Stewart vs Cramer
I watched the full unedited Daily show interview of Jim Cramer. I thought I would really enjoy Jon Stewart taking Cramer to task, but oddly enough, I came away thinking that Stewart, while making many good points, comes off too hypocritical for my tastes.
I don't have the attention span to write a full blown essay on my thoughts here, so I'll summarize:
-Excellent point that CNBC and Jim Cramer did not provide good enough financial reporting and analysis and that there is not much accountability for their poor market analysis. It is very confusing for a cable network to mix reporting, analysis, and entertainment. I feel this way about ESPN too, but since its content is simply sports, it's hard to get too worked up about it.
-Let's face it--Jim Cramer's popularity is not entirely due to him being the best at navigating the financial waters. He has marketed himself as a personality and an entertainer. So I feel like any criticism that he acts like a ridiculous goofball on his show is mostly irrelevant and distracts from any serious point about the role of financial cable networks. Yes, his promos are silly, but that is what his show is. It is fair game to criticize him for misleading his audience though.
-It's hard for me to be comfortable watching Jon Stewart criticize another person for failing to embrace his responsibility as a popular TV personality, yet completely shirking any of his own responsibility with "we're supposed to be biased." This is a copout. While it is technically true that the Daily Show is for entertainment purposes only, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Daily Show has also taken it upon themselves to act as a political and media critic--why else invite Jim Cramer onto the show to discuss these topics? In the past, Stewart has also defended misreporting of facts in the same manner: "we're not a news show--it's not so bad if we get stuff wrong." Technically true, but it does still speak to credibility, so those mistakes are not meaningless.
-Bottom line is I don't think Stewart has done anything wrong--I still love his show--it's just that his criticisms DO sound hypocritical and his arguments ARE weaker whenever he shields himself with the "we're just an entertainment show on Comedy Central" defense. He should either stop pretending otherwise or tone down the moral outrage.
I don't have the attention span to write a full blown essay on my thoughts here, so I'll summarize:
-Excellent point that CNBC and Jim Cramer did not provide good enough financial reporting and analysis and that there is not much accountability for their poor market analysis. It is very confusing for a cable network to mix reporting, analysis, and entertainment. I feel this way about ESPN too, but since its content is simply sports, it's hard to get too worked up about it.
-Let's face it--Jim Cramer's popularity is not entirely due to him being the best at navigating the financial waters. He has marketed himself as a personality and an entertainer. So I feel like any criticism that he acts like a ridiculous goofball on his show is mostly irrelevant and distracts from any serious point about the role of financial cable networks. Yes, his promos are silly, but that is what his show is. It is fair game to criticize him for misleading his audience though.
-It's hard for me to be comfortable watching Jon Stewart criticize another person for failing to embrace his responsibility as a popular TV personality, yet completely shirking any of his own responsibility with "we're supposed to be biased." This is a copout. While it is technically true that the Daily Show is for entertainment purposes only, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Daily Show has also taken it upon themselves to act as a political and media critic--why else invite Jim Cramer onto the show to discuss these topics? In the past, Stewart has also defended misreporting of facts in the same manner: "we're not a news show--it's not so bad if we get stuff wrong." Technically true, but it does still speak to credibility, so those mistakes are not meaningless.
-Bottom line is I don't think Stewart has done anything wrong--I still love his show--it's just that his criticisms DO sound hypocritical and his arguments ARE weaker whenever he shields himself with the "we're just an entertainment show on Comedy Central" defense. He should either stop pretending otherwise or tone down the moral outrage.
