Richard Cohen stands up for CNBC:
The hunt is on for culprits and scapegoats, and Stewart has served up a cliche: the media. As with the war in Iraq, for which credulous media should take some responsibility, the sins are blown out of proportion. It would be one thing if Wall Street titans by the score were selling their company stock and the media were failing to report it, but when someone puts his money where his mouth is, you have to pay attention. The big shots believed.
As might be expected, the comments on this drivel are not to be believed. I've never seen such unanimity. Highly entertaining. Your Comments On... Don't Blame Jim Cramer. Including this one:
jheath53 wrote:Cohen is still trying to rationalize why he gave Bush a free pass on Iraq. The fact is, the media has been more lap dog than watch dog, both toward government and toward the corporate world. Guys like Cohen, so whipsawed by 9/11, looked the other way while Bush and his cronies tore up the constitution and lied to the public about the threat that Iraq posed. Some, like Cohen were motivated by fear, others were motivated by the fear of losing access to the big shots in the WH. They liked schmoozing with the WH staff and going to WH christmas parties, and weren't willing to do the dirty work of digging at the holes in the propaganda peddled by the WH spokespersons.
LIkewise, Guys like Kramer liked getting calls from Wall St. CEOs, going to cocktail parties and rubbing shoulders with big shots. Many weren't willing to jeopardize that by writing tough pieces on the dubious value of the financial instruments these guys were peddling. It's always easier to write personality pieces and hit the noise machine than it is to do hard news and hard analysis.
Were they being dishonest? Only in a tangential sense. Their sin was more of one of omission than of deliberately hiding the truth. Was Cramer the only one? Hardly. He probably wasn't even as guilty as many others. But the media as a whole has failed to do what makes it essential to a free democracy - hold those in power accountable.3/17/2009 8:17:02 AM
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