands behind the corrupt CEO's and their obscene compensation even when the economy and financial system are collapsing. I find this past weeks slathering of BS about the economy suddenly getting better, to be their finest hour of ass kiss shilling for wall street and criminal corporate america. As competition in BIG Pharma will vanish due to M & A, the cnbc assholes cheer the fact that less competition will inevitably lead to higher prices and less research and development, not to mention thousands more people losing their great paying jobs. Yep, while wall street and the corporate criminals are in the kitchen cooking up their next corrupt deals, cnbc is looking over their shoulders licking their lips.

[lsewpershad]

26. Wall street own these clowns.

What else can we expect from them. Time to break up the big news corporations and get rid of most of these clowns.

[ShockediSay]

36. Many moons ago I read that if you follow Cramer, you lose money

per some online financial study results

[scottl]

3. Wall Street has Run Wild Too LOng!

Somebody somewhere (many somebodies) have decided America is on the decline and they mare out to get as much as they possibly can before the crash!

[Ozymanithrax]

5. CNBC is a symptom

The entire news media system is is in bed with corporate or political interests that are often at odds with the needs of citizens. This is a function of making something as important as the news a purely capitalist business. When news morphed into entertainment and required the same egregious profits of any other genre, and ceased bing a public service medium, we lost one of the most important checks and balances in our system.

If a company can get microscopically higher ratings covering a dead white blond teenage girl than they can by covering some old white rich dude robbing his company blind, they will go with the blond; especially if the old white dude pays for advertisement.

I am not opposed to capitalism, as long as we understand it is inherently amoral and must be kept leashed and muzzled like a pit bull.

[underpants]

20. They are the PR/advertising departments not journalists

What were they supposed to do, stay late and miss happy hour?? :shrug:

Plus both media's are enraptured by the idea of the "Masters of the Universe" personality driven rather than factual or policy driven. Makes for quicker work too :beer:

The DC media and Wall Street media are all the same.

[Downwinder]

6. No wonder our business economy is going down the tubes.

"Some at CNBC believed, at least prior to Cramer's appearance on Thursday, that the controversy was ultimately good for the network because of the attention it drew. Some questioned whether the business professionals who make up the bulk of CNBC's daytime audience would be affected by Stewart's criticisms."

Are business decisions being based on the actions of the three stooges on CNBC?

[bulloney]

7. Why should this scrutiny be limited to coverage of the financial markets? The entire news industry

is a joke when a comedian can demonstrate better journalism than the people who were schooled and experienced in that line of work.

It's become so obvious that the MSM news gerbils are in bed with the movers and shakers that they've compromised their integrity and are unable to deliver good unbiased coverage.

[FreakinDJ]

10. This time it envolves Money for Millions of everyday Americans

If we ever expect any sort of Media Regululation to re-emerge in America this just might be the story to do it.

Millions of Americans have sat by watching the 401K retirement plans dwindle down to almost nothing. Millions more have had to cancel any plans of retirement and look foreward to working until the day they drop. A good portion of the American Dream and promises made by the American Government have been broken.

What did they Know
Who sold out their stock in Financials from April 2008 to Sept 2008

[Cha]

27. Great question..It was obvious to me about

8 years ago.

[jwirr]

8. The real point of all of this is that the media has not been doing their

job since President Al Gore was overthrown by the SCOTUS. They helped that happen, they helped us get into Iraq, they helped our constitution be shredded and they have helped to tank our economy. It is not just Cramer that should be on the hot seat, it should be the media period.

[FreakinDJ]

9. Ever since Anthrax was sent to media who criticized Bush

A definite tone of paranoia and secrecy descended upon our country.

Anyone who speaks up was called a traitor.

But this might have legs because now we are talking MONEY and Corrupt journalist who fail to report while themselves and their buddies bail out of failing markets

[truedelphi]

31. yes, that is exactly right. It should not be just Cramer but also the

Executives that stood over him.

I mean, what if Cramer had been truthful?

If he had said, circa 2005 or 2006 or 2007 - "Hey there Mr And Mrs America, the economy is a hous eof cards, and so you should all realize that although you are rakig in fabulous profits right now, it could ALL collapse at any time."

A statement like that would have entitled Mr Cramer to a very short meeting with the channel executives, and he'd have been packing up and moving out moments later.

[RufusTFirefly]

33. Yet it took lots and lots of money and Jon Stewart to finally drive this point home

Wiretaps? Illegal invasions? Torture? Stolen elections? A shredded Constitution?

Ho-hum

The scary thing is that most people don't give a sh#t about that stuff.

But take away their money and hoo-boy, Katy bar the door!

[Karenina]

11. . .

[vssmith]

12. Cramer is not even the worst one on there

Kudlow is the one that really makes me puke.
Once in the while they get Steve Forbes on there too--same as above.
A couple of the girls on CNBC are corporate monkeys as well

[FreakinDJ]

13. So the Corporations said "Screw the Little Guys"

and pumped false confidence in the markets while they got out and left Millions of small 401K investors take the fall

[liberal N proud]

14. Sounds about right

[burning rain]

32. Now, that's pithy!

In a way that would give Billo the Blutocrat heartburn! :)

[dickthegrouch]

15. This story made the front page of the SF Chron today

Several days late, I'll grant you, but the fact is that the notion the mainstream press has been less than diligent, is finally getting through their miserable skulls. Maybe it's because they have no money either, and are desperately trying to say "forgive us, we'll do better" before sinking into the oblivion so many of them deserve after the last 8 years.

Hey MSM: Report the NEWS and there may be something to buy. Report the color of some rich person's new coat and gloss over the lies everyone's been telling us from the President on up and your product is worth exactly what your businesses are worth: NOTHING.

[CAcyclist]

25. I agree - and the SF Chron is part of the problem

I have been begging their business editor to run investigative stories on the financial meltdown for over a year. They were one of the biggest cheerleaders for alt-a and pick - a -pay loans when those first came out. The media bears a huge part of the blame for all of this ,as Stewart said to Cramer, "this song ain't about you" - he's speaking to all of the media that failed to investigate before and are sitting on their hands now.

[Don Davis]

16. Jim Cramer Issues a 'Mea Beaten to a Pulpa'

http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=6551

[NBachers]

17. The SF Chronicle front-paged this today

and followed it up with a quarter-page inside.

Our local broadcast stations also are all over it. Channel 5 featured the "hookers and cocaine" quote.

All local media stories I've seen could've been written by any DU'er. It's that big. No "fair and balanced" tightrope act.

[blondeatlast]

18. Cramer looked like a recalcitrant 3rd grader after being caught taunting

the child stuck in a wheelchair.

Stewart is a rare gift--as much as I wish he reached a wider audience, I hope he remains forever on cable/satellite.

[caseymoz]

19. Journalists need to be held responsible.

This isn't by far the worst thing the press had done and still does. The lead up to the Iraqi war, but all the other fawning over power here recently is almost as bad.

[FreakinDJ]

22. This one will have Americans clamoring for Re-Regulation

Because it has effected John Q. Public very hard in the pocket book

That is what I said yesterday
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5247585&mesg_id=5247585

[Downwinder]

21. Stewart raised the bar for Letterman and Leno.

[dd20045]

23. jon stewart

stewart is a hero to me...after watching the show i literally backed away smiling....thats what we need in times like these...someone to fight for us!

[mwb970]

24. This reminds me of the way the media behaved in the runup to bush's Iraq War.

Haven't we heard this story before? Our major media acted as cheerleaders and stenographers for the bush administration war mongers, relaying their fevered fantasies and fantastic fibs to the public as if they were the truth. Now we have the business media revealed as cheerleaders and stenographers for corporate interests (the very interests that own all of our media).

I think the public's eyes have finally been opened to the rape of America conducted by big business and big "banksters" ever since the damnable St. Ronald was president. The pendulum has swung mighty far to the right. The forces pushing back have become strong.

[Cha]

28. Precisely and our coporatemedia needs

to be held accountable.

[Skink]

29. The thing about 401ks is you should be actively managing them.

and following sound financial advice that is available. Like now is a buying oppirtunity. Now pensions that were run with no fiduciary responsibility that is a different story.

[FreakinDJ]

34. You need sound advice - and if Big Media shills for Wall St

when they know good and well the Securitized Mortgage Dirivitives are about to implode - then were all fucked

[daleo]

35. John Stewart is like the fool in King Lear's court

When the king is insane, the truth can only be told in the guise of humor.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

37. Remember:

Will Rodgers was considered a comedian as well.