NY Times article - pretty entertaining.
Jim Cramer from CNBC's Mad Money has been showing up on Comedy Central quite a bit lately. I saw him the other night on The Colbert Report, where my hero merely mocked him with images of kittens and puppies flashing behind his bald skull. Jon Stewart took a much more aggressive approach to Cramer and CNBC's coverage of the crashing markets, mostly in being irresponsible, giving poor advice and misinformation, encouraging this current crisis. You can watch the interview at
The Daily Show.
I don't want to comment on the media's manipulation of markets as much as the market's allowance of this manipulation. I've been contemplating writing a counter argument to the women-body image-media claims that bulimia is a product of television, at that sort of body image stuff. I don't entirely buy it, won't get into it now. However, I do think that that the mainstream media does its best to attempt to fill the public's heads with misinformation. Fine. That's the role of the media, sell ideas, sell airtime, sell, sell, sell. What fascinates me though, is that the public goes for it.
In this case, it was important that CNBC should have acted as a mouthpiece for the "market" in favor of the viewers, which it didn't do. I can't agree with Stewart more. Stewart mentions that CNBC doesn't have to be a watchdog for the industry, but the message is that it should uphold a level of integrity and accountability, not tricking viewers into bad financial decisions, etc.
What is terribly tragic that that Jon freaking Stewart, host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show is the most high-profile character acting as a media watchdog. Comedy Central. The media should have the viewership's best interest in mind, especially in this case, where such large sums of money are at stake.
It's no surprise that cable television or any media, for that matter, cannot be trusted. I think that anyone who encounters any periodical and believes entirely what they are reading or watching or hearing is a sad, mindless creature. Please, if you are one of them, take what I said personally, it's not "not about you" it is about you. You are the one who decides to believe or not. If you are bright and questioning, you will understand that even NPR is wrong sometimes.
A little more than six years back, I was a very active anti-war, or peace, activist. Although I grew up in an environment that fostered creative thinking, and I always knew about liberal media to a certain extent, I think that my experience with the anti-war movement, as anorexic as it was locally, really pulled into perspective for me the level of false information out there. The "movement" in Miami was me and a handful of older, brilliant gentleman crusaders. There were other groups around town, but ours was the most inclusive and planned the biggest rallies by the Freedom Tower. The network of these people helped give solid reference and facts to support my paranoid, but correct instincts. However, I didn't need a network of well informed individuals to hint that maybe the TV wasn't telling the truth all the time.
I have seen people's perspectives broaden since we invaded Iraq. More young people have gotten involved. What horrifies me is that they weren't involved before, when it fucking mattered. Before we killed almost 100,000 Iraqis. Before they reelected Bush. Now we're all in the shitter economically, and I feel like you all deserve it, but I don't. I just can't imagine feeling any pity for the Americans who can't even think creatively enough to reject whatever the media spews at them. I mean, if you don't understand the stock market/big business/big brother, make some smart friends whom you can trust. If you can't trust anyone, move to a remote farm and don't invest. People, think and then act after you've thought.
