BASIC CABLE SMACKDOWN: Entertainment vs. News

Being a liberal twenty-something professional, it likely goes without saying that I’ve long been a fan of Jon Stewart, political satirist and host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Despite the fact that many critics have labeled his audience as uninformed and impatient sound byte-grabbers who take a comedy show as serious news, researchers have actually found that most Daily Show viewers, myself included, are well-versed in current events independently of Stewart’s program. This rarely-quoted fact comes as little surprise to me; if I didn’t regularly read the newspaper or watch mainstream network news programming, I don’t imagine I would find any of Stewart’s jokes remotely funny. Simply put, if I was truly ignorant of the situations and the people being lampooned, the punchline would go right over my head. That said, however, the critique that Daily Show watchers take Jon Stewart seriously is not completely off-base. Although I watch the show to laugh at the verifiable shitshow which has been current events of late, I have always respected the fact that Stewart’s comedy is secondary to his intelligence. As a viewer, I’m not stupid enough to view his sarcasm as fact – a realization which many conservatives who believe Stewart’s counterpart, Stephen Colbert, is serious have failed to make.

However, although I may not take the CONTENT of the Daily Show seriously, I do hold its’ host in high esteem. For the better part of the last decade, Jon Stewart has made his living making political fart jokes, but has made an impression by being a serious critic of the U.S. mainstream media. Although he readily acknowledges that his own work is fake, the well-educated and hyper-informed Stewart passionately believes that it is the responsibility of “real” journalists to inform and educate viewers about politics and the state of the country in a serious and non-partisan manner. During an appearance as a guest on the CNN program Crossfire in 2004, Stewart accused these types of partisan programs of “hurting America;” the twenty-four hour news networks are full of Cross-fire like shows, in which pundits engage in one-sided screaming matches for shock value rather than holding an honest debate: "[Your show], it's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery." He also pointed out journalists’ reluctance to criticize public policy on-air and to hold the country’s leaders accountable on the tough issues: "You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably...we need what you do. This is such a great opportunity you have here to a actually get politicians off of their marketing and strategy." When one CNN journalist accused Stewart of “coddling” Democratic Senator John Kerry when he appeared on The Daily Show, the comedian responded, “I didn’t realize the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity. You’re on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What’s wrong with you?”

While it’s a pathetic commentary on our journalists, during the last eight years of an inept presidential administration propped up by an inept media, it has been Stewart on the puppet-crank call network who has been asking the tough questions. At times it has seemed like Stewart who, as one blogger put it, has become “a voice for the people among the useless talking heads.” Whether Stewart coddled Kerry or not, The Daily Show’s host does not habitually allow his guests to coast through an easy interview if he believes there is something important which must be addressed. Most recently, Jon Stewart's serious side has come out to play in an on-air feud between himself and cable television’s number one financial news network, CNBC. Although originally played for laughs with Stewart ridiculing Jim Cramer, host of the network's most popular investment program Mad Money, and other CNBC personalities by airing video clips of them making exuberantly bullish statements about the market and various investment banks shortly before they collapsed, Stewart has raised the serious question of whether the experts on television’s number one financial news network should have seen the meltdown coming and warned the public. When Cramer blew off the criticism as that of a hack comedian with a staff of people editing television clips out of context, Stewart came back to charge that people at CNBC knew what was going on behind the scenes on Wall Street but didn't tell the public. Although that may sound like a stretch at first, Cramer’s appearance as a guest on The Daily Show only served to make it appear more creditable. First, Stewart cut into Cramer for falsely advertising himself as a market consultant (his show’s slogan is “In Cramer We Trust”) when in reality he places producing an entertaining program above giving viewers the best advice.


Then, Stewart accused Cramer of incompetence for his bad call on the future of Wall Street giant Bear Sterns, playing clips of Cramer telling viewers to “go out and buy Bear Sterns right now!” three days before the investment firm collapsed. However, everyone makes a bad call now and then, even supposed “experts” like Cramer. That’s when Stewart began hammering Cramer of being an inside player; a figure who pretends to be on the side of his audience when, in actuality, he is part of the machine whose selfish motives led to the current financial crisis. To back up these claims, Stewart played unaired footage of Cramer giving “workaround” and “loophole” advice to inside investors which was barely legal at best. “I would never say this on TV,” the taped figure of Cramer says. As the blood drained out of the real Cramer’s face, Stewart kept at him. “Play clip number 6,” Jon called out to his tech staff, like a prosecutor at a populist trial.

When an uncharacteristically quiet and repentant Cramer claimed that he just tried to give people the best advice, he stupidly admitted, “You have these CEOs, I’ve known these guys for years – they come in and say everything’s fine. They lie to the public – they lie in front of me, what can I do?” That’s when Stewart went in for the kill: "That’s my point - you walk away from talking to a CEO and you know he's lying. So my question is, if you know the truth, and you do, because otherwise how would you know he's lying, why don't you report THAT and not just be the CEO's stenographer? When I went to journalism school the lesson was, ‘If they don't want it printed, it's news; if they want it printed, it's propaganda.’" By just backing up the fake stories the CEOs created, Stewart claims, CNBC gave them false credibility, which is what got us into this mess, when they should have been calling out these people YEARS AGO.

Whether you buy into the overreaching accusations that Jim Cramer is partially responsible for the nation’s economic collapse or not, Jon Stewart’s central critique that CNBC falsely advertises itself as an authority on money management when in truth it is an entertainment network more interested in catering to Wall Street insiders than providing its viewers with any real information is not only damning but accurate. Mad Money is the complete opposite of The Daily Show; while Stewart claims to be a crank even as he gives his audience valid information, Cramer puts entertainment ahead of intelligence and yet is advertized as a serious investment consultant. Making matters worse, CNBC viewers, unlike Daily Show audiences who are often well-informed about current events outside of Stewart’s news reporting, do not investigate the economic network’s investment advice. I personally know people who sit in front of Jim Cramer’s program, laptops at the ready and logged into their E-Trade accounts, ready to follow whatever advice their guru is prepared to offer. It's embarrassing that a basic cable comedian had to point out that one of the top financial news networks failed to fulfill its journalistic duty--to provide people with the information they need to make informed decisions. Furthermore, its embarrassing that the fart joke guy is, at times it seems, the only one willing to hold pundits’ feet to the fire.

This isn’t going unnoticed; The Daily Show episode featuring Cramer made its presence known at the offices of President Barack Obama. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he had spoken with President Barack Obama on Thursday about watching the Stewart-Cramer showdown. The spokesman added: “Despite, even as Mr. Stewart said, that it may have been uncomfortable to conduct and uncomfortable to watch, I thought it was — I thought somebody asked a lot of tough questions.”

Well, I’m glad SOMEBODY is.