Friday, March 13, 2009

Cramer v. Stewart

A lot is being made of the faceoff beatdown that occurred on the Daily Show last night. I don't really know what to make of it because I don't have TV but the best indication of what we (i.e. anyone who's paying attention to this type of stuff) was posted at Daily Intel by Chris Smith. Whole thing here. This excerpt hits the nail:

But what Cramer and CNBC do will always be showbiz, to a large extent. What Stewart did last night was very, very important. Not so much because he voiced — articulately, backed by evidence, and with real feeling — the rage of millions. It was important because Stewart reminded journalists of the standards they're supposed to live up to: to call bullshit, no matter the trouble it may cause them professionally. Reporters are generally compromised already, to some degree, but the conflicts will only get worse as job security in the mainstream media continues to evaporate. It's going to take more courage to fight The Man, but it has never been more important. Some bloggers are stepping into the void already, to be sure. But Stewart showed last night that there's no substitute for having a big, well-funded megaphone. (Emphasis mine)

I think most would agree that this even goes back to the pre-Iraq war days in 2002-early 2003. Journalists knew that the war was going to be waged on false pretenses and they did nothing. Now most of them regret not speaking up.

No different here.

If the "experts" at CNBC actually knew what they should have known, they sure as hell didn't tell anyone (which is incidentally, their job) and if they didn't know, then their comptenency is nil and they should all be fired.

They could have done anything to have gotten the warning out into the mainstream media and it didn't happen. Who knows if it would have done any good anyway (see above). Bottom line is that everyone needs to start questioning anyone or anything on their TV more and exploring more alternative forms of information to find out what's going on out there because, apparently, it's pretty not good. Sphere: Related Content

2 comments:

  1. I hate you for beating me to this. Blast!

    ReplyDelete
  2. haha! You're keeping three blogs to my two so I'd say I have the advantage...

    ReplyDelete