# What I want to see Jon Stewart say to Cramer tonight **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162 "2009-03-12T03:17:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/141 "2009-03-13T17:20:19Z")
> [@Jello](#): > > Oh, man, I love it when Brian Williams is on. … > After that, I became a firm believer in the comedic genius of Brian Williams. I couldn’t agree more. I LOVE his sense of humor, and it’s so dry that now I can’t watch him doing the real news without thinking he has his tongue in his cheek. He’ll be reporting something completely serious and I start grinning just because it’s him. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/142 "2009-03-13T17:32:16Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I sort of hate to be this cynical, but any business has to answer to its customers; and for TV networks, that ain’t us. Their customers are the advertisers. We, the audience, are the product that they sell to them. This is, ironically enough, an example of exactly the point that Stewart was making: As another poster already pointed out, the news media today are not driven by a desire to report the news or to dig in and find the real facts or to help people, they’re driven by the desire to make money. That’s the same stupid-ass short-term view that Stewart was decrying; “who cares what we’re actually saying, whether we’re reporting the truth or not, giving people something that actually helps them or not, as long as we keep getting those ad dollars.” If any of those idiots making the decisions could actually see past their fucking noses, they might realize that they could do real reporting AND get the ad dollars. Suppose, in some mythical world, the powers-that-be at CNBC saw the light. They started having shows that did real reporting. Analysts and interviewers that made the points and asked the kinds of questions that Stewart was making and asking last night. Ok, maybe they’d lose some “access” to CEOs (or, as Zakalwe points out, maybe not). Maybe SOME of their advertisers would pull out. But then maybe, in the longer term, they’d find that their viewership was going UP as the public realized that CNBC was actually giving them the real, unvarnished truth, and reporting on things that would truly help them. And if that happened, I can promise you that they’d have no shortage of advertisers. Not every company in the world lives and dies by what financial analysts say; I’m sure there are plenty of companies that would have less to lose by honest reporting than to gain by advertising around honest reporting. Robot Arm may be right, but there’s nothing inherent in the system that makes it have to be that way. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/143 "2009-03-13T17:41:49Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Since Comedy Central has never presented itself as a source of serious journalism, he would have absolutely nothing to defend. The only thing he has to defend is whether or not his show is funny. And it is. Stewart wins. Well, **Exapno** did say, “everything on Comedy Central,” not “everything on _The Daily Show_.” Which means that Stewart would be called upon to defend _Mind of Mencia_. Which is a fair comparison, really. If the purpose of Comedy Central is to make people laugh, surely _Mind of Mencia_ is as big a failure on their part as Cramer’s advice on Bear Stearns is on his. And when you look at it, all that happened because of Cramer’s failure is some people lost money. Comedy Central, on the other hand, gave Carlos Mencia a television show. Motes and planks, my friend. Motes and planks indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/144 "2009-03-13T17:46:34Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > I haven’t had a chance to see the interview yet, but it seems obvious to me that the biggest problem is that the financial shows are trying to drive second-by-second profits, riding every stock up and short-selling down, as if making money were the _point_. Supporting business is the point, or so I thought: you _invest_ in a business because you want to see that business succeed, and that takes time — plunking down for a gob of stocks and dumping them 48 hours later isn’t an investment in the company, it’s pure greed. CNBC helps drive that perception of stock-market-as-money-faucet, but they’re hardly alone. Slight hijack, but I want to respond to this. The stock market does not exist with the expectation that it will, or even should, always go up. The public market provides private companies a place for “liquidity events.” That is the point. What does time have anything to with the morality of profit/loss? Is holding for 1 month OK? 6 months? 1 year? 10 years? 30 years? For every transaction there is a willing buyer and willing seller. If I bought a stock that went up 30% in a week, why shouldn’t I be able to sell it to someone who wants to buy? I also disagree that being long a company implies one believes in its long term success. In the same way, being short a company doesn’t imply one believes it will eventually go bankrupt. On topic - Yes, the Cramer slaying was beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/145 "2009-03-13T17:47:53Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Wouldn’t it be funny if Jon Stewart had to go on CNBC now and take responsibility for everything that appears on Comedy Central? When Stewart went on Crossfire, he basically said that lots of Comedy Central shows were crap. Do you think he wouldn’t say the same thing on CNBC? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/146 "2009-03-13T17:53:09Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > **Robot Arm** makes the point that the news media are primarily responsible to their advertisers. Well, to an extent, that’s true; it’s oversimplified, but there’s truth to it. Of course, if you only care about the money, I personally am technically not responsible to anyone but my employer and could tell my wife and family and all my friends to go fuck themselves and never associate with them again and be a shitty father to my kid by just providing her with the minimum amount of financial support the law allows. Legally that’s exactly as lawful as my current policy of doing ym job AND being a good husband, father, friend et al. But are those positions **ethically** equivalent? When I was a kid, the networks looked upon their news as a public service, funded by the profits they made from their entertainment. I’m sure that CBS News wasn’t making a lot of money on its wide network of correspondents. And network news back then mattered. I’ve seen it written that Vietnam was lost when Cronkite gave up on the effort. Food stamps exist today in no small part because CBS News created an expensive documentary on hunger in America. Sometime in the late '60s or early '70s they found that local news shows showing fires, kittens, and things to scare people got better ratings and made more money than those actually covering government and serious issues. That’s when the slide began. Great post, btw. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/147 "2009-03-13T17:57:53Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > There used to be people who investigated things. Now, as we saw on CNBC, they just lap up whatever they’re given by the CEOs. Why do they do this? So that they can maintain access to these CEOs. Why do they want access to these CEOs? So that they can ask them questions that will be anwered by…lies from these CEOs. And I think the point of the clips was to show that Cramer was especially qualified to see through the CEO crap. Stewart actually complimented him on his knowledge. Anyone can do non-challenging interviews and publish press releases, but only fools put trust in the product that results. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/148 "2009-03-13T18:00:40Z")
I know it’s been said before, but it’s troubling that one of the most substantive discussions of what has transpired on Wall Street over the past few years is on a comedy show. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/149 "2009-03-13T18:02:01Z")
Omg. He was almost crying at one point. That interview was blatantly not comedy. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/150 "2009-03-13T18:07:15Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > Omg. He was almost crying at one point. That interview was blatantly not comedy. Part of me wants desperately for Stewart to go into legitimate journalism. I think he’d have a place on any news show if he asked. But then he’d be part of the establishment he’s ridiculed for so long, and as it stands he can probably be more effective where he is now. ---
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/151 "2009-03-13T18:21:10Z")
I’m having a hard time keeping up with this thread, so if I touch on something already mentioned, I apologize. To those saying Jon should have given him more adequate response time. You’re probably right. I just got the sense that, if Crame rhad been given more of an opportunity to speak, it would be dead air, or the same arguments he used multiple times throughout the interveiw. That said, I do have a little bit of respect for Cramer for going through with this. I at least hope CNBC doesn’t use him as a scapegoat. He had the balls to go on. I think he showed a lot of regret, which is the ONLY way he could have handled it without me totally vilifying him. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/152 "2009-03-13T18:31:45Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m curious to see what impact this will have on CNBC’s coverage in general, and Jim Cramer’s show specifically. Will they attempt to be more critical and less fawning in their interviews? (That interview with Allen Stanford was particularly egregious, although they will argue that no one saw his fraud coming.) I want to know if the “In Cramer We Trust” is gone yet. Any CNBC viewers able to comment? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/153 "2009-03-13T18:34:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Well, **Exapno** did say, “everything on Comedy Central,” not “everything on _The Daily Show_.” Which means that Stewart would be called upon to defend > _Mind of Mencia_. Which is a fair comparison, really. If the purpose of Comedy Central is to make people laugh, surely _Mind of Mencia_ is as big a failure on their part as Cramer’s advice on Bear Stearns is on his. And when you look at it, all that happened because of Cramer’s failure is some people lost money. Comedy Central, on the other hand, gave Carlos Mencia a television show. > > Motes and planks, my friend. Motes and planks indeed. I’m sorry, but I do not understand your point. Yes, CC airs _Mind of Mencia_ and it is pure crap. But there are those who find it funny, enough so that it could last for several seasons. And all CC did was say it was funny, not that had any useful purpose or reliable information. Why would Stewart need to defend this? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/154 "2009-03-13T18:36:18Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > I’m sorry, but I do not understand your point. It’s a _joke_, dude. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/155 "2009-03-13T18:37:13Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > I’m sorry, but I do not understand your point. > > Yes, CC airs _Mind of Mencia_ and it is pure crap. > > But there are those who find it funny, enough so that it could last for several seasons. And all CC did was say it was funny, not that had any useful purpose or reliable information. Why would Stewart need to defend this? I think it was more of a joke about how horrible Mencia is. You’re vivisecting a joke. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/156 "2009-03-13T18:39:10Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > I think it was more of a joke about how horrible Mencia is. You’re vivisecting a joke. > > -Joe Plus Jon already makes fun of some of CC’s programing. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/157 "2009-03-13T18:44:45Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > I haven’t had a chance to see the interview yet, but it seems obvious to me that the biggest problem is that the financial shows are trying to drive second-by-second profits, riding every stock up and short-selling down, as if making money were the _point_. Supporting business is the point, or so I thought: you _invest_ in a business because you want to see that business succeed, and that takes time — plunking down for a gob of stocks and dumping them 48 hours later isn’t an investment in the company, it’s pure greed. CNBC helps drive that perception of stock-market-as-money-faucet, but they’re hardly alone. They also have the same problem that the non-financial 24 hour news networks have. Namely the need to fill 24 hour of news which leads to sensationalizing what little news there is. It’s especially hard to do this if your audience are buy-and-hold 401(k) investors. In my office building we have CNBC running on a number of TVs located strategically to make us look high tech professional (and like we know how to buy and mount televisions). When we first started I often found it catching my eye as I walked by because by all accounts a major (financial) catastrophe had just happened. Interestingly, they didn`t seem any more alarmed when actual financial catastrophe struck. It’s like, “OMG OMG 10 out of 10 crazy stars - oil is up $3 in one day!”, and “OMG OMG 10 out of 10 crazy stars - The government isn’t bailing out Lehman and they’re closing down!”. To be fair, they started having 10 little heads on screen at once. But for the most part it’s like there always has to be something REALLY IMPORTANT happening. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/158 "2009-03-13T18:48:55Z")
**Exapno’s** point was a joke, but it was still a point. Jon Stewart, while he acknowledged it was unfair that Jim Cramer had to defend all of CNBC, still expected him to do it. Nobody would expect Jon Stewart to defend all of Comedy Central, nor would he, if history is our guide. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/159 "2009-03-13T18:52:35Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It’s a _joke_, dude. Oops, my bad. :o ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162/160 "2009-03-13T18:55:35Z")
> [@bup](#): > > **Exapno’s** point was a joke, but it was still a point. Jon Stewart, while he acknowledged it was unfair that Jim Cramer had to defend all of CNBC, still expected him to do it. Nobody would expect Jon Stewart to defend all of Comedy Central, nor would he, if history is our guide. During the latest interview, what clips were played of anyone other than Cramer? -Joe [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-i-want-to-see-jon-stewart-say-to-cramer-tonight/489162.md?page=9)