I have spent a little time surfing through the google news wire trying to get a feel of the reaction to last night's TDS with Cramer. It seems there is a consensus that Stewart kicked his ass. But there is also an undercurrent of sentiment that Stewart was at some level unfair and distorting. A good example of this is from Howie Kurtz at the WaPost, who otherwise was complimentary of the show:
*************** http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html?nav=rss_email/components "You knew what the banks were doing and were touting it for months and months," Stewart said. "It was disingenuous at best and criminal at worst." Actually, Cramer didn't know. Neither did most financial journalists. They should have been more aggressive in challenging the highly leveraged banks, the credit default swaps, the Washington regulatory cops who slept on the beat. But they were as stunned as anyone when Bear and Lehman went under and AIG and Citi had to be rescued." ************** I think this profoundly misses the point that Stewart is making. He is not criticizing CNBC for not predicting the collapse of the stock market, or the collapse of these huge financial service companies. He is criticizing them for on the one hand knowing that the market is a rich boy's casino that is if not rigged than manipulated and massaged for the short term profit of an elite few who produce little or nothing of lasting or substantial value, and on the other hand reporting on TV that the market is a stable and safe investment for middle class savings that follows sacred economic laws based on sound economic fundamentals. CNBC *DID* know that the banks were playing games, and still touted it as sound investment, and Jon Stewart called them on their shit. Cramer's first response was to bitch about it, but when he saw the beating he was taking in the media he seems to have decided to cut his losses, go on the show and take his spanking, and hope it goes away. Interestingly, tvnewser is reporting (http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/nbc/msnbc_producers_asked_not_to_highlight_cramerstewart_111307.asp?c=rss) that MSNBC producers today were asked not to air any reference to the Stewart-Cramer interview last night, and apparently it was not mentioned during the day (I have not seen what Keith and Rachel have done/will do). Apparently it was not mentioned on Morning Joe, or the Today Show, even though both of those NBC family programs were happy to pump it up earlier when it looked like the bru ha ha was more of a "no such thing as bad publicity" phenomenon, rather than the "Requiem for Crossfire" kind of thing it threatened to become. Whenever you are tempted to take Jon Stewart for granted a little bit, or forget just how rare his intelligence and courage is, he does something like this. He made fun of the feud and his own role in it all week, and even the intro last night was funny and over the top, but when the bell rang he was relentless in calling the bull shit. It was good TV (which is not supposed to be comfortable). I don't really care if Cramer keeps his job or not, but I do wish that a) CNBC would take their journalistic function more seriously on most of their programs (probably too much to hope for) and b) The Today show stops booking Cramer in their first 20 minutes as if he were some kind of legitimate financial reporter. P.S. - I saw the video that Stewart used to nail Cramer's hypocritical and dishonest ass earlier in the week, pegged to some article on my google home page. Is it really possible Cramer didn't know that was coming, and if he did know it was coming, why wasn't he better prepared? I was prepared to be my entire 401k that Cramer was going to accuse Stewart of taking that video out of context in some way. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
