As briefly noted here earlier, the most talked-about journalism of the day wasn't produced by the New York Times, CNN, Newsweek or NPR. It was Jon Stewart's epic, eight-minute takedown on last night's "Daily Show" of CNBC's clueless, in-the-tank reporting of inflatable bubbles and blowhard CEOs as the U.S. and world economies slowly slid into a meltdown. You can quibble about Stewart's motives in starting the piece -- after he was spurned for an interview by CNBC's faux populist ranter Rick Santelli -- but you can't argue with the results.
The piece wasn't just the laugh-out-loud funniest thing on TV all week (and this was a week in which NBC rebroadcast the SNL "more cowbell" sketch, so that's saying a lot) but it was exquisitely reported, insightful, and it tapped into America's real anger about the financial crisis in a way that mainstream journalism has found so elusive all these months. As one commenter on the Romenesko blog noted earlier today, "it's simply pathetic that one has to watch a comedy show to see things like this."
But that's not all. The Stewart piece also got the kind of eyeballs that most newsrooms would kill for in this digital age -- planted atop many, many major political, media and business Web sites -- and the kind of water-cooler chatter that journalists would crave in any age. In a time when newspapers are flat-out dying if not dealing with bankruptcy or massive job losses, while other types of news orgs aren't faring much better, the journalistic success of a comedy show rant shouldn't be viewed as a stick in the eye -- but a teachable moment. Why be a curmudgeon about kids today getting all their news from a comedy show, when it's not really that hard to join Stewart in his own idol-smashing game.
Here's how:
1) Great research trumps good access to the powerful: The Stewart piece makes this controversial but critical point in two different ways. For one thing, the story shows how access to the nation's most powerful CEOs -- supposedly the big advantage of a journalistic enterprise like CNBC -- isn't worth a warm bucket of spit when it results in slo-pitch softball questions, for fear of offending the rich and powerful. And so we see Ford's CEO grilled about Kid Rock's performance at the auto show, Ponzi scammer (later revealed) Alan Stanford quizzed on whether it's fun to be a billionaire, and Maria "Money Honey" Bartiromo gushing at how corporate chiefs were still telling her that their companies were doing great, even as the massive iceberg was casting its shadow over the hull of the American economy.
Jon Stewart's act of journalism -- reported, of course, by his ace team of writers -- worked because there were no interviews at all. It all hung instead on meticulous research, dredging up lethal quips of CNBC's stock pumping hosts to hang them with theior own undeniable words -- Jim Cramer's "buy buy buy" when the Dow was roughly double what it is today, his touting of Bear Stearns' and Bank of America's doomed stocks. The kind of research that's so hard for most newspapers to do anymore, with downsized staffs and ever-looming deadlines, but which can so often belies the spin from our "accessible" sources.
2) The American public is mad as hell right now, so why isn't the mainstream media? Balanced reporting is important, but a balanced, modulated tone of voice? Not now, not when millions are hurting from lost jobs and under-water mortgages, and many millions more are living in fear of the same fate. People need information but what they so desperately want an outlet that shares their passion -- and, yes, that rage -- and so Jon Stewart gave people what they weren't getting anywhere else.
3) Tear down this wall...of pretending that the media itself isn't a major player in American society, and isn't a factor in most big stories. Sure, there were greedy bankers and their pocketed politicians working in unintended tandem to take the Dow from 14,000 down to 6,600, but these popular TV pundits were there every step of the way, as "The Daily Show" revealed, and their contribution was consequential. Mainstream media, after all these years, has a hard time understanding that one of the major political forces in this country is mainstream media, something the audience knows all too well.
4) The First Amendment doesn't say anything about not being funny, or not being passionate. I don't know about you, if you actually watched the piece, but I feel like I learned something important -- confirming the cheerleading nature of the nation's most-watched source for business news, even in a moment of oncoming disaster -- but I also busted my gut laughing as I did. And there's nothing wrong with that, informing and entertaining at the same time -- isn't that what newspapers are charging people 75 cents for?.
You know, sometimes people do some crazy stuff when they realize their days are numbered. I don't have the answers to problems facing American journalism -- not my own newsroom, mired in Chapter 11, nor the others that face a possible death sentence. But fighting for life will mean living each day like it was your last, with passion, anger and laughter, the way "The Daily Show" shined a light on a crevice of the nation's battered economy on Wednesday night.
UPDATE: In the interest of, um, fairness and balance, here's the opposing point of view, which actually is largely in agreement except for the conclusion that you can't easily compare a journalist to a satirist, and that's true -- journalists can't do EXACTLY what Jon Stewart did, but the same values that informed his piece -- passion, humor, and facts-over-spin -- should be in our newsrooms.
Here's the Stewart piece again:
tewart should show Obama without his telepromoter, now that's quality journalism. Maybe if the CEOs had telepromoters of their own they could act intelligent like Obama, although he is clueless.— janet123- What do telepromters have to do with anything? Would it make you feel better about the country and the economy if he didnt use one? Do you know why Bush never used one? His squinty lil eyes couldnt read that far away; and, why bother when he couldnt pronounce half the words he would have had to read?— Master Dreamz
janet123: It's people like you who are clueless. Barack Obama is addressing every major problem that 30 years of Republican piggy greed have caused. He probably won't succeed in solving all of them in four or eight years, but at least he's smart enough to have identified them and to have come up with a plan for attacking them. Most of America is sick of the Republican/corporate/country club white boy circus, and if you're not, well, you're in the minority. (I'm white, BTW.)
I guess, judging by the left's reaction to Santelli and Limbaugh, that dissent is out as the highest form of patriotism.— jmc
HOW COULD OUR "HERO JOURNALIST" HAVE BEEN SOOOOOO WRONG???? Bunch maybe it isn't the best way to save your paper to let everybody know that a comedy show covers the news BETTER than the Daily News. Maybe the new Daily News motto can be "Just like the Daily SHOW but without the facts and humor".— bird11- HOW COULD OUR "HERO JOURNALIST" HAVE BEEN SOOOOOO WRONG???? Bunch maybe it isn't the best way to save your paper to let everybody know that a comedy show covers the news BETTER than the Daily News. Maybe the new Daily News motto can be "Just like the Daily SHOW but without the facts and humor".— bird11
Wow, jmc, that was pathetic.- "Mainstream media, after all these years, has a hard time understanding that one of the major political forces in this country is mainstream media, something the audience knows all too well." Pardon the language Will but are you out of your F*cking mind. Mainstream media is controled by very very very wealthy people who only care about making money and not rocking the boat. They know what role they play and they always have.— Zues
- When they were the conductors running us off the rails, the Republicans called anyone who disagreed "obstructionist." Now they want praise for people like Fatboy Rush, the Oxycontin king when he cheers for the nation to fail. And don't give me that BS about he is only opposed to liberals and Obama, because if you are rooting for things to fail in cleaning up the mess the corporate greedheads created in the name of conservativism, then you are rooting against the country. The voters said in November they were sick of that BS. They soundly rejected the greed, fear and hate agenda. The only ones still clinging to that crap are the same 28 percent who thought Bush did a good job.
- Hey, birdie. Just thought I'd let you know - you only need to click on "submit" once to post a comment. If the comment doesn't appear right away just wait a little bit. Clicking on "submit" more than once will cause your comment to appear more than once. (Ordinarily, I'd think that kind of explanation isn't necessary - but given that yesterday you thought that Will reads each and every post and decides whether to let them got through, in the space of a freakin' nanosecond, maybe you really do need such an explanation.)— Talking point sleuth
- Just when you thought that ARTs couldn't find anything else to pathetically whine about, they start with the: "Mommie, mommie, poor little Ricky Santelli and little Rush Limbaugh are getting picked on by those meanies in the Whitehouse. It's soooooo unfaaaaaiirrr. Make them stop."— Talking point sleuth
- "What battered newsrooms can learn from Stewart's CNBC takedown"....That news reporting in America, is nothing more than a joke, entertainment.— E Plebnista
Comment removed.- Ok, wire, let's break this down a bit. If someone was wrong 100 times in a row, it just might suggest that their judgment isn't particularly reliable. Got that now? And just curious, do you always tell us the real names of celebrities, or is it only when they're Jewish? Not to suggest that you might be antisemitic, or anything.— Talking point sleuth
- There are moments I agree with Rush. Fail Obama. Capitalism is now on life support, virtually brain dead, and we're rushing to save it like she was Terri Schiavo, the results likely to be the same. When it all comes crashing down, we'll realize what matters is what we've ignored for too long - the marketplace has no business in the temple.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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