Turning Point in New Journalism
The recent “showdown” between comedian-turned-faux-newsman Jon Stewart and stock-huckster-turned-cable-TV-stock-carnival barker Jim Cramer was an important moment, I believe, in today’s new style of journalism.
Cramer, host of CNBC’s borderline insane stock hype program “Mad Money,” came off as defense, and a guy who knew he was in deep trouble for misleading investors. He seemed to me like a guy who had never learned the importance of ethical behavior but rather had been an accomplice to the all really bad guys on Wall Street.
Stewart – host of The Daily Show, a faux news program on cable’s Comedy Central – questioned Cramer about his often-unethical on-air behavior with intelligent, probing questions. Even though he shies away from being called a journalist, Stewart clearly shines as one of today’s leading television news anchors.
While many in the news business – from network TV to newspapers – have stopped asking probing questions of newsmakers out of concern they won’t be included on lists for exclusive VIP parties, and the chance to be veneer pals with government leaders and celebrities, Stewart has distinguished himself consistently by showing no hesitancy to ask good questions … questions that need asking. Stewart is more of an authentic journalist than 95 percent of TV news “personalities.”
The Stewart-Cramer “High Noon” on the set of the Daily Show exposed where we are today with television news – cable news, like CBNC and CNN, is today mostly shallow, celebrity-oriented dramatic/entertainment style news that’s more about a beautiful or handsome news reader than about learning what’s really happening in the world. Even Wolf Blitzer is no exception as a showman, first.
Cramer told Stewart that he was a “commentator.” But, he is indeed a self-proclaimed commentator, with no deep journalistic credentials, as so many other celebrities on TV news today.
Cramer, in one brief interview on Stewart’s program, has become, I believe, the poster boy for corrupt behavior on Wall Street and the financial markets. He was a participant in a powerful and influential position … an accomplice … yet he accepts no accountability.
While many in the news media have forgotten, or never learned, the basic tenet of asking questions, Jon Stewart, by asking tough questions that needed asking, has become television’s new Mike Wallace and Edward R. Murrow.
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It’s not just Stewart. It’s Letterman and others that have captured our trust by being humorous while addressing serious issues. We have made fun of the hypocrisies of democracy. In this macabre sense of humor we now turn to the humorists to share the dark side of the systemic problems we face.
Are they journalists? Not sure, having grown up with David Broder, Studs Terkl, Edwin Newman, and others of that thoughtful category, it’s hard to draw the parallel. Perhaps there is a greater connection with Andy Rooney and George Carlin.
Because we seem to progress faster in terms of what is accepted practice and what is the next big thing, let’s look at where we are going. Today’s mainstream media personalities are so connected to the social media world, who is to say where the journalists are coming from? Perhaps we have gone from the big 3 networks of the 60s to the thousand tweets that are monitored by network anchors like Rick Sanchez of CNN or to the Ellen Show with its 140 thousand Twitter followers, and growing, of Ellen Degeneres.
My take – in the 60s we watched the news of injustice or wrong doing and said “someone should do something about that” Some people did in civil rights and the Vietnam war, but little else.
In the 90s we watched the 24 hour news cycle and society’s reaction to injustice and wrongdoing was something like “crooks, it figures they are all no good”
Today perhaps we watch the expansion of news coverage to include the stars and the iReporter stories and say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” David, I know you see the irony in that line from the 1976 film Network. Difference is today we say it on blogs, on twitter, on YouTube and just maybe others are listening and taking action.
All the best to you David.
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.
One thing that’s primarily disappointed me with journalism over the years has been the reluctance to ask damning questions.
Where were the tough questions to Bush about his lies to the country over the War on Terror, for example? Or the questions to big corporations that virtually okayed state terrorism in China by sponsoring the Olympics?
There are a lot of occasions when questions can, and should, be asked but never are. Maybe this is why a lot of the traditional media is in so much trouble? The public’s loss of belief?
David:
I’d venture that for many people in the college-age demo bracket, there’s nothing “faux” about Jon Stewart’s news program. To them, he’s as legitimate a news source as NBC or the New York Times.
What’s a journalist? Today, it’s anyone with a keyboard. But as you wisely point out in your previous post on newspapers, “…it’s a whole new world where rules of conduct, ethics and openness are still in flux.” Reader Beware.