This posting looks at the appearance of Jim Cramer on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It had all the discomfort of a fart in church. Why was this must-miss TV and what does it tell us as Americans?

After a weekend away, I finally saw the recorded episode of Jim Cramer’s appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

It was not great television. Even Stewart admitted being uncomfortable. As a viewer, I felt it too.

Here are the reasons.

The first was Cramer. Give him credit. He knows good TV. He does it every night on his show Mad Money with an angry persona, funny sayings, and sound effects. As a result, Cramer also knows what bad TV is. And he made sure this episode of the Daily Show was bad TV.

Cramer never argued with Stewart. His body language and voice were contrite. Instead of the raging stock picker on his own show, Cramer made us think of him as the good boy who was caught smoking marijuana and was sent to the angry principal’s office.

Cramer actually made you feel sorry for him. Just by walking onto the show, most of us had to think he was a brave Christian walking into the lion’s arena.

Did he manipulate us? Yes. That’s what you do in television. TV is an entertainment medium. Some of you may think that Cramer was a phony. No, he showed you he’s a great performer.

Here’s a little TV secret. What you see on the screen is rarely what the person is like – even on news and information shows. For instance, the person you saw on Real TV or anchoring the news in Las Vegas was not the same person my family and friends know. If anything, my blog postings are closer to whom I am. On those shows and newscast, I created (tried to create) a persona of a credible news guy.

It’s the same thing Cramer did deftly with Stewart. He morphed from the crazed, angry stock picker to a slump-shouldered gentleman with hat in hand. When video clips showed Cramer as an evil back-room consultant telling hedge fund managers how to manipulate news to affect stock prices or skirt federal regulators, you said to yourself, “He’s a consultant on the side. That’s what consultants do. They help their clients make money.”

Granted, Cramer’s and CNBC’s reputations have been tarnished in all this. They will have to change those promos about “In Cramer We Trust” and CNBC is American Business.

And hopefully, many more Americans will realize how silly it is to watch CNBC or any other financial show to determine how you will invest and save for retirement.

The second reason the Cramer-Stewart bout was must-miss-TV was that the debate over CNBC is inconsequential. So a financial news network took care of its advertisers and sources of information – while ignoring their mission to honestly inform the public. Fox News panders to Republicans. MSNBC plays to Democrats. We know these as givens now.

When it came down to the actual TV smack-down between these two titans, the conflict had no gravitas. It’s like the angry principle punishing a student for smoking weed while ignoring the fact that the rest of the school is smoking crack and shooting meth. In other words, Stewart taking down Cramer is not going to solve our financial crisis. We were watching two entertainers making money on the financial crisis.

Then, you may ask, why am I writing about all this if it’s nonsense? I’m analyzing the media while trying to show you how inconsequential TV news is as far as true information is concerned. I think this so-called TV event – and the fact it was a dud – has made my case.

Jon Stewart himself is the third reason for this version of uncomfortable TV. Stewart is a comedian; he’s not Mike Wallace. Imagine 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley telling a fart joke. That doesn’t work.

Stewart needs to be throwing out jokes and funny lines during an interview whether it’s an interrogation or not. He wasn’t funny or entertaining with Cramer. And frankly, Stewart, who has keen on-stage sense, knew it.

I think a couple of things happened here. First, Stewart was angry. We all were annoyed when we hear some of the commentators on CNBC go unquestioned when they blame mortgage holders yet they take no blame for drinking the lies of Wall Street CEOs. But I think it became personal for Stewart since the titans in the Wall Street ivory towers cost so many financial workers – some of them Stewart’s friends — their jobs.

Stewart has been angry before during interviews. Go back and look at his interviews with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and now-conservative media analyst Bernard Goldberg. Stewart trashed both of them and their books with solid information. That was good TV. But in those interviews, the subject was just politics. With Cramer and the CNBC crowd, he was talking about people’s livelihoods and the nation’s economy.

What I sensed in the middle of the interview was the flip-side of Jon Stewart’s new role as the nation’s media cop. There is the fun side; you present video clips of the offending politician or commentator who blatantly contradicts himself. That’s easy. But on this day, Stewart had the dreaded side of his role – facing the offender and doling out the punishment.

And that was uncomfortable for a guy like Stewart, a comedian and a likeable guy who, I think, likes being liked. (I don’t think guys like Olbermann and Limbaugh really care.) I also think Stewart saw that likeability in Cramer. For a slight moment, Stewart saw this new dilemma he created. Yes, I’m bringing out the truth, but also I might be ruining this guy’s career. I think for an instant, Stewart stepped back and wanted to say, “How did two TV clowns get into this predicament.”

The final and truly the overall reason for this TV dud is the media’s inability to police itself. Think about it: the only watchdog of the news media is a comedian on a late night comedy show. That’s a testament to Jon Stewart and his staff. They stepped up when no one else would.

It makes sense, though. Stewart is not in news; he’s in “fake news” as he calls it. So, he has no skin in the game. It’s the same as our financial industry. One of the causes of our financial melt-down was the lack of regulation or that the regulators seemed to work for the companies they were supposed to watch.

The news media is no different. They want their independence. But they also need someone or some organization at least putting their feet to the fire. Jon Stewart shouldn’t be the only one.

That’s where you come in.

If anything we Americans should have learned from these episodes that the media is loaded with for-profit companies with their main goal of making money and keeping shareholders happy – not necessarily informing us.

Now it’s up to you.

 

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