Friday, March 13, 2009

Jon Stewart Destroys Jim Cramer

It is the general consensus that Jon Stewart put a stake in the heart of Jim Cramer:



Cramer is not a bad sort, he is loyal to his friends -- i.e, his law school pal Eliot Spitzer -- when they are down, and he clearly wants to be liked. But he plays a dangerous game. For years he has been carried as a columnist/commentator -- at the respectable New York, for instance -- and startling questions have arisen about the sagacity of his financial advice.

Actually, the whole lack of the critical eye -- a hallmark of good journalism -- has been wholly absent from America's financial journalism establishment leading up to the present crisis. And now, in this hour of national exigency, all eyes are on our financial watchdogs -- the cable networks, the business pages of the newspapers -- and Jon Stewart finds them lacking.

It seems to this blogger that the obvious outcome of this public beating is that the upcoming bunch of financial bloggers/citizen journalists and commentators will have to kick up their game a notch if they want to cut it in the new world where Americans get their financial houses in order and demand a greater degree of accountability from their journos. In a sense, this crisis will make all Americans more conscious of the business pages and business cable channels at a time where journalism is looking for a rescue. The rewards will be great; the punishments will be brutal (for further reference see: Cramer versus Stewart). But a higher level of scrutiny of how those guys do their job is a good thing for our country and for our bank statements.

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