The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Stewart's Triumph: What it says About "Journalism" and Government

    By oleeb on Fri, 03/13/2009 - 7:57pm |

    LIke, I think, everyone else, I was delighted to see John Stewart put the screws to Jim Cramer as he did last night.  He was reasonable, prepared, made his points clearly and without the use of any ad hominem attacks.  He understood what he was talking about.  Stewart now has now been elevated almost to the level of folk hero for his refusal to simply roll over and accept the absolutely bullshit lies that our establishment/status quo spits out on a daily basis.  Every accoloade he receives is deserved.  Our collective hats are off to him for publicly calling the hypocrisy and lies of the powerful on the carpet for all to see.

    We can revel in Stewart's laudable feats, but when we look just a tiny bit deeper our jubilation is really because we are in a "better laugh than cry sittuation," aren't we?

    I think Stewart himself has made this point in the past but last night's performance really spotlights it: if John Stewart who is a professional comedian with a show on a network dedicated to comedy is the best, hardest hitting and most fearless "journalist" in America what does that say about our media and the alleged "journalists" who are in it?  Last night Stewart pointed out that CNBC had not done it's journalisitic job regarding the rampant fraud and ponzi schemes of Wall Street and he was correct to do so.  But what about the New York Times?  What about the Wapo, the Boston Globe and on and on and on?  What about the NBV Nightly News?  How about ABC or CBS?  CNN?  Where have all these wealthy millionaire journalists as the Daily Howler likes to point out been?  They sure as hell weren't being watchdogs for the people.  They sure as hell weren't playing their role as the 4th estate.

    The corruption of the powerful elites in our society is widespread and malignant.  We cannot expect the people who worship and promote the thieves who run Wall Street to look out for the interests of the public as many so naively have assumed they would.  They have failed utterly in their primary public obligation.  All of them.  And they have failed because they share the same warped values and the same aspirations of the wealthy criminals who drove our economy into the ground for their own personal gain.

    And what of government?  Where were our regulators, legislators, etc...?  They too were completely asleep at the wheel.  Government was negligent at best and complicit in much of what has gone on and now our Treasury Secretary spends his days trying to figure out not how to save the people of the United States, but how to save the very criminal businessmen from the consequences of their immoral and unethical and probably illegal activities.

    I am glad we have John Stewart, but it is a sad, sad commentary on our nation and our society and particularly our alleged elite classes when he is the number one defender of truth, honesty, ethics and decency in the United States.

    Comments

    It's come down to us, I guess....

    RIP: MSM


    by TheraP (not verified) on Fri, 03/13/2009 - 9:39pm

    You said it all oleeb. I heard another sad story about a newspaper closing and I thought well, is there a wonder why? When I work I get to read the local paper and I read two parts - letters to the ed and the comics.


    by bluesplashy (not verified) on Fri, 03/13/2009 - 11:33pm

    Exactly right, oleeb. It isn't just business reporting, it's reporting in general. It isn't just TV journalism, it's journalism in general.
    It's been more than half a decade since the U.S. was lied into a deadly, self-destructive war.
    Who should we blame if we've now been lied into a global economic meltdown? The media, obviously.
    But don't the good citizens who fell for the exact same manipulation twice bear some responsibility?
    In their defense, maybe they were distracted by news reports that Iran might be THAT close to getting the bomb.
    As George Bush sang in his greatest hit, "Don't be fooled again." Third time's the charm, right?


    by acanuck (not verified) on Fri, 03/13/2009 - 11:54pm

    Terrific post.

    Jon Stewart is an intelligent man who delivers the real 'news' with fact based clips and documentation. He has the freedom to deliver the truth because he is not expected to be taken seriously and too many simply regard his stance as entertainment.

    If only those who sat in the 'serious news' chairs had the same integrity, grit and honesty all would be better served.


    by Aunt Sam (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 12:11am

    THE PEASANTS ARE REVOLTING

    The repubs were right when they labeled MSM as elites. But for the wrong reason.

    What can the public handle?

    We should worry about how the public will react.

    The public will not be interested in this issue.

    Add this to polling that tells them that some celebrity in detox must be covered and you have a mess.

    But, I noted this elsewhere, Bill Moyers will be on here (CDT) at 11. One of our fines interviewers. Oh and check out Greenwald Oleeb at Salon today. I lost the cite/link but he does a good job.


    by dickday (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 1:23am

    Excellent post. The 4th estate died in the 70's and has been gone since then. It's all about money and profits. In order to accomplish that all they spew is propoganda for the right-wing corporate elites for the purpose of profits. Amazingly stewart is in the best position to be an actual journalist because he is on a comedy network and is allegedly not to be taken seriously.

    Back in the 70's and before when there was news and reporting, it was a matter of pride among the networks to have the best news organizations and investigative reporting and getting out the facts to the american people. The news branches of the networks never made any money and were total losses and it wasn't a problem. They didn't look at the bottom line, it was about serving the american people as the 4th estate and was a cost of doing business as a network.

    In the late 70's, times changed and they started looking at the bottom line and low and behold what developed? The b-movie actor and the beginning of the fox entertainment kind of "news." The "news" became propoganda outlets for the rich and corporate elite. The 4th estate evaporated and ceased to exist. All they basically do and have done since then is act as tabloid journalism spewing propoganda and doing nothing to inform the public and getting to the truth.

    There have been a hundred watergates since the late 70's and there has been no deep throat and no woodward and bernsteins to report it. They even became coopted for the mighty dollar and their "journalism" now is nothing more than spewing propoganda and seeking the almighty buck.

    By way of example, if iran/contra occurred in the early 70's or 60's, the b-movie actor would have been forced to resign like nixon, there would have been investigations by congress and the people would have been outraged and demanded changes. Didn't happen. Why? No 4th estate. In fact, if the 4th estate did it's job we wouldn't be where we are today, we wouldn't have had the king, we wouldn't have had all the distasters of the last 40 years. It's tragic and something has to be done.

    It really is a sad commentary about our country when a comedy show is the best news source that we have. I definitely don't want to demean what stewart is doing. He is the only one and thank God for him or we wouldn't have 1/10th of the limited information and news that we have.

    Sorry for the long post, but it really is sad and tragic and obvious. Something has to be done. How can we have like, what, 3 journalists in iraq? How is that possible? I don't understand. There should be a hundred at least. It's a gd war! How many do we have in afghanistan? ZERO. How is that possible? I really don't understand. The 4th estate is non-existent and we really should figure out how to revive it, because it is critical for a democracy, which somedays I actually don't think that we really have had for a long time.


    by Michael A (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 2:14am

    There are, of course, exceptions particularly in the less influential yet up and coming internet community of journalists. My beef is primarily with those who provide the news America uses and turns to most and that is in the corporate owned and operated media. For people like us, sites like TPM or Salon provide a good alternative, but the audiences of the maintstream corporate news are vast in comparison. So, when it comes to public opinion some of the better work on the net is helping to push the corporate media toward actually doing it's job, but the corporate crowd still sets the agenda and defines what the news is and isn't for most of our fellow citizens.


    by oleeb (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 3:27am

    The acquisition of MSM by conservative forces and castration of investigative reporting was a specific, documented goal in the mid 1970's. It was their intent to prevent a repetition of Watergate: To block investigation of accountability; to allow the over-reaching by the executive branch of government; and to prevent thorough, credible investigation of other influential entities.


    by lenski (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 12:41pm

    60 Minutes never did it better!


    by GTFOOH (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 1:02pm

    I thought Stewart was brilliant, but the prevailing anger at the "MSM" is misdirected in this instance. The legitimate criticism of the media's failure to uncover Bush's lies leading up to Iraq doesn't fly here. I've never been able to sit through Cramer's show, but all it really is supposed to give is investing advice, not financial reporting. CNBC itself is part business gossip, part market cheerleader, part forum for CEOs to pimp their companies and yes, a bit of news thrown in. It is not the 4th Estate or a financial watchdog. Yes, they got it spectacularly wrong and Stewart's (and our) anger is wholly justified, but as Stewart pointed out, Cramer is more infomercial than news source.

    As for the performance of real journalists in this crisis, I'm not so quick to pronounce their utter failure. I have read excellent stories on this crisis in the NYT and Wall Street journal and it's unfair to label reporters like Morgensen, Nocera, Leonhardt, etc. as "worshipping" at the alter of Wall Street. Financial reporters are not supposed to have a crystal ball to predict the future. Much of the crisis was unknown even to those at the epicenter of it. True, there were a small handful of people out there who saw the house of cards for what it was. That their voices were not heeded does not necessarily reflect a failure of journalists.


    by Armchair Guerrilla (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 1:20pm

    If it's not a McClatchy newspaper - I only read the OpEd...it appears they just copy feed off the AP - there are no real journalists left. Dana Priest of WaPo is the last one I can recall that produced anything of substance for a newspaper (Walter Reed).


    by career fed (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 2:52pm

    The media in this nation has been a problem for over a century. Hearst, Winchell, Coughlin, and many others have always been to willing and able to rubberstamp propaganda and cheerlead the machinations of the aristocracy. Stewart has long been the exception, not the rule.

    Today's times belie the historical problems of journalism. Journalism, like medicine, tends to do poorly when done primarily for profit. And journalism has been a profit industry for a lomg time.

    How do you explain the Spa
    nish-American War, Vietnam, the brutal iniquities conducted with taxpayer dollars on South Mericaand Africa without the complicity of a media owned by the industries that profit from our empire? How do you explain the naked nationalism at the heart of our colonial narrative except as a self-enforcing enthymeme of our journalism?

    Some presume that we ever had a free press... Well, if it is free, then why are we paying for it?


    by Zipperupus (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 3:38pm

    And:

    I love Jon Stewart, but if he's so free, how come his attacks always come at the expense of Viacom's competitors? He too has a Master.


    by Zipperupus (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 3:42pm

    Journalists, reviewers, the talking heads on cable shows: many seem to be living in an alternate reality.

    Case in point: Alessandra Stanley, the TV reviewer for the Times. Here's part of her "analysis" of Stewart v. Cramer:

    But mostly, he sat back and milked every last drop from a tempest-in-a-cable-box that NBC and its sister channels have been fanning ever since the “Daily Show” host began hammering CNBC for its complacent Wall Street coverage, singling out embarrassing market calls by Mr. Cramer in particular.

    The "he" in question is Jim Cramer. I could say much about his behavior on the show, but to describe it as "milking" every last drop is absurd.

    She ends this review with this ridiculous observation:

    Mr. Stewart kept getting the last word, but Mr. Cramer may yet have the last laugh.

    Alternate reality.


    by CT Voter (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 4:22pm

    After more than a quarter-century as a journalist, Armchair, I'm really comfortable blaming the media for failing to fulfill their public duty and trust.
    Yes, there are individual reporters who try hard, and some do a bang-up job. They are heroes.
    When I say media, I mean the ownership, which feeds its readership and viewership bread and circuses (Mad Money) while serving the interests of its own corporate class.
    As Stewart said to Cramer, you're not the villain here, and it's unfair that you've become the public face for media betrayal.
    With the collapse of the newspaper industry, this problem will get exponentially worse. Fewer voices will make it even easier to monopolize and manipulate what people see and hear.
    There is money to be made, and power to be wielded, by doing so.


    by acanuck (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 4:30pm

    "Stewart now has now been elevated almost to the level of folk hero"

    And considering that it took snarky comedy to get him into a place where he could have the influence he currently wields, it just proves how much of a stranglehold the MSM has had on the news for a long, long time.

    No snark or crude "he sure nailed Cramer" double entendre intended, it took a back door to the stage to get the truth out to the viewing public, because of this media blackout of the REAL news.


    by JEP07 (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 4:34pm

    Excellent observation!


    by oleeb (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 4:36pm

    Quite so!


    by oleeb (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 4:54pm

    What drove me crazy about Cramer in that interview was that he kept saying, "these CEOs lied to me" and acting shocked.

    Is he *really* that naive? Is he surprised when used car salesmen lie, too? Did he think he was so special that these sociopaths wouldn't lie to him like they lied to others? Or did he just think accepting their lies would be enough to cover his ass.

    CEOs are trying to sell something - the value of their stock. Whenever somebody's trying to sell me something, I try to get some independent information. Trust but verify, if you will. For what it's worth, I learned that concept back in the journalism school back in the dark ages.


    by Phoebe Fay (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 5:02pm

    Back in October, in a TPM thread that was prompted by some very good reporting and interviewing by Katie Couric and Campbell Brown, among others, an award was proposed to recognize contributions from the media. It aimed to support reporting that seemed to really get it right.

    The idea drifted off after that -- no more excellent reporting by anyone, MSM or otherwise, perhaps? Whatever.

    I propose we revive the award and grant it to Jon Stewart, the newest recipient . . . TA DA . . . of the TPM Eddie. (Named, of course, after, the great Edward R.)

    Go Comedy Central! I am convinced Mr. Murrow would be pleased.


    by IClaudia (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 6:08pm

    I read yesterday that CNBC's ratings have been up this week, as a direct result of all the attention this story has been getting. I don't know about Cramer's own ratings but I bet they're up too.


    by debbiedoesnothing (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 7:06pm

    I did not see Cramer on Stewart's show, so I only know what I have seen posted on the blogs. If what I have read is accurtae, I have to say hats off to Stewart! I always thought of Cramer as a loud mouth who was probably in on all of the deceit the Wall Street types were doing as far as finance!
    He is a regular on Mornin Joe, and word has it, MJ did not comment about the Cramer vs. Stewart escapade. Guess the Republican Joe could not stomach what happened to Cramer.


    by neesy08 (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 7:29pm

    sideComedians have always been oracles of truth when the establishment is failing on that front (some of the court jesters in my time were Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, etc.). Usually they are only heard by a small minority at first, but maybe cable TV has changed that.

    Aside: I think Stewart laid off Cramer to a great extent, personally, to skewer CNBC (to quote a Carly Simon song…). In one of the clips Stewart threw to, Cramer all but admitted he spread rumors talking down stocks that he had bought short on. I’m not sure, but this sounds highly illegal; like a reverse kind of insider trading. Anyway, as Mike A points out above, the media in their role as watchdog, probably peaking in the ‘70s, has been dubious at many times but declined noticeably, at least, since Reagan’s seduction of it. Much of the timidity of media can be traced to a concerted effort by the Right to influence it of course (liberal elites, indeed). Rupert Murdoch continued his $multi-billion campaign begun in Australia and England to spread his corporate-conservative agenda, buying media across America and creating Fox with RW media guru, Roger Ailes.

    I don’t know if there was a golden age of journalism; maybe post-WWII, with the Murrow boys, Cronkite, I.F. Stone, Friendly, Hewit, etc (Jack Anderson, a loose canon no doubt, used to be nationally syndicated in Sundays’ Parade). But, I do think traditional media sank to new lows with the rise of Limbaugh and the Gingrich revolution and reached a height of sycophancy when Bush/Cheney came along to take advantage of a media that had been corporatized to the point of being an entertainment product biased against reality and dealing emotion like a drug.

    And with the 9/11 Patriot-Fascism (where even comedians like Bill Maher get censored) the press became more of a PR industry; the government’s spokesman. We have to praise reporters like the McClatchy crew, Daniel Froomkin, Charlie Savage, Dana Priest, and dozens of other local reporters who do their jobs in the face of losing their jobs for honest reporting.

    But, clichéd as it sounds; we are living through a historical change in information dissemination. The internet can’t be so easily controlled, merged, corporatized (as long as net neutrality and availability aren’t restricted). Like the underground press at crucial points in the past, the internet provides an outlet for alternative voices and truth-telling (but also, of course, for deceitful propaganda). Maybe, the balance will restore things to a peoples’ perspective.


    by Don Key (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 7:55pm

    AC, (or perhaps I should say ACA)
    U R Correct but CNBC is an animal all it's own. CNBC is kinda the "religion" of Wall Streeters.
    So you have the religion of Wall Street preaching the Wall Street religion for the Wall Street cardinals and bishops and ministers who just happen to be CEOs, CFOs etc...

    It is amazing that GE sits back and lets them get away with it. With the exception of weeknights on MSNBC between 8-10 I have sworn off anything GE.


    by O¿O in the crowd (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 7:58pm

    "THE PEASANTS ARE REVOLTING"

    They're not that bad, dick (maybe smell a little).


    by Don Key (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 7:59pm