My immediate reaction is that the whole experience hurt to watch. It would be great if someone could explain to me why Jim Cramer did not stay home.
Jon Stewart in brief: people like Jim Cramer sell stock trading as a clever game, knowing full well that small investors like his viewers will get creamed if they follow his manic trade-every-day advice. His network works like a cheap PR firm for the major criminals of the mortgage investment bubble and bears all the more guilt because most people in it saw through the happy bullshit they sold to the rubes.
Cramer responds: Every time I met one of my good friend CEOs he told me everything was fine! Now that a truck-squashed rattlesnake can tell who the criminals are I make useless noises of disapproval on my show. What else could I do?
Cramer must follow some obscure school of rhetoric where that even counts as a response. Want to know if a firm is in trouble? Interview the CEO! There’s no way that the down to earth guy who the board would f*cking lynch if he told the press anything other than happy nonsense would lie to you.
By the way, Cramer’s pathetic performance emphasizes an important weakness of celebrity journalism. It is not a coincidence that CNBC reporters do crappy journalism and worship access to the top names. If Jim Cramer did his job as a journalist then celebrixecutivess like Vikram Pandit would stop talking to him. Believe it or not this explains a shocking range of journalism’s symptoms. Why do reporters grant anonymity to the most inane and innocuous statements? Why does lying to reporters never seem to have a consequence? Why Judith Miller?
The answer is that reporters want important people to keep taking their calls. For a reason that escapes me, people who are paid to understand politics all seem to think that “access” to people with a PR staff will get them some special insight when the only difference between speaking to them anonymously and asking their spokesperson is that the person can lie and most people will never know. Naturally the public would know if you called him on it, but then he wouldn’t take your calls. Catch 22!
Somewhere on the internets (late. lazy.) there is a passage where Seymour Hersh explains his strategy for breaking original stories. First he gets to know ordinary people who work in insteresting places. Occasionally one of them passes on something interesting. He calls other ordinary people to follow it up. After a while he has a complete story and calls the important people involved, but surprisingly they often don’t want to talk to him. In the end Hersh and journalists like him (off the top of my head, Murray Waas, Charlie Savage, Scott Horton and a few others) don’t get to pass on gossipy baloney directly from the source. Instead they have to settle for a real story and an on-the-record semi-non-denial from someone’s spokesman.
I can see how that would sound crazy and disingenuous to Cramer and the guys at CNBC.
***Update***
See the whole interview here.
DougJ
This may be an example of that kind of racism we don’t know is racism that Althouse talks about, but I’ve always though that Vikram Pandit sounded like the name of an Indian porn star.
BDeevDad
Cramer got destroyed. One can only hope this does to CNBC what Stewart did to cross-fire.
Nicole
I just can’t believe the only person willing to hold an interviewee’s feet to the fire is a comedian. I turned on CNN at the gym and was once again astounded at what utter, useless tools actual "news" commentators are. It will be a sad, sad day when Stewart leaves TDS. May it not happen for a long time, please.
And Colbert also. That interview with the Wyoming rep was awesome.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
That felt more like catch and release at the end, though. Or maybe that was Stewart applying a bandaid to a spurting arterial wound.
b-psycho
I swear, at times it looked and sounded like Cramer was about to cry.
John Cole
I saw a video once, I think it was at live leak (someone sent it to me when the wingnuts were pushing the no one hurt a dog nonsense in the Beauchamp day), where some soldiers had run over a dog, and it was dragging it’s mangled back legs and yowling in pain. That is what Cramer looked like during the show, and I felt as bad for him as I did the dog.
Unlike the soldiers, though, who I was cursing, I was cheering Stewart.
William
Hersch has said that he got his best tips by reading office newsletter to find out when the middle managers retired. Offer to buy them some drinks after they’ve been sitting around for a couple weeks and they’d tell you anything.
Knight-Ridder used the Hersch method to accurately report on the Iraq war. That’s why they were one of the few who got it right.
This is a great article on the death of basic cop reporting by David Simon. From this, the stories of Walter Pincus getting laughed at for reading "dull" government documents and other like tales, it makes sense why our media is so screwed.
Corporatization and cutbacks have destroyed the institutional knowledge of basic reporting techniques. No one is doing the job because the culture that taught the job has died.
bootlegger
Cramer seemed to have never actually thought of any of this before, like Stewart was revealing to him for the first time Cramer’s complicity-by-obsequiousness.
Glenzilla likes to push this point too and he’s convinced me that "access" is the single greatest cause of the fall of modern journalism.
gex
@William: Jon’s doing his part. He suggested to Cramer that after interviewing the CEO he should, you know, check out his story. Baby steps.
mvr
The analysis here is the takeaway. This isn’t about Cramer so much as about a dynamic that makes Cramers more common or perhaps even dominant. When what we need are the Hershes,Waases and Savages. (And don’t blame me too much for not knowing how to turn these names into plural nouns.)
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Thanks for the Simon article, William. I love that guy.
Keith
That reminds me of a quote from someone (can’t recall the name) when asked why their network constantly puts Gloria Allred on the air, given that she is an obvious publicity hound & embodiment of "ambulance chaser". The answer? "She returns our calls."
srv
Yossarian Lives.
William
The irony of Stewart and other Hollywood celebrity commentators like Maher is that they are really the only people in the country who have both regular, guaranteed access to the media and the willingness to point out the bullshit. They’re famous and wealthy enough not to be overawed or intimidated by politicians and executives and too prominent to be suddenly "disappeared" from the TV screen by the media for being too honest.
D. Mason
I read this the other day based on a link provided in the comments here and thought it deserved re-posting. Having no point of reference it seems tin-foil hatty but then again Bush’s reign made conspiracy theories more credible.
Jim Cramer is a Complicated Man.
Jay in Oregon
As much as it pains me to say it, when I was a communication major in college this was something I actually bought into for a short time. There was never any kind of explicit message taught of "you have to kiss the ass of the wealthy and powerful in order to gain access"; it was my own lapse in judgment. Now it pains me to see what that journalistic "ethic" has done to this country.
As luck would have it, I never got to inflict any damage as a journalist of this stripe; I couldn’t find a job out of college and drifted around until I got into IT work, my real love.
gex
@John Cole: God, that description of what they did to that dog just made my chest tighten with pain. My God, I don’t know how people can do these things.
OTOH, I quite enjoyed watching Stewart eviscerate Cramer and CNBC. Of course, Cramer will live.
[delurk]...[/delurk]
I don’t see this blog on your sidebar, so may I suggest you check out http://www.deepcapture.com/
They’ve been quoting chapter and verse on Cramer’s crimes for literally years
TenguPhule
Some shriveled remment of his soul felt that he needed to suffer punishment for his sins?
Brian Griffin
meh. Hersh’s method sounds like too much work.
Louise
Just checking in on John, in light of the Pitt loss. Kansas got smacked, too, so I guess there will be some additional interest in the tournament seedings…
I decided I couldn’t watch the Stewart takedown of Cramer. It’s just too painful to watch someone that stupid get taken apart, knowing that — even after being completely exposed — the stupid guy will make more in a week as a teevee personality than I’ll see in the rest of my life.
clone12
Full disclosure: I worked for Citi so take this with whatever grain of salt you feel necessary.
Vikram Pandit is not the big culprit. Small culprit perhaps, but by the time he was brought on board in late 2007 after Chuck Prince was ousted the die had been cast. all those CDOs have already been on the books. You can fault him for not fighting the fire well enough but he wasn’t the arsonist who poured gasoline on the house.
bootlegger
@TenguPhule: It did seem like he was agonizing and just waiting for a chance to come out and confess publicly to someone. Now, that could also be a slick media guy trying to weasel out, but maybe, just maybe, his shriveled soul wanted to seek a more enlightened path.
jwb
@William
Actually, it’s their humor that gives them the power—not their celebrity or wealth (in the league they are playing in, that’s miniscule). That’s their difference from someone like Cramer—who has to depend on shilling for da boss guys because he can’t bring in the eyeballs any other way.
bootlegger
@Louise: OT, but is there a BJ ncaa tournament pool? I’ll put one together if anyone is interested.
owlies
my favorite part of the exchange was when Cramer said "we have to fill 17 hours of air time." Jon countered with the obvious: "do you have to??!!".
Did it never occur to anyone that maybe this, right here, is the problem? Why do we even need an entire channel for financial news? Or 24 hours of shows on home makeovers? I know more shows=more advertising space, but I tell ya, TV is a dying industry, just like newspapers. Too much ad space and too many talking heads filling up time until the next commercial means that it’s is nothing but a consumption box. Eventually the whole thing won’t be worth owning anymore. I refuse to pay for cable and Sling it from a friend who does. I watch Hulu, netflix, or torrent a show if i miss it. I havent seen a "television commercial" in months.
What I dont understand is, why not just have Honda employees and stockholders become the new news anchors! Get rid of our current opinionocracy and just let the corporate world sell their products 365 days a year without any interference from pesky "journalism"
mr. whipple
My theory is that cnbc is seriously spooked by tds taking them on. They felt compelled at first to ‘fight back’, thinking that JS would back off…and he didn’t, and it actually inflamed more negative publicity.
So they pushed cramer out there to act all contrite and innocent and shit and take his whipping like the good little corporate stooge he is.
Now TDS can move on and in a week or so it’ll be forgotten.
Geeno
Gex – It’s not that hard to understand really. People in a chaotic (especially where fear and anger are involved) situation will act on impulse often. Impulses are often malign. It sounds awful to say, but it really IS human nature to have episodic breakdowns like that. With 150k soldiers over there, I’d be surprised if it hadn’t happened at least a few times.
Singular actions of particular individuals shouldn’t be interpreted too broadly.
Martin
Which is why so few journalists do it. It takes Hersh months and sometimes years to bring some stories out. The other guys get the story handed to them in hours. It’s just laziness/chasing the quick buck.
And Cramer isn’t putting up a real fight here based on what I’ve seen of him on the other shows (TDS is still an hour off). I think he actually likes Stewart and his audience and I can’t imagine he likes being the poster child for fucked oversight of the economy. Not that he doesn’t deserve it (and a lot of others should be put in that pile), but I don’t think he’s quite that hollow a person to not appreciate the point that Stewart is making. Kudlow probably is though. Would like to see him cut off at the knees as well – probably moreso.
Graham
Didn’t this whole thing start with Stewart’s reaction to that weasel Santelli? At least you have to give Cramer some credit for stepping up to defend his crew of commercial cutthroats at CNBC, however pathetically.
Where’s Santelli in all this?
Doctor Cleveland
Why didn’t Cramer stay home?
Because he’s in denial. Or, to put it less sympathetically: the man is a prisoner of his own bullshit.
Cramer’s career must be on some level consciously cynical, since it is a colossal scam. But most people can’t keep such a scam going without lying to themselves at least part of the time. And once they’ve drunk their own Kool-Aid, they can’t respond appropriately when their scam is exposed.
Cramer has seemed motivated over the last weeks by the insane idea that he could somehow push back at Stewart (as if the things Stewart said were not entirely and transparently true). He’s in a space where he actually believes he can keep the merry-go-round spinning if he somehow refutes Stewart, and worse still believes that somehow he could refute Stewart. Now he’s settled for making nice with Stewart hoping that things will die down.
Tonight was another stage of grief. It’s called "bargaining."
Martin
Home swimming in his gold coin vault like Scrooge McDuck.
sgwhiteinfla
I don’t know. Jon Stewart made a pretty persuasive case that Cramer had actually committed crimes as a hedge fund trader. Or rather he provided the clips to make the case. It will be interesting to see if there is any follow up to that because it appeared to make Cramer very very nervous. I can’t wait to see if Morning Joe even mentions it in the morning after Scarborough had all of that snide shit to say about Jon Stewart the other day. He hasn’t conducted that kind of interview a day in his life and you couldn’t pay that coward to go on TDS. But I will be watching to see all the same.
William
The humor helps, but I think there’s more to it than that. These people are famous and come from an industry where people value their talent – in real terms or simply in terms of getting people to buy their shit. They have their own league and it pays more than well enough and makes them more than famous enough that they can stand eye to eye with any random billionaire or national politician.
Few journalists would have the balls to that. And they are not entirely wrong to feel that way. Compare the fate of the Dixie Chicks and Gary Webb.
Curt
Here’s my take on the exchange, in comic book pictures.
patrick
I had to stop watching after awhile. I have the sense that Cramer is a very conflicted guy — hiding from himself the broader implications of what he does, but some part of him knows. I do not think he is stupid — but he is stifled, and the part that is to painful for him to think about stops him from being as smart as he might be.
I am reminded of Scott McClellan who always seemed way to dumb and inarticulate to be press secretary. But after he left office and started being honest with himself and the rest of us his IQ during interviews seemed to jump about 20 points.
I sense a similar potential in Cramer — whether he follows through or not I cannot know. But I will give him points for coming on and facing Stewart — he showed more courage than any other his cohorts in self-denial at csnbc, particularly Santelli who started this whole thing and backed out of coming on the show. Having said that, Cramer still has been a terrible person, costing his listeners money that was important to them but a game to him.
One more word, and not the first time I have written this. Stewart is the most brilliant interviewer on television, bar none. He is smart enough to know a lot of topics in depth, he is calm, asks incisive questions, actually listens to the answers, and follows up brilliantly. They should use this interview tonight in journalism courses to show how interviews should be done.
sgwhiteinfla
BTW there seems to be 8 more minutes of video not shown tonight that will be on the TDS website tomorrow. I am going to be camped out waiting for them to put it up!
Joshua Norton
Probably not. MSNBC was started to promote the dot com era with all kinds of techy shows and "buy this IPO now" advice. The era went bust, but the network manages to stay on life support.
wilfred
1) You can’t get conned if you’re not greedy
2) In the breast of every proletarian lies the heart of a bourgeosie
3) A fool and his money…
4) Caveat emptor
5) A penny saved is a penny earned
Et cetera. Common sense folk wisdom was always the best defense against Hermes, The Trickster, et al.. the enemies of common people and, correspondingly, the human soul.
The final success of capitalism was the creation and subsequent elevation of Homo Economicus – the perfectly rational creature for whom the getting of wealth is the ne plus ultra of materialist philosophy, money being the realm of the purely abstract/rational.
But now they don’t look so smart, do they?
maddie
No, it’s actually worse than this. Many DC reporters depend on their sources/contacts to feed them stories. Any good communications office of PR firm in DC has a network of reporters they work with. These offices or firms push stories into the media: "Here is a controversy that is bubbling up. Here are the two sides of the story. Here are the four people you should get quotes from. And, oh by the way, here is the real "truth" of the issue."
And inevitably, the final spin of the story is exactly the "truth" that the original source wanted reported.
It’s an unbelievable process to watch. I can’t imagine that NY-based financial reporting is much different from DC-based polical reporting in this regard.
MikeJ
Maher himself almost got disappeared. If not for HBO he’d be at Giggles in Albany next Tuesday night.
Joshua Norton
Probably not. MSNBC was started to promote the dot com era with all kinds of techy shows, gee-whiz hardware and "buy this IPO now" advice. The era went bust, but the network manages to stay on life support.
Jinchi
Remember, the press thinks Judith Miller is a hero who fought for journalistic principles (protecting the right of the very powerful to destroy the lives of the little people).
They don’t see her as a hack mouthpiece for the Bush administration.
mr. whipple
Agreed. Hopefully someone in congress or the SEC takes note.
But I’m not holding my breath, and don’t think Cramer has much of a soul or conscience to redeem. It’s all just part of what they do at their jobs.
Today I saw a clip on MSNBC…some reporter dude from the financial times, I think. Anyway, the anchor asked him if any of these CEO’s understands why the public is infuriated with them. And he said that these ceo’s just can not comprehend why people could be angry. I guess it’s just like those auto execs that flew to DC in their private jets to get their bailout money, not realizing the optics of it.
Hard to believe that these folks can be that clueless, but there it is.
Joshua Norton
Probably not. Nobody recalls now, but MSNBC was started to promote the dot com era with all kinds of techy shows, gee-whiz hardware and "buy this IPO now" advice. The era went bust, but the network manages to stay on life support.
YellowJournalism
I lost any passion I had for journalism when I was put on a beat for my university newspaper and the main contact started treating me like I was his own personal PR secretary. When I complained to the advisors about it, I was pretty much given the choice of kissing the guy’s ass or leaving the beat. I hung on for a little while, but my heart wasn’t in it and my work suffered from it, so I ended up quitting. I finished my degree, but I was a shitty excuse for a journalist by the end, only doing the bare minimum of what I had to because I’d already put too many years into it to just walk away.
Seeing the current state of journalism, I’m very glad I didn’t ultimately choose that career path.
patrick
If Stewart did this to Cramer, just think of what he would have done to Santelli, who pissed him off in the first place, if Santelli had actually showed up when scheduled.
Just Some Fuckhead
There were several times I thought Jim Cramer was going to cry. But I never felt any sympathy for him. He was pretty early-on revealed as a current liar when he pretended his damning videotape was him advising against doing those manipulative underhanded trading shenanigans which Stewart followed up by further videotape with Cramer saying essentially, "Do it, do what I did.." Cramer was must really be stupid or he was doing so much cocaine back then he really didn’t know the stupid shit he said on tape.
We are in freefall as a society when a fucking comedy channel is the only place we can get hard news.
Martin
I agree. He isn’t worried about pissing the other guy off and having them not come back. Hell, look at how Letterman treated McCain, and McCain came back. Besides, he probably figures there’s no shortage of people to rake over.
What’s most impressive about Stewart is that he often doesn’t let them get away with bullshit answers. Sometimes he does, but he’s better than most at calling them on their shit right then and there.
AnneLaurie
Dude! John Stewart — Daily Show — new eyeballs — ACCESS!eleventy-one!!
Asking why Jim Cramer showed up, knowing he’d be eviserated, is like asking why a throat-cancer victim keeps smoking through the hole in their trachea. He’s a junkie, is why — an attention junkie. Earning indecent sums of money hasn’t slacked his primal urges, and the (increasingly real, in the current climate) threat of self-exposure and subsequent lose of those indecent sums can’t keep him from compulsively detailing his past crimes.
patrick
Speaking of McCain, who would you rather piss off — Letterman or Stewart?
NYT
Cramer wrote this on Feb 29 2000. On the very eve of the Tech implosion
http://www.thestreet.com/story/891820/the-winners-of-the-new-world.html
SLKRR
@Nicole:
Depends on who replaces him eventually. I remember that when he joined, I was thinking, "Meh – Stewart’s OK, I guess, but he’ll never be as good as Craig Kilborn."
Yeah, I was a dumbass.
reality-based
So I was cheering for Stewart, too – –
but it was uncomfortable as hell to watch.
Actually, I felt sorrier for Stewart than I did for Cramer. For a civilized and humane man, it is an awkward and embarassing thing to have to do – to call someone a criminal and a fool, to his face, repeatedly.
And Stewart – to be faithful to the truth, and honest – had to do it.
Here’s the thing (for me, anyway. ) Stewart cared more about truth than about his own comfort.
and if anybody in the "REAL" news business had done their damn job and asked these questions –
Jon wouldn’t have had to.
Thank God he did, though.
(and I also think that Cramer is VERY worried about the tapes Jon showed. I’m sure his lawyer’s phones are busy tonight. )
Different Drum
Given Kramer’s appearance on Stewart’s show (Jon, not Martha), yes, CNBC should now be shamed into responsible financial journalism (though of course they won’t be). But what of MSNBC, where he appeared on "Morning Joe," and was whined and dined. What of the "serious" journalists at the "Today Show" where he was subjected to a "hard-hitting" interview by the "serious" journalist Matt Lauer?
Are they ashamed it took a comedian slotted into Comedy Central’s late night answer to Conan/Letterman to do their job and actually ask pointed questions, and call him out? Will they change their ways?
Why is Comedy Central’s 11-12 p.m. time slot easily the best hour of political broadcast journalism currently practiced in America?
Tonight’s epic Daily Show smackdown was not just an indictment of CNBC, it was a flamethrower of reality taken to an entire phony industry.
Martin
The tape is almost 2 years old and was reported on at the time. Yeah, Cramer did what he said in the interview, but nobody cared. I still doubt that they care.
Curt
@reality-based: Wow, do you ever nail it! I physically cringed, as I sensed Jon did internally, from the points he had to make and the questions he had to ask. How ridiculous is it that a comedian is the only kind of interviewer professional enough to have tape ready to roll when the subject spouts objectively refutable bullshit? Stewart obviously took no pleasure calling for the cued-up segments to roll, but he was a motherfucking journalist and did it anyway.
reality-based
yeah, I know they are old tapes –
and nobody cared when they first came out –
but it’s two years later, there’s a new sheriff in town, I hear they’ve let the contracts for some new tumbrels (My mixed metaphor for the night) –
I still think it’s a dangerous time for these tapes to be re-aired.
Though lord knows, there are bigger fish to fry than Cramer.
OK, Madame DeFarge is all out of hackneyed metaphors now. Back to my knitting.
Mnemosyne
I think a lot of the establishment is getting spooked by the fact that the proles are pissed off and the things that usually soothe them aren’t working. The Villagers are all atwitter that Obama has 60 percent approval but they don’t know anyone who likes what he’s done.
They had Roosevelt to save their asses from rioters last time. We’ll see if they’re smart enough to go along with Obama or if they really think that people will take what they dish out indefinitely.
r€nato
I disagree. I do not think Mad Money will be airing three months from now. CNBC itself may be in for a makeover as well.
Add another notch to Stewart’s belt.
I agree. I am absolutely certain the SEC will be opening an investigation, if for no other reason than appearance’s sake.
(the really retarded thing is that those clips were pulled from thestreet.com… they weren’t exactly discovered on a VHS tape in a dumpster somewhere)
r€nato
Either he was made to go by the suits at CNBC, or he was sufficiently full of hubris that he thought he could stand toe-to-toe with Stewart.
I’ll give Cramer a measure of credit; he did not bitch and moan about ‘gotcha’ questions, he did not throw a tantrum. One of those blowhards like O’Reilly most certainly would have done so. Cramer sat there and took it like a man.
And I predict within three months he’ll be unemployed.
r€nato
Those of you over 40 may remember when 60 Minutes used to specialize in those ‘gotcha’ segments. They ditched those years ago and now the show, while still brilliant, has gone a bit soft and does way too many of those fawning personality profiles.
Jon Stewart’s interview of Jim Cramer absolutely was on a par with the best work of 60 Minutes.
…holy shit, Simon Johnson on Colbert. Why is it that two comedians on basic cable are pulling so much of the weight for our so-called journalists?
libarbarian
Just watched it on repeat.
Cramer clearly feels bad. He reminds me of myself circa 2004-2005 trying to explain to people why I had supported Bush and the Iraq war back in ’03. He could have tried to play the "Hey, I’m just offering my opinion. I’m an entertainer. It’s people’s responsibility to do their own homework. Not my fault." defense, but he isn’t even trying for it.
JenJen
After watching it, I couldn’t help but immediately think, "First, Cramer should fire his publicist for booking him on this show."
Stewart was like an alpha male using a whimpering, peeping mouse as a chew toy. It was something I’ve been waiting a long time to see, one of these CNBC-types get their comeuppance, but at the same time I was just squirming for the guy.
Again, who the hell advised Cramer that not only would it be a good idea to go on Scarborough and bash Jon Stewart with the Morning Zoo Crew, but it would also be a good idea to go on Jon Stewart’s actual show to be interviewed by Jon Stewart?
The mind boggles. Just goes to show something we all suspected for years: These people aren’t very smart. At all.
Gebghis
And Rushbo wants to debate the President. Maybe he could do a warmup on TDS.
Best…H
r€nato
I think Cramer would have gotten off easier if he’d just let the Bernie Madoff victims take out their anger on him by hanging him from the nearest lightpole.
JenJen
@r€nato: Actually, I thought of "60 Minutes" when Cramer said something to the effect of, even if you suspect the CEO of Bear Sterns just lied to you, you can’t go on television to report that.
I said to myself, "Old-school Mike Wallace would’ve gone on TV and reported that shit."
paul in kirkland
Watching this now.
Did anyone notice the throwaway comment by Cramer, that Nocera, the business/finance reporter from The New York Times, called him and asked him if he should apologize to him (Cramer) for hammering him on TDS last week?
The incestuousness is out of control.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
Stewart is damned good. Cramer is just an ass. But Cramer is not really the problem, he’s just a paid performer.
The real problem is the giant media consortium that runs a whorehouse called CNBC and calls it "financial news and information."
It’s a whorehouse, plain and simple.
"There’s a market for it" is true enough, but it’s not a defense. It’s not even a good excuse. Selling feces and calling it Shine-Ola is not an admirable business practice. It’s fraud.
NBC needs to stand back and say, we have maybe 2 real journalists in this shit factory, one is a former sportscaster, and one is a bright woman who came over from talk radio. Everybody else who works for NBC seems to be a fake. And it took a comedian on another network to get to the truth of it. Whassup with that?
Indylib
@r€nato:
The comedians do good journalism and the journalists do really, really, really bad comedy.
paul in kirkland
This is really painful to watch. Stewart seems genuinely upset.
David Wonk
I’ve been a minor league policy wonk for 25 years. I’ve seen many a political smackdown of unequal opponents. But, I’ve ever witnessed such a total and complete massacre! This was Foreman/Frasier, with more knockdowns.
Obviously, Cramer was on the wrong side of the debate on its merits. But, his total lack of argumentation skills was stunning. How could any journalist, even a "journalist," be this incapable of handling himself. Hell, I was better at defending the undefensible as a high school debater.
Digby is right. The MSM must Darwiningly select for idiots.
mannemalon
@patrick:
I agree. In some way, I believe that had it been Santelli in that chair rather than Cramer, the interview would’ve played out quite a bit differently. Santelli would’ve yelled and fought back, because he is a true believer and not wise enough to see the err in his world view. Cramer on the other hand, I believe knows deep down that everything Stewart was saying was right, and he couldn’t really disagree, despite being directly implicated. I believe he’s a very torn man and Stewart completely ripped the band aid off.
r€nato
Speaking as someone old enough (but not THAT old!) to remember TV and TV news from the days when there were just three networks…
…this is the inevitable result of 25+ years of TV news being expected to generate profits and pull in high ratings and of course the insidious infiltration of ‘infotainment’ into ‘the news’.
r€nato
Maybe he does. Maybe not.
What will he do tomorrow on his show? Will he go on with his ridiculous shtick, as if nothing happened?
If so, then his ‘feeling bad’ doesn’t mean shit. "Feeling badly" doesn’t mean bollocks if the behavior doesn’t change.
Martin
Cramer had to go on, by the way. It’s the only way to defuse someone like Stewart. Otherwise Stewart would use him as a running joke for the next 5 years.
mannemalon
@Martin: Shit, after tonight, I’d take 5 years of off-and-on clowning than what he ate tonight.
Lets just say that Santelli is taking a shot as we speak to his decision to back out last week.
Stewart may have literally ended this guy’s career tonight.
r€nato
that may have been preferable to the consequences of that mano-a-mano and those damning thestreet.com video clips.
But really, this battle was decided the moment those idiots at CNBC idiotically went for the bait last week. If they had ignored Stewart’s first jabs at them, that likely would have been more or less the end of it.
r€nato
A lot of people who have 401(k)’s and IRAs are genuinely upset these days, if you’re lucky you’ve only lost 50% like most everyone else and the market in general. That alone has converted no less than 3 hard-core Republicans I know of, into swearing off the GOP and voting for Democrats for the immediate future.
If you have a retirement account, you might try looking at a statement from last August and then your most recent statement. I think that will help you get past the ‘pain’ of watching Cramer rightfully have his ass handed to him. It’s a pity Santelli, Bartiromo and the rest of those cheerleading hacks won’t get the same treatment.
Crusty Dem
John Cole:
Your sympathy is misplaced. I’ll feel bad for Cramer when I feel sorry for Madoff, which is never. Both were wealthy men who cheated or lied or acted horribly to become famous, wealthier men. The stuff from deepcapture.com linked above, combined with the 2006 interviews (including the clips used by Stewart) are absolutely damning. Cramer not only admits to manipulating stock prices, he details which ones he would do now and how. And remember, Cramer runs a show devoted to picking stocks when his entire career is built on short-term manipulation of the market! Does anyone think he wasn’t making money off his position, either directly or indirectly? After all the evidence of market manipulation, CNBC gives him a freaking forum to do it again!
I am fed up with smart men and women utilizing a lack of ethics to become rich and famous (I’m talking about Cramer here, not Madoff, who went well beyond a lack of ethics into a planned criminal enterprise). I’ve seen it in Government, Journalism, Business, Science, everywhere. It’s the great plague of our time and there’s no cure because there is no penalty. Lack of ethics + Success = International Acclaim, Fame and Fortune. The baseball players who used steroids suffer more than these assholes. Cramer fucking brags about cheating, and now he’s contrite and we’re supposed to feel bad? I’ll just recycle Stewart’s quote for Cramer from last week, "Fuck You!".
Comrade Luke
@r€nato:
I certainly don’t feel sorry for Cramer. I’m recently retired myself, and even though my investment philosophy has been very conservative I still took a big hit.
I meant it more like it’s painful to watch someone really bad as karaoke, or American Idol. I’ve never been able to watch that show because I’m so embarrassed for the people who are making fools of themselves. They’ve put themselves in that position knowingly, just like Cramer, but it’s still uncomfortable to watch it unfold.
r€nato
Cramer vs. Cramer
Clip 208, 12/22/06
"A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund and I was positioned short meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures. It doesn’t take much money."
3/12/09
"I wasn’t saying I did it, I was trying to expose what other people do!"
Clip 210, 12/22/06
"I would encourage anyone who’s in the hedge fund to do it, because it’s legal, and um, it’s a very quick way to make money and very satisfying. By the way no one else in the world would ever admit that but I don’t care. I’m not going to say it on TV."
3/12/09
"uhhh…"
Clip 212, 12/22/06
"Now you can’t ferment, that’s a violation of, you can’t foment, you can’t create a, yourself an impression that a stock’s down but you do it anyway because the SEC doesn’t understand it so I mean, that’s the only sense that I would say it’s illegal."
3/12/09
[Cramer slumps his shoulders; wears “oh god I’m fucked” expression]
Clip 216, 12/22/06
Interviewer: "Another stock that a lot of people are focused on right now seems to be Apple…"
Cramer: "Yeah Apple’s very important to spread the rumor that both Verizon and ATT have decided they don’t like the phone. It’s a very easy one to do, because it’s also you want to spread the rumor it’s not going to be ready for MacWorld. And this is very easy ’cause the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that it’s credible because you spoke to someone at Apple ’cause Apple isn’t, doesn’t…"
Interviewer: "They’re not going to comment."
===========
(as someone with a position in AAPL since it cost $9.50 a share pre-split… I really want to kick Cramer in the nads repeatedly for that one)
Martin
BTW, I follow Apple closely, and Cramer actually did screw the stock in late 06 with a rumor on his show. It hadn’t shown up anywhere prior to his show, so I think he made it up. Stock ran up 15-20% in about 3 weeks in Oct-Nov and near the peak he mentioned a rumor of a product delay on his show and the stock retreated back for about a week, the rumor appeared to get refuted by other sources and then it ran back up about 10% above its previous high.
I made some decent money on that move, bought in the next day or the day after I saw him push the rumor when the stock had bottomed on the rumor (which I was almost positive was false) and took the benefit of the runup. I think that was the trade that got me my last car, actually.
That interview showed up about a month or so later. And he’s absolutely right on the stock – it’s a perfect stock to manipulate. The company generally won’t comment on rumors (there’s always a zillion rumors) and the rumors actually do move the stock pretty well. Apple releases product on a predictable schedule which fuels the rumors which Cramer fed directly into. If you do your homework, you can pick through all the info and ride the stock both up and down pretty safely.
(And I too am still holding a few thousand shares at a split-adjusted $3.25)
Zuzu's Petals
Aaaand….the full interview’s up here. In three parts.
bago
Cramer may be a balls to the wall thief, but he put them on the line with this interview. Made Santelli look like a sniveling pussy.
Watch the full interview uncensored.
Napoleon
I forget where I read this in the last few days but for what it is worth it said that in college Cramer was a full blow Communist.
@Martin:
LOL – I love this blog.
Bert
The uncensored full interview with Jim Cramer on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:
– part 1 : http://bit.ly/wNH3Q
– part 2 : http://bit.ly/1NR5zi
– part 3 : http://bit.ly/141LVD
Brilliant.
Anastasius
I also don’t get why he actually made that appearance.
If you saw him on Martha Stewart’s show today he was already extremely whiny, apologetic and trying real hard to suck up. He knew he was screwed and tried to be some kind of adorable screw up or something.
And then Jon just rolled over him. His few attempts to defend himself were laughable and he was reduced to nodding and agreeing to everything.
Better to keep your mouth shut instead of doing this and confirming what a scumbag tool you are.
bago
The 401k bit involving a grandmother might even affect people like my mom. Listens to Rush 3 hours a day and might explain a portion of my self loathing, but even she knows what is up when the last 20 years of her retirement goes into some CEO’s fuel tank.
Patrick
In February, 651,000 Americans lost their jobs. Why wasn’t Jim Cramer one of them?
kommrade reproductive vigor
kay
I wouldn’t pick stocks individually because I don’t have as much information as the big guys, and I think that sets up an uneven playing field. I don’t think you can both have a job and collect information required to pick stocks individually. It is a job, all by itself. If I did the stock-picking second job properly, I couldn’t do my real job, and then I wouldn’t have any money to buy stock.
Cramer pissed me off because he unfairly portrayed Obama as a trickster. It’s simply not true. If Jim Cramer makes more than 250k and voted for Obama and did not know that Obama promised to let the Bush tax cuts expire, I certainly would not take his advice on money. He’s a very poor listener. You can slam Obama for a lot, but Obama ran on what he’s proposing. To claim otherwise makes Cramer an idiot or a liar. I pick "liar", and then I have to wonder what his agenda is, and who he’s really working for.
camchuck
By nature, comedians have balls and thick skin. This enables them to speak truth to power. Its a sad state of affairs when crooks face more accountability on TDS and The View than the evening news.
TR
Jesus, that interview was a thing of beauty.
A Mom Anon
Here’s what I want to know:
Why are the Wall Street traders allowed to have the teevees turned to the freaking bidness channels during the work day? These channels seem to be nothing more than yet another way to manipulate the system,they sure as hell aren’t there to help people make wise choices. Why,whatever did people do before the advent of 24 hour cable?
If Cramer was doing this shit,then I seriously doubt that no one else on these damned channels isn’t doing the same fucking crap. There’s no need at all for CNBC,FBNC,Bloomberg to even exist except as a scam.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Oh and Tim, while your title is accurate, it was really "Stewart on Cramer (like white on rice)."
chrome agnomen
the daily show is constantly shortchanged by its classification as comedy, as stewart himself is by the notation of comedian. he is actually a newsman, or journalist, in a very real sense, who, like many of us, keeps his sanity, the charles whitman inside of us all, at bay by the use of humor.
it also provides a bit of cover for people like cramer, who can point out that, after all, TDS IS just a comedy show, not to be taken too seriously by the serious people. you know, the ones who fucked everything up.
gex
@Geeno: Oh, I know. I specifically refrained from making any aspersions on our military personnel.
I know that just to get our soldiers to fight effectively in wars, we use knowledge of psychology to make them see the other side as less human. And I know that in the chaos of war ugly situations and impulses can arise.
It’s just that the image John’s description conjured up caused physical pain for me. And I am concerned as our threshhold for recruits seems to be getting closer and closer to the sociopath line.
gex
@Martin: This whole financial episode should have Americans calling for heads at the SEC. It’s not like they weren’t repeatedly told about Madoff but then refused to do anything about it. That they didn’t respond to this video when it originally aired, with Cramer talking about how hedge fund managers can illegally manipulate the market and calling out the SECs inability to do anything about it, is all the evidence I need to know they were in cahoots. The SEC is, after all, the institution that waived the capital requirements for the big 5 that allowed them to go to 30:1 or worse.
gil mann
Didn’t he make an offhanded remark about his parents’ 401(K) getting wiped out on one of the shows leading up to last night? I think it’s more than just righteous indignation on his part.
Me, I’m less impressed with the takedown than with the fact that he very clearly elucidated what CNBC—and the entire financial overclass—actually does. And it’s so much simpler and more heinous than I’d allowed myself to think.
slightly_peeved
The guy who I always hold up as the example of good journalism is the BBC’s newsman and part-time quizmaster Jeremy Paxman. If the interviewee refuses to answer a question, he’ll repeat it – up to 12 times in a couple of interviews (see this interview with Michael Howard or this debate with London Mayor Boris Johnson).
John Stewart’s interview was better than anything I’ve seen from him, partly because he wasn’t as combative as some of the people who are "officially" newsmen (like Paxman) tend to be. It was sincere, and heartfelt, and that gave it a punch that a professional attack journalists like Paxman can’t match.
jibeaux
@bootlegger:
@ 12:44
now you’re talking…
gex
@r€nato:
What is so irritating is that this is one of the reasons I am on the left. We KNOW that unrestrained capitalism will self destruct. Power accumulates and it is corrupting. We’ve learned all these things. Despite that, the Reagan revolution convinced the workers of America to ignore those lessons and do what the wealthy kleptocrats want them to do.
I am relentless in mocking my Republican father. He’s the kind of guy who has taken home equity loans to invest in the dot com and housing bubble markets. He had retired, but since my mom is being laid off in the NWA-Delta merger and she does not have a college degree like he does, he has to go back to work to get health care coverage for her. He fucking hated Clinton’s health care reform. Republicans like these are the ones who made it possible for themselves to get robbed like this. I’ve not much sympathy, although I am glad that the spell is wearing off.
Ah well, humanity doesn’t learn from history all too well. IF the moderate-left/center can fix this another Reagan will come along and stoke the greed that will dismantle all the brakes on runaway capitalism again.
Cat Lady
I’d like to hear more from Martha Stewart. Remember when people got in trouble and went to prison for insider trading? How quaint.
Jason Kratz
Why are so many people referring to Jim Cramer as a journalist? He isn’t a journalist. He’s a TV personality. Quit acting like he is a journalist. The guy gets paid to act nutty on Mad Money and hopefully put some news out there.
I’m not defending the guy because I really don’t care for him but to have all of this outrage like he’s a journalist is ridiculous.
r€nato
it’s been said before that Democrats make it possible for people to become Republicans.
r€nato
Jason, he wasn’t acting like a journalist and nobody, I believe, mistook him for one.
He was acting like someone who offered good advice about the market and stocks. "In Cramer We Trust" and all those CNBC promos touting him and their entire network as offering invaluable knowledge on the markets.
Doctor Cleveland
Perhaps because he was, once, a journalist. And should know better. (He’s also a lawyer, and should therefore know better on other fronts.)
He was President of the Harvard Crimson. And he was a reporter (according to Wikipedia, he was a beat reporter who covered the Ted Bundy murders in the late 70s).
To do what Cramer does when one knows what journalism ought to be is, ah, "disingenuous at best and criminal at worst." And the larger issue is CNBC’s general strategy, peddling their pundits as genuine sources of investment information.
Caravelle
@Jason : Even if Cramer isn’t a journalist, I believe CNBC passes for some kind of news channel (there’s "NBC" in it right ?), and Stewart himself made a point of saying this wasn’t about Cramer, it was about CNBC.
Also, as Greenwald likes to point out, this behavior* pervades all journalism.
So Cramer being a journalist or not is really irrelevant to the larger point.
*the uncritical relaying of
spin part, not the insider trading part
crack
Just want to add Ron Suskind to Tim’s list. The Price of Loyalty was a great book. Don’t know his methods but they don’t appear to be based on suckupism.
Jason
Someone posted above that nobody has referrred to Cramer as a journalist. Please read the comments here and blogs elsewhere. Plenty of people are calling him a journalist.
I don’t care if Cramer was a journalist in a past life…he isn’t one on CNBC (and I just about laughed myself silly at the lawyer reference. Call me jaded but that means nothing).
And no offense Caravelle but NBC stands for National Broadcasting Corporation so I’m not sure what you’re point is. MSNBC has MS in it (Microsoft). Does that make them a technology channel?
I’m sure he knows what it ought to be. But he’s not there as a journalist so why does that make it disingenuous? To the broader point that they are peddling these guys as sources of investment information is the important thing. Thats where he should care about what is going on but it has nothing to do with journalism or his past life as a journalist.
MNPundit
I am not a fan of Sy Hersh. His reporting is sometimes useful and far-sighted but other times is so wrong it’s hilarious.
Nazgul35
This series of "stories" and the interview itself should get Stewart the Peabody at the very least, if not a Pulitzer…
Did anyone watch Morning Flow? I can’t stand to have my blood pressure up that high that early in the morning…
Ella in NM
Now I get the whole thing my 11th grade History teacher was trying to teach us about the role of the court jester…
and, your point being?
This is were the analogy of shooting your bird dog for killing your chickens comes in. It’s what they were bred to do, so now you want to go and punish them for doing it well?
No such luck. Those two are at high risk for losing their jobs, in my opinion. How long before they turn their guns on NBC? Can’t have that, now, can they?
# 5 is what saved this rube. I’ve never had the money to play these guys games anyway. I was working too hard just living within my means.
Caravelle
Heh, I guess you’re right the channel’s name doesn’t mean much; let’s say I’ve always thought of NBC and MSNBC as news channels, and assumed this was true of the whole family. As I don’t watch much of either, or any tv at all, I could be wrong.
Still isn’t relevant to the larger point though, unless you’re saying CNBC doesn’t claim to do any news or journalism at all ?
Quaker in a Basement
Theory: The personal computer is killing journalism. With more computers, companies hire fewer secretaries. Secretaries know everything that happens inside a company. Without secretaries, there are fewer sources for journalists.
Caravelle
What would you do in that analogy, praise the dog and give it a treat ? Not do anything to make the dog understand this is not OK, or keep it away from the chickens ?
This behavior only makes sense if you really don’t care about your chickens. So yes indeed, good analogy. Not really applicable to those of us who care about our job or our retirement, but otherwise sure.
Ella in NM
@Caravelle:
Breathe, dude, I was being ironic. Or facetious. Or some other term meaning sarcastic.
However, since you asked: I wouldn’t train the dog to hunt in the first place. I’d teach it to catch a Frisbee instead.
matt
The deal with journalists valuing access is this – their job is to do reporting, not to seek the truth. Reporting means talking to people, and talking to important people means they’re doing a good job by the professional standards of the profession of journalism. The real problem is that this system we’ve got has weaknesses that everyone now understands and systematically exploits.
The only real remedy is – exactly what’s going on in the world right now. Outlets that value truth-finding more than reporting will win in the marketplace and outlets that value reporting over truth-finding are being pummeled and destroyed by market forces. So we see a cottage industry in Kremlinology directed towards journalism itself – the blogging phenomenon.
The only real hope for change is that eventually the hidebound gatekeepers of the profession of journalism will realize they are screwing themselves out of the market altogether and will reform their practices.
Comrade Darkness
John Stewart Pt. 3 of the unedited version: These guys at these companies were on a sherman’s march, through their companies, financied by our 401ks, and all of the incentives of their companies were for short term profit and they burned the f*ckin’ house down with our money and walked away rich as hell.
We have well and truly devolved into an aristocracy. The ONLY one speaking the truth is the court jester.
HyperIon
@r€nato:
In three months everyone might be unemployed.
r€nato
I totally agree. He was a real Chicken Little on war with Iran, every six months breathlessly reporting that BushCo was on the verge of instigating a war with them.
Jason
@Caravelle:
Do they? :) I’ve tried watching that channel a couple of times. Its pretty brutal unless you’re *really* in to business. And if you are it would appear they’re bullshitting you ;)
You said you don’t watch too much TV….good for you. Most of it, save for Battlestar Galactica, rots the brain ;)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Darkness: Jesus, that’s a very depressing observation.
tomkraj
What Stewart exposed last night was the cozy relationship between the NY business media and the people they cover.
"They were my friends and they lied to me." How pathetic.
The same relationship exists between Washington journalists and the people they cover.
And since it is cozy and the journalists are too lazy to research the facts we get BS.
Jason
For an interesting follow-up to the relationship of CNBC to the news check out this write-up by Josh Marshall: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/03/about_cnbc.php