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Stewart's CNBC Rant: Unfair, but Spot On
Stewart's CNBC Rant: Unfair, but Spot On
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Thursday, March 5, 2009 - 6:40pm
Jon Stewart's hilarious and devastating attack on CNBC Wednesday night has brought yet another round of protestations along the lines of: "Why don't the mainstream media do this kind of thing? Why is it left to comedians?"
This shows an ignorance of both journalism and comedy. First of all, Stewart isn't so much a comedian as he is a satirist. And it's always been the job of satirists to make fun of the culture and public affairs. Behind the jabs, there are serious points being made. That's the purpose of satire.
And while journalists could surely stand to (judiciously) add more humor to their presentation of the news, that's far from their first job. And as much as ideologues of various stripes would like to believe otherwise, it also isn't their first job to skewer anything, though there should be more of that, too (judiciously applied.) Their first job is to present the facts—fairly. And there have been plenty of media examinations of CNBC, its shallow cheerleading, and its boneheaded presentation.
The difference is, those stories are usually presented with all the context needed for a fair and sober assessment of the network, and they usually include opposed views.
If you watch Stewart's attack carefully, you might notice something: It was completely unfair. Not inaccurate, but unfair. Stewart did a bunch of things that no journalist could, or should, ever get away with. He showed ultra-short clips of anchors and reporters saying things that, by themselves, sounded really stupid but, in context, may not have been quite as dumb as they seemed (though some surely were). And he included clips of interviewees saying dumb things, something for which CNBC bears no blame (unless they went totally unchallenged, which I assume in some cases they did).
This is all fine—for a satirist. The overall vibe of CNBC—with its "money honeys," Jim Cramer's inane frothing, and the lunkheaded fratboys on Fast Money treating economic news like a football game—is stupid. So showing clips that make the network look stupid works just fine—for a satirist.
But not for a journalist.
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Comments
CNBC rant
The clips that featured CNBC talking heads saying things that sounded stupid weren't taken out of context. They WERE stupid. There wasn't anything unfair about the rant. It was funny AND true. CNBC made themselves look like idiots. They didn't need Stewart's help.
The initial segment provides
The initial segment provides some provocative potshots at CNBC's coverage, but in the interview of that episode, Stewart discusses the issue in more depth and in more of a fair dialogue. He asks Joe Nocera, "Is there any responsibility for these companies [CNBC, etc.] to get ahead of these events [financial downturns]?" Suggesting that maybe he's being too harsh, maybe he's expecting them to be psychic and maybe that's unfair. The answer from Joe Nocera is that he's not being too harsh, or unfair. This answer is unsurprising, because it's the correct one. The problem with contemporary journalism is that it is stuck with this notion that equal airtime has some connection to fairness, and this idea that if journalists never take sides in any debate, the people will have a firmer grasp on the truth. Imagine a journalist from today went back in time to interview Hitler, we would expect the interview would close with some platitude like "And that's why some feel the Nazi regime is Germany's only hope." Fairness leads to distortion when you refuse to acknowledge that some people are actually wrong. Interestingly, in this piece, Mitchell seems to want his cake but eat it too, failing to abide by his own standard. He agrees with Stewart, after all, but still seems to have a problem with the (accurate) coverage. He forms this opinion by viewing the segment outside the context of the full episode, where Stewart provides more balance. Mitchell, like Stewart, does not offer compelling contrasting opinions to his own. I take this as a sign that, deep down, Mitchell already agrees with me, whether he realizes it or not. Journalism that takes a side can still be journalism.
When people say that the
When people say that the media should do what John Stewart is doing, they generally mean provide the news in a cutting edge truthful fashion--not that mainstream newscasters should start making jokes on the air. That is rightfully the domain of Comedy Central. What Stewart and his team do that used to be the responsibility of the actual news is ask difficult questions and push for answers that might not endear them to the powerful figures they are covering. Instead, the mainstream media accepts the same old sound bytes--even encourages them. The clips that the Daily Show used to highlight this were meant to illustrate not the stupidity of the newscaster's interviewees (which would have been funny in a shallower way) but the fact that the newscasters pitched them such softball questions that the interviewees were set up to actually say the stuff they said. And that instead of pushing for real answers or asking awkward but prescient questions, the newscasters decided to suck up and "protect their access". This article makes the point that there will always be a need for satirists; I agree. But they shouldn't have to spend so much time satirizing the news itself--if the "real" news did its job, the satirists could focus on satirizing the politicians--not the media fawning at the politicians feet.
stewart/CNBC
Observations like Stewart's on CNBC are inevitable because the "real" underlying activity they "should" be talking about on CNBC makes for lousy television. Good investing is reflective, slow-twitch, unsure of itself and devoid of ego. Television is most appealing when it is loud, brash, and a little bit stupid. If Cramer and the guys on Fast Money didn't frequently say things that sound silly, especially in light of what we know later, fewer people would watch. The guy who recently re-tooled CNBC (adding Fast Money, etc) recognized this dichotomy. The Fast Money folks and Cramer are traders at heart, not investors. If you have ever been in a trading room, it IS like a big frat party, all cussing, tough guy humor, opinion and bluster. The marginal financial TV viewer wants to watch that more than even-handed sober, reflective analysis. With the economics of all media being about the marginal consumer, for CNBC to be what it has become is a no-brainer, pardon the pun.
Good points, but...
I agree that Stewart is often much more courageous and penetrating than the piffle we see on many TV newscasts, especially on cable and especially on CNBC. When it comes to interviewing news figures, he's often among the best on TV (though he is also known to be a suck-up at times, depending on the interviewee.)
My point, though, was that this bit, great as it was, was not in a tactical sense something that should be emulated by journalists. People all over the Web were saying, in response to this bit, "why don't mainstream journalists do this?" and I was responding to that particular, often-raised complaint. They don't do it because it would be grossly unfair. If he had a full half-hour, Stewart could have easily found plenty of damning stuff that he could present in full context. But since he had 8 minutes, he had to use a bunch of really short clips that couldn't possibly be judged on their own. Some of them, no doubt, were as silly as they seemed, but I'd bet that some of them weren't.
Not the point
People are simply begging for network news financial programs (and the news in general) to muster the courage to challenge the Wall Street insiders and their self serving economic advice on occasion. There is a complete lack of anything remotely adversarial on these shows, as everyone clearly realizes, and this is what people are asking for when they point to Jon Stewart and say "why does the comedian have the 'nads and not the "experts?" There is no burgeoning call for ambush journalism laced with rapid fire, context free content. Well, unless you are ambushing anyone advocating something other then the "question not the free market savants lest ye be cast out amongst the socialist heathens," of course. It is also ironic that Stewart should be called out for presenting no opposing views in a segment constructed to put the lie to network news shows that almost never offer opposing views. As for some of his clips possibly not being as silly as they seemed, can you point to one? CNBC can and has tried to knock Stewart for the jabs, but they can't seem to find any, either, or I'd think they'd point them out.
unfair/impolite
Just take care that you do not confuse unfairness with impoliteness. Sometimes we must be impolite in order to be fair. The Canadian writer/ philosopher John Ralston Saul highlights the problem: "One of the characteristics of being middle class is supposed to be a certain politeness. There are very valuable facets to this politeness; it reflects our sense of how citizens are supposed to treat each other: with respect and tolerance and helpfulness. There are also, of course, the silly, finicky, and prudish aspects of middle-class manners. That's just the way we are. The problem begins when we start confusing middle-class manners with the superficial public smoothness of corporatist loyalty. That is where corporatism and democracy go wrong - when any action which is not polite is considered to be a default in democratic terms. And we're quite far down that road today." http://johnralstonsaul.com/ART_QQ02.html