Jon Stewart, whom you know and love as the exiled sage who walks the land in tattered garb and whose mission is speak to truth to power, has discovered an injustice: namely, that financial reporting is consistently wrong. And that CNBC (and others) need to be held accountable for this. And that they are somewhat responsible for the economic mess that we’re currently in. Just take one minute to really think about that.
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Having watched the ‘showdown’ between Stewart and Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money on the Devil-run and -produced CNBC on The Daily Show, I only had one reaction to it: Cramer should have told Stewart to fucking get over himself and should have told him that frequently. (Full disclosure: I do not watch any CNBC show and I rarely get around to watching The Daily Show. I have no personal affinity nor dislike for either television personality.)
As I understand it, a large portion of Stewart’s argument rested on CNBC’s (and, by proxy, Cramer’s) inability to report objectively on things and events that have been in motion since 1998-99. What is funny about this point of view is twofold: 1) is the most obvious white elephant in the room, and that is that the financial sector is nearly impossible to report on—the sheer magnitude of what the inner workings are of one Fortune 500 is huge, let alone objectively trying to sort through the proverbial bullshit of an entire market, and 2) is the white elephant in the room that no one wants to admit to and that is: that the percentage of people who watch CNBC shows to genuinely use said shows as real guides and tools is probably similar to the percentage of people who watch The Daily Show as a genuine alternative to the established news media. What this means is that there is a huge disconnect as, basically, Stewart and his fans who “totally know his show is a joke” feel justified in throwing rocks at CNBC because they (and the government and the banks and the CEOs, etc.,) are the bad guys. But what if most of the people who watch CNBC “totally know that its shows are jokes” too and that most of its viewership watches for little snippets rather than the contextual whole, not unlike people who tune into Stewart’s show either to see the interview or want to hear about topic-specific jokes then tune out?
Stewart wants to blame the media for making arrangements behind closed doors not to report on this collapse and that’s fine but don’t forget about one important factor: Jon Stewart has absolutely nothing to lose by making his Utopian proclomations and socially aware opinions against the Establishment. By the very nature of his television show, he is allowed to throw rocks at others and then gets to hide behind the Equal Opportunity Offender shield if someone wants to call him out. And then the people who want to call him out will be made to look like uncool and out-of-touch dicks because, well, they’re going after a comedian and shouldn’t we all realize that this is all a joke anyway?
At the end of the day, is it a good thing that Stewart hosts a show that skewers people and the media? Is it a good thing that he apparently has some passion about these things? Yes and yes. But let’s not dilute ourselves: when he gets on his high horse and wants to shed his Satirical Jon Stewart Face in favor of his Serious Jon Stewart Face he becomes no different than Rush Limbaugh, someone who trumps up injustices to conveniently fit into the framework of their exiled-sage-speaking-truth-to-power alter-egos. I wish Cramer would have called him out on that.
I also wished that Cramer would’ve said something to the effect of, “Hey, I’ll admit to my part in this. I’ve not made the best decisions on my show and I have my regrets on what we did and said in past segments, but if you want to blame me or CNBC on this then you are severely misinformed—just like your demographic of viewers that watch you and hold you up as a real journalist, despite your attempts to market yourself as a ‘snake-oil salesman.’ Blame the Internet, blame day-trading, blame E*Trade. Don’t you think it’s ironic that the market became fucked up once regular, ordinary people jumped in and believed that they knew what they were doing? They fucked it all up and guess what? They are now our fucking audience and I have to convey a show to them and, yeah, we use gimmicks to entertain and inform them. Just like you take clips out of context for the furtherance of your jokes. Get over yourself. It’s not our fault that you can’t be like Bill Maher and are trapped here on this show.”
And cut to commercial.