2009-03-14

On Journalism

What is a reporter? What is a journalist? What is veritas? These are the questions you must ask yourself.

I watched the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer interview on The Daily Show from earlier this week. For those who haven't seen it, I can summarize it briefly: Jon Stewart spent about fifteen minutes systematically tearing into the host of Mad Money for his role as a keen Wall Street mastermind who played dumb when the banks and securities firms fell flat pulling all sorts of fiduciary voodoo that made billions vanish and permanently eroded the value of many long-term investors' portfolios.

Back when my parents and grandparents were all kicking around, America had men who got stories. I particularly recall Edward R. Murrow as a great example of the quintessential reporter. He wasn't a showman, he didn't spend a lot of time of making his scoops seem sensational. The real story usually unfolded in a closed-set interview. Two men, two cameras, and a couple of packs of Lucky Strike cigarettes.

I think that the American media has moved away from getting the story, mostly because the American media is now more interested in getting ratings than in getting to the bottom of a mystery. Jon Stewart — a jokester who got famous in the 90s hosting a shoestring-budget talk show on MTV after You Wrote It, You Watch It got canceled — very deliberately and with the help of a team of crack researchers sat down and figured out a very solid argument: CNBC in general and Jim Cramer in specific have all contributed to the economic meltdown by focusing on glitz and sensationalism instead of actually, y'know, reporting on actual financial news. Perhaps Cramer isn't the best example of an economic powerhouse. Even though he has a keen mind and ran a hedge fund for many years, he spends his days now pushing stocks on TV and throwing plastic bulls and bears around, dancing and playing zany sound effects.

Stewart in contrast is an excellent critic of the media. He is, after all, the man who went on Crossfire and begged the hosts of the show to "please stop hurting America." This makes him probably the best person on TV to ask hard questions, even on a show as intentionally irreverent as The Daily Show. This is our new face of journalism. We traded Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite for Katie Couric, and in doing so we lost something. Hopefully, Stewart can get it back.

Please watch the uncensored clips of the show while they're still available. It's not a "Stewart beats up a loudmouth" kind of event, even though many are saying that's the case. This is the first step of an established professional newscaster, comedian though he is, taking up the vox populi and actually pointing out the hypocrisy where it exists. It might not be a Woodward and Bernstein-level of deep thoat investigative journalism, but it's clearly a newsman asking hard questions and not just letting the guest off with a plug for his TV show. I can only hope we've turned a corner on the era of Barbara Walters asking "What kind of tree would you be?" on national television. I never thought Jon Stewart would be our next Murrow. Here's to hoping he isn't the last.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

While I enjoy watching Cramer every night, one must remember the show is primarily entertainment. The financial networks exist to promote their advertisers financial and investment products. Who would expect them to warn about the credit bubble or coming Washington national debt collapse which will destroy much of the remaining private wealth in America today or what this will do to the dollar, the stock market, bonds, gold or the real estate market?


China is now worried about their dangerous over investment in US Treasury obligations. Washington ’s long-term choice is either repudiation or monetization. For monetization to be effective, the depreciation in the dollar would have to be substantial and this in turn would dramatically raise prices of imports for American consumers which would mean a tremendous drop in foreign imports. Debt monetization would cause more disruption to exporting nations than selective repudiation of Treasury debt.

The Campaign to Cancel the Washington National Debt By 12/22/2013 Constitutional Amendment is starting now in the U.S. See: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67594690498&ref=ts

Thanks,

Ron with 30 plus years in the investment business and banking industry.