Jon Stewart is like the Fool in King Lear (Colbert has evolved it to a whole another level). He might look harmless, he might say plenty of funny things, but he can speak the truth deeper than any person in a position of power can.
Stewart might not be a journalist, but by playing a fake journalist on TV he doesn’t have to follow the script. He can choose his battlefield and scorch earth with the people he’s interviewing or mocking if he feels like they deserve it. As an entertainer, he doesn’t have anything to lose; the next day he can go back to playing the Fool and making funny faces at the camera. Take a look at his interviews with any of the people who have views that he cannot reconcile with his own. He has viewpoints, but he doesn’t just express them in a preachy, sanctimonious way; he turns them around and finds the incompatibilities/hypocrisies in their worldviews, and then lets the evidence speak for itself (i.e. Cramer’s infamous interview with TheStreet, or Christian conservatives being against gay marriage, or how small towns have better values than big cities, etc.).
CNBC promotes itself as the most trusted name in financial news, yet almost totally missed out on this burgeoning economic crisis, and if they did, didn’t start reacting to it until the 11th hour. Jon’s argument (and anger with this whole situation) is that CNBC placed much of its loyalty and trust in Wall Street rather than to its viewers, to continue to encourage investors to buy, buy, buy, regardless of the alarm bells that were spreading around the financial industry in late 2006.
CNBC has become, much like ESPN, a breeding ground for opinions, only as Jon so shrewdly pointed out that “this isn’t a f*#&ing game.” These opinions shape and have shaped public perception of the economy, and often it’s been a dishonest one they promote. These opinions shape investment decisions, and usually the advice they provide is pretty bad across the board, from the talking heads down to Cramer. And this is Jon’s main point–that the financial news sector has forsaken reporting of the stories, and instead engaged in a perception game of telling us how we should make fast money rather than doing their job. And this string of rosy advising, perceptions and promises in turn helped hastened the collapse of the financial industry and bankrupt the 401ks and pension plans of many hard working Americans. And people on CNBC have the gall to go around and call the investors and homeowners who got suckered in ‘losers’ when they themselves, with all their insider contacts and buddy buddying with financial leaders, claim to never saw it coming.
Jon, as the Fool, points out something real journalists haven’t had the fortitude to do: Who’s the real loser here?
