In a devastating takedown Thursday of CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart offered this sardonic observation: "I’m under the assumption, and maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I’m under the assumption that you don’t just take their word at face value, that you actually then go around and try to figure it out."
Those interviewing New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark might take that warning to heart.
Those interviewing New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark might take that warning to heart.
More on media complicity from Salon's Glenn Greenwald.
This isn't to let Cramer off the hook, and this comment might be best posted at Greenwald's, but there are vast differences between political reporting and business reporting, not least the near-ubiquity on non-disclosure agreements in the business world, and the confidentiality provisions that populate even the most mundane transactions. It's worth noting, as this writer does, that the main reason why business news is not as vulnerable to piracy as other news is because financial news consumers do not like to share, possibly as a result of this conditioning. The preceding is not meant to excuse CNBC's less-than-sceptical tone, though I note that CNBC has a business model that does not allow it to capture the benefit of critical reporting. Large chunks of the trade press do, but the mass financial media do not, which is one reason why we're in this mess, and have been in similar messes before, from Enron back.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered why sports writers and columnists are more sceptical than other reporters when it comes to Atlantic Yards.
ReplyDeleteObserved through "Gringcorp's lens, the transparency of box scores and stats may foster a different mindset than the fair-and-balanced kind of he-said-she-said type of reporting we get in most of the mainstream media.