From a redlit thread:

What's sad is one of the closest displays to actual journalism comes from show that openly admits it "sells snake oil."

The problem is that Jim Cramer and others don't think CEOs, big business, etcetera should be put under pressure. Jim Cramer said it himself- he tells the public what they want to hear, not what they need too. Too much of journalism has fallen under this spell.

Increase public broadcasting. News isn't meant to be sold at a profit; what's profitable isn't news.

CtrlAltDelete: But to be fair, financial reporting is as difficult. It's f*cking hard. It's as difficult as political reporting in many ways. Reporters are not often not privy to anything more than an filtered press-release, and when they do stumble across something real, there is the possibility that an error could plummet a stock value into oblivion or face very serious legal consequences. So they have to tread very carefully. Not to mention the very real network of conglomerates from which the only financial news networks and publications with enough resources to FIND such raw information receive their entire advertising revenue. It's tricky, no?

It's easy to say we need something better. We do need something better! (That was easy to say.)

Okay...

How?

PBS/NPR should be the biggest news network in America. The conglomerate restriction upon media companies should be exactly that- if you get bigger than PBS/NPR you will be broken up. Further, if you are half the size or greater than them, you must help fund them and promise to display their content.

We need a network not in it for the profit. You can do financial news- and if you do come across something dangerous- you can report it to authorities. (Which, of course, assumes we elect competent presidents who install competent SEC teams- but journalists have alerted the NY attorney general to several fraud claims).

Lastly, and this falls upon the American public, we need to eliminate the respect we give to these big corporations, banks, and wealth business elites. They shouldn't be held in high regard until they prove themselves after running a company for years and then retiring. But this is of course hard to get across. But it's a message that needs to start with people in the media sounding the alarm- questioning and criticizing policy and company decisions. Promoting this will promote distrust in the public of these fools. The reality is they aren't the geniuses we make them out to be.

Lastly, CNBC, at least, needs to do exactly what Jon Stewart said: your obligation is not towards the day traders (though they do make up a large viewership of CNBC I understand), but to the American people. And the American people come first. You can have day to day, retarded stock picking shows like Cramers. But your first and foremost priority needs to be the security and long term stability of this country. As of now, they are a gossip column for people who have to pay money to get laid.

Oh, and:

1. Sorry for the double 'lastly' in my last post,

2. But before a bunch of foolish farkers come in here and rail on me for being a big crazy liberal and wanting an expansion of government- conservatism is not about "big government" versus "small government." That argument makes no sense. The true nature of conservatism is about responsible government. Responsible to who? Business, Americans, Future Americans, the Environment, Safety, etcetera.

You can't privatize everything and expect things to work out simply because it's not run by the government. That is a fool's errand in being an antagonist. The reality is media is out of control. It takes a significant amount of effort upon the user to get to the heart of the story, and too many viewers are played like passive junkies. And what's worse- we seem to have a generation of reporters and viewers who only understand things to be this way, and don't realize that both the government and private citizens have an everyday duty to try and fix things. Sometimes that duty is small, sometimes it is large.

So, the idea behind a public broadcasting corporation is two fold: we can elect the directors in a national election so as to provide a check/balance upon the news gathering in this country. And I know this may seem contrary to your values, but in this instance it would be a very good compliment to private news organizations, as it is currently. No, it won't be perfect. But no system ever will. The simple reality is that too much news doesn't fit into the profit model, and is therefore excluded. And, if you couple it with the media conglomerate restriction, you can drastically reduce the amount of inbred retardation that flows through cable, internet, and other news. NPR has 18 bureaus worldwide, and 18 in the country. They also have member stations. They provide some of the best news. Fox, CNN, and MSNBC just gossip off of one another.

sloppy shoes: We need a network not in it for the profit. You can do financial news- and if you do come across something dangerous- you can report it to authorities. (Which, of course, assumes we elect competent presidents who install competent SEC teams- but journalists have alerted the NY attorney general to several fraud claims).

How has that worked for BBC? Did they out Stanford or any other white-collar criminal? It's not about being beholden to corporate interests that makes it near impossible; it's that financial statements can hide a lot of things. Getting to the bottom of things takes time and money.

One accountant saw through Madoff's bullshiat. One. The SEC and its entire army of experts didn't. If Jon should be pissed at anyone, it should be the SEC. They have an obligation to the American people; CNBC doesn't. The reason he's got beef with CNBC is because of Rick Santelli.

CtrlAltDelete:
That's interesting. And I do like NPR because it no corporate overlords (in some senses; they are funded also by endowments such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for instance) so perhaps that would solve some of the problems, but NPR was just as oblivious to the financial crisis as it the mistakes were being made as everyone else, no? Also, they've had layoffs as well- the resources necessary to do full investigative reporting on such a vast network of companies and investment systems just isn't there as it is- not to mention the logistic impossibility of regulating media conglomerates in such a way.

It can't happen.

Again, how can CNBC or Bloomberg or The Wall Street Journal or FT or anyone do exactly what Jon suggests? How? It's difficult stuff! I'd like to see it, but journalism isn't exactly doing very well right now. Hell, I got laid off in January, I know of at least four other TFers in media that lost their jobs, it's just hard to picture it happening.

NPR/PBS should be given greater public funding.

As to why they missed the financial crisis- I don't really think they covered much of the financial sector before this. The programs I'm listening to on NPR seem to indicate that this is all new to the reporters.

But yes, it's difficult. But life is difficult. Most people's jobs are difficult. Reporting is a knack for earning the public's trust, earning source's trust, intuition, and an ability to question things. The reality is too many people- in the public and in the media- bought into the high finance ideas of the banks, CEOs, and large companies.

Why do we not question every day the salaries of CEOs making millions of dollars running crappy companies? Why are they allowed to earn that much?

Why wasn't the SEC rule investigated? Why weren't we warned? The change would have been public knowledge?

If you take pride in your job, have an interest in these fields, and are able to follow developments and put them together, many of these things would have been perceived. The problem is it takes a great deal of effort and investment, for no guaranteed outcome: hence public funding.

The reality is economists were warning about the housing bubble. Investors warned the SEC about Madoff. We need healthy skepticism in the media- not passive fellatio.

Jon Stewart's primary point was this: end the tomfoolery. We, nor you, can guarantee the media will catch every story, prevent every crisis, or understand every development. But we are put at a loss if they turn the news into a show, with no effort towards exposing anything. Yes, finance is complicated. But NPR has done a great job explaining the situations to people.

The reality is Cramer and CNBC benefited from irrational exuberance about the markets because as Jon pointed out- the insiders benefited from us capitalizing their adventures. Cramer's anecdote about Apple and essentially creating market panics is apt- he's not in this to inform us; he's in it to play us. An honest and public servant Cramer could have drastically increased the knowledge and awareness pre-crisis to the inner-workings of banks and high finance.

CtrlAltDelete:
That idea kind of terrifies me, actually. We must never politicize journalism more than it already (unfortunately) is.

Don't make it a presidential appointment. Make it a separate election: then the politics will be about the quality and efficacy of the news.

/Politics is in everything and always will be because we are human. You can't escape this. There is politics in the big media corporations, except we hardly get to hear about it.


Last One Left:
How has that worked for BBC? Did they out Stanford or any other white-collar criminal? It's not about being beholden to corporate interests that makes it near impossible; it's that financial statements can hide a lot of things. Getting to the bottom of things takes time and money.

One accountant saw through Madoff's bullshiat. One. The SEC and its entire army of experts didn't. If Jon should be pissed at anyone, it should be the SEC. They have an obligation to the American people; CNBC doesn't. The reason he's got beef with CNBC is because of Rick Santelli.

Yes, the SEC is at fault too. But the reality is Madoff is small peas compared to other things.

Where was CNBC's criticism or reporting of market derivatives? Bank stability? Bank activity? Jon's point is that these people are paid every day to sit and understand the financial system and then report it to us- and yet they made a joke out of it. A joke.

Jon is not pissed at Rick Santelli. Jon is pissed at CNBC and every other joke news organization who doesn't take their job seriously, who has nightly news reports about twitter, who gossips rather than investigates. I understand it's been a long time since we've had serious mainstream investigation, but it exists. The problem is it has very little entertainment value.

/Every news organization has an obligation to the American public.

Gotta give John Stewart his props, I don't like his show (Colbert is a lot funnier IMO), but when he really wants to he can do a great interview. I like this John Stewart, if he was like this more often I'd watch his show.

BTW: I love this quote from the 3rd video...

"I understand you want to make financing entertaining, but it's not a farking game.

Especially when you have a show that's suppose to inform people on which choices they ought to make and where they should be looking to put their money.

Youcouldntfindme: Gotta give Jon Stewart his props, I don't like his show (Colbert is a lot funnier IMO), but when he really wants to he can do a great interview. I like this Jon Stewart, if he was like this more often I'd watch his show.

But why would Jon do this on a regular basis? That has been his whole point about news from the Crossfire interview to this: he isn't a news broadcaster, he's a comedian. Jim Cramer is at one of the largest financial news networks. He holds the cards. He holds the power. He needs to find the news.

So when Cramer essentially says he thinks it's rude to ask tough questions to CEOs and other important figures, it's insulting to anyone who cares about news. You are there to ask tough questions. They have to answer to you. You build up a respect with the people- and CEOs will answer your questions because they have to, or you'll criticize them. (Which is probably why Cramer came on Stewart).

CNBC has a great ability to force issues, just like any large well liked network. But they don't. They, just like all the other media conglomerates, treat news like gossip.

No_47: Hooray for internationally viewable cotnent

Works for me.

sloppy shoes: Where was CNBC's criticism or reporting of market derivatives? Bank stability? Bank activity? Jon's point is that these people are paid every day to sit and understand the financial system and then report it to us- and yet they made a joke out of it. A joke.

What criticism? There's nothing wrong with derivatives, per se. Banks were stable until housing crashed, because that cut into their capital and earnings, both directly and indirectly via MBSes.

He claims that they shouldn't be reporting things after the fact, but that's what news organizations do. No one reads the NY Times to find out what happens tomorrow.

log_jammin: yet CNBC tries tries to pretend they do have the countries interests at heart.

I haven't seen that, but then I get the Asian-focused shows for most of the day.

Last One Left:
What criticism? There's nothing wrong with derivatives, per se. Banks were stable until housing crashed, because that cut into their capital and earnings, both directly and indirectly via MBSes.

He claims that they shouldn't be reporting things after the fact, but that's what news organizations do. No one reads the NY Times to find out what happens tomorrow.

No. That was not Stewart's criticism. Obviously you have to report things after the fact. But you can also catch onto things during a span of ten years. Further, if you were the network cheering on irrational exuberance all throughout the bubble, then don't allow your reporters to get John Galt preachy on air and make the most ironic rant ever (network wise, not necessarily that guy specifically).

Further, there is plenty wrong with derivatives and credit default swaps. But, that doesn't mean they can't exist.

Why wasn't CNBC investigating into how safe these things were? How much risk they posed? How banks were using them? Why there weren't any restrictions on them? That's what journalism is genius. Sometimes you investigate into issues before they happen. Sometimes you expose things. Sometimes you don't. But you do not simply cheer things on from the sidelines. That's what they did.

log_jammin: you must not have watched the full interview yet.

I saw it. I thought you meant CNBC, the network, had that message.

sloppy shoes: Further, if you were the network cheering on irrational exuberance all throughout the bubble

Who wasn't? How many people are counter-cyclical? You think if CNBC kept going on and on that there was a bubble while things were on the up, people wouldn't have ridiculed them for being out of their minds?

Further, there is plenty wrong with derivatives and credit default swaps. But, that doesn't mean they can't exist.

Go on.

Why wasn't CNBC investigating into how safe these things were? How much risk they posed? How banks were using them? Why there weren't any restrictions on them? That's what journalism is genius. Sometimes you investigate into issues before they happen. Sometimes you expose things. Sometimes you don't. But you do not simply cheer things on from the sidelines. That's what they did.

Like insurance, they blew up when everything went to shiat at the same time. What were they supposed to investigate? That banks used CDSes to insure their leveraged deals? It was common knowledge on Wall Street; that's why they were invented. How many people would understand the nuances of that?
Roubini called this a while ago, but how many other economists did? Who should CNBC listen to? A small faction, or the general consensus?

Last One Left:
Who wasn't? How many people are counter-cyclical? You think if CNBC kept going on and on that there was a bubble while things were on the up, people wouldn't have ridiculed them for being out of their minds?

Like insurance, they blew up when everything went to shiat at the same time. What were they supposed to investigate? That banks used CDSes to insure their leveraged deals? It was common knowledge on Wall Street; that's why they were invented. How many people would understand the nuances of that?
Roubini called this a while ago, but how many other economists did? Who should CNBC listen to? A small faction, or the general consensus?


Your ideas about journalism are what is dangerous and counterproductive. They exist to point out the problems. To point out the possibility of things blowing up. To listen to both the big and little guys. Not cheer on the team. If you don't realize that CNBC and other major news organizations could have done more, and were essentially part of the problem, then you are clueless.


CtrlAltDelete: So how does one fix such a system? It's cost effective for the network and it leaves people feeling as though they were informed.

What staff of investigative, analytical journalists with the knowledge and resources necessary to uncover such things is available and how much should they be paid? How many journalists would it take? Would it not be more profitable for them to work elsewhere with such skills?

1. Of course that's what they will say. But CNBC is a large network. Just because they want to do the cheapest, most short term profitable model doesn't mean we can't demand something different.

2. Impose a public broadcasting system. Demand results from the public broadcasting system. Will it solve everything? No. But it's a start.

CtrlAltDelete:

How?

By instituting a system that cares about journalism, the news, and not profit.

PSA Everyone:

All the unrelenting questions and significant and healthy skepticism CtrlAltDelete is giving me about how this proposed public broadcasting system will work is what CNBC, Bloomberg, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and others should have been doing towards these various financial products, economic bubbles, and other activities. That is the beginning of journalism.

Cheering them on and encouraging them to believe their jobs are too difficult to do actual reporting is not what we should be doing, however. Yes, real journalism takes a lot of effort, and not everyone will be good at it. But that doesn't mean we sacrifice it to the wolves in favor of whargarble and gossip.

MorrisBird:
My sister runs a PBS station. The trouble with this idea is that during the Bush administration, a new "head" was appointed to make the PBS stations more "fair and balanced." I'm not sure we can trust the government to give us the news we need.

Don't make it a Presidential appointee. Make it a separate election. Ban all political contributions. Limit the salary. There are already enough grassroots news organizations and demands that the politics should be closely surrounded by the news. Plus, if we break up the major conglomerates, they will have significantly less authority to lobby on behalf of a choice candidate. We, as a public, simply have to care again.

CtrlAltDelete:
NPR already does care about journalism. But they don't have the resources to do the kind of reporting you're talking about.


And that is why I want to make NPR/PBS the largest news organization in the country with significantly increased public contributions via donations and taxes, and mandatory fees to be paid by major news organizations, along with mandatory space given to air their work.

CtrlAltDelete: But, and not to be repetitive, as was mention earlier in the thread- that didn't work for the BBC in predicting this crisis, and that is the closest system to what you're describing.

It will never predict everything. But the BBC is a vast improvement over what we have. Further, I think a BBC style system would have paid a great deal more deference to the warnings out there, and would have potentially increase awareness xor skepticism. And that is a major issue, and one that Jon Stewart was addressing: people look to news networks for information, analysis, and awareness. If an entire network cheers on a housing bubble, people naturally assume they have intellectual authority to do so. That is why people feel robbed by the news agencies. That is why people felt robbed by news agencies after the Iraq War fiasco- we aren't asking them to catch everything, but when they blatantly aren't doing their jobs, it's time for a change.

sloppy shoes: Your ideas about journalism are what is dangerous and counterproductive. They exist to point out the problems. To point out the possibility of things blowing up.

It isn't enough to point out where things can go wrong as there are a billion places it could happen; it's how. Take Krugman for example. He has been predicting recessions almost every year during the Bush Administration. He eventually got it right, but he got the details wrong. Was that useful? No.

To listen to both the big and little guys. Not cheer on the team.

So you think CNN et al should give air-time to nutjobs who think 9/11 was a conspiracy? They're the little guys. What if they're right?

If you don't realize that CNBC and other major news organizations could have done more, and were essentially part of the problem, then you are clueless.

Everyone could have done more. Hindsight is 20/20. That's the point. It's calling out what happens next that's hard. Here's a chance for everyone to make a name for themselves: where's the next bubble?

MorrisBird: I have a feeling that a station that has "17 hours" to sell its product could have drilled those nuances into our tiny, little brains. They didn't. They aired the lies and they told us to buy! buy! buy!

Yeah, because nuances make for great television. I'm sure a public which fails to name the 3 branches of the US government would love to learn about the intricacies of Black-Scholes. Also, they tend to (at least over here) focus those 17 hours on worldwide markets. By the way, it wasn't only CNBC; everyone was bullish during that time. Not without merit either, as things were going up.

From a comment in the article:

I'm sorry, it was boring as hell. I was excited for the show after all of the segments this week, but was disappointed. The Daily Show first report on CNBC after Santelli went off on bailouts was genius. Funny and absolutely devestating. Not so much today.

Stewart is at his WORST when he is lecturing and getting self righteous. He's giving Cramer sh&t for having "In Cramer we Trust" in his ads? Come on. The Daily Show wears this pretence and gets a lot of comedy from showing the media or political "elite" treating Americans as children. And then he he turns around and acts like "dude, you say your God and people trust you, and you really aren't, so don't do that anymore" Cramers' show is OBVIOUSLY irreverant and anyone who watches it should understand that that kind of arrogant stuff is part of his schtick. Stewart is making him apologize for making a joke because he thinks Cramers viewers wouldn't get that its a joke. Having Cramer on to grovel and apologize was lame. What did this show do that the original report didn't? Nothing. Did Stewart tell a single joke today? Not that I remember.

Waaaah!!! The dancing monkey didn't entertain me well enough....

People are idiots.

Jim cramer knew he was in deep trouble. His "admit mistakes" deflection attempt wasn't realistic, and Jon Stewart took him apart. By the end it was like watching a puppy being torn apart by a raptor.

At the end he was agreeing with Stewart that he wasn't a financial expert, that he was basically jon stewarts biatch. I had expected some mild thrashing, and when Cramer came out all apologetic I thought maybe there would be nothing more then "oh you're sorry? well....Ok then."

Nope. It was a awesome display of what real journalism would look like. Why the hell do we have to have a comedian demonstrate this to them?

Wow....I almost felt bad for Cramer. Jon Stewart is a one man wrecking crew and he absolutely demolished CNBC in that interview. That was amazing journalism from a "comedian".

Bravo Mr. Stewart!