CNBC and Financial Television: Puppets in the Pre-Meltdown Show

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Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

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Last night’s Jon Stewart interview with Jim Cramer should be put in a time capsule for future generations to understand the popular culture leading to the meltdown.  It’s not possible to overstate the insanity required to believe that the financial news networks weren’t merely entertaining little puppets in the game the markets had become before it all crashed and burned.  Cramer tries lamely on air to pretend that he’s there at CNBC to expose the game, but it’s clear, even to Cramer, as Stewart rolls tape after tape in which the former hedge fund manager admits to market manipulation that it’s pointless to deny his role in snake oil sales.

 For me, the moment when this crap became too much to bear was when CNBC hugged Maria Bartiromo just that much tighter in the wake of a scandal in 2007.  Bartiromo had been the cause of a business shakeup in which Citigroup executive Todd Thompson was ousted from his position after engaging in a questionable relationship with the financial “Money Honey” and rewarding her with a $5 million Sundance Channel show on Citi’s dime.  While Citi CEO Chuck Prince made his own executive walk the plank for his role, CNBC did just the opposite.   The channel backed Bartiromo, who had been reporting on Thompson and Citi while being offered very special personal perks, including a personal corporate jet flight from China with the executive, who left a gaggle of executives on the ground in Asia to find other flights back to New York. 

 Rather than firing Bartiromo for violating journalistic ethics, the network covered for her, compensating Citi for the flight and downplaying the story, realizing that her association with the CNBC brand was too pivotal to tarnish.  If there ever was a moment to say that the network had crossed the Rubicon and bought the precept that entertainment and profits had completely replaced real journalism, this was it.  Can anyone imagine how acceptable it would be for a political anchor to engage in that kind of relationship with a candidate or public officeholder and then continue reporting on stories that involve that figure?  No matter how far gone mainstream television news is, that still wouldn’t have played as easily there as it did within the corrupt world of financial television news.

 But Cramer and Bartiromo are just the tip of a huge iceberg of entertainment and profit values that lurk beneath the glib surface of financial reporting, particularly financial television reporting.  The hype never stops, making these specialty networks ubiquitous on monitors throughout the offices of financial service companies.  It’s like free advertising for the markets rather than investigative journalism and objective evaluation.  No wonder the companies being reported on feel fine about playing the channels in their workplaces.  

Small wonder these channels never warned of an impending collapse.  They'd sooner have cut off their arms and legs.

 So let’s hear it for Stewart and a little truthtelling about CNBC.  Wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air to hear some of the same from within the financial television community itself?

(See Memeorandum for more)