Last week, after I did a four-hour mini-marathon of “The Office,” a feeling of guilt that I hadn’t done something more constructive gnawed at me.
So, not moving from the couch or displacing my bag of pretzel sticks, I changed the channel to “The Daily Show.” After all, it’s kind of the news and it probably has a lower “rot your brain” rating than “Scrubs” or “Lost.”
In the first minutes of the show, I remembered quickly why Jon Stewart is the coolest person on television. He immediately cracked jokes about his guest, “Mad Money’s” Jim Cramer.
Showing Cramer baking with Martha Stewart, he remarked on the irony that it was Jim that was baking a pie on television while it was Martha that had gone to prison for securities fraud. Taking another swipe at Cramer as he leveled dough for a pie, Stewart asked, “Mr. Cramer, don’t you destroy enough dough on your own show?”
But when Cramer actually came on for the interview, it became very clear, very quickly that while Stewart’s shows are usually hysterical, jokes were not on the agenda for the evening.
As soon as Cramer took his seat, Stewart opened up with a rather direct question: “How the hell did we end up here?”
As I sat on the couch watching the ensuing arguments (the term “argument” is used loosely here because that would imply that Cramer even put up a fight), I was astounded at Stewart’s seriousness as he pressed Cramer for answers and accountability.
Recognizing that both of the men are “snake oil salesmen” to a degree, Stewart remarked on the stark differences in their shows’ respective advertising.
While “The Daily Show” labels itself as snake oil, Stewart explains, “Mad Money” sells itself as “vitamin tonic” through the use of slogans such as “In Cramer We Trust.”
Specifically attacking Cramer’s promotion of Bear Stearns only days before the company collapsed, Stewart explained he could not “reconcile the brilliance and knowledge that [he has] in the intricacies of the market with the crazy bulls – I see [him do] every night!”
At this point, Stewart began the full court press as Cramer asked to borrow a Kleenex to use as a white flag.
Showing clips from an old interview with Cramer, Stewart exposed Cramer’s advocacy of questionable practices in the areas of borrowing and market volatility. He included a clip in which Cramer stated, “No one else in the world would ever admit that, but I don’t care. I’m not going to say it on T.V.”
Stewart’s remarks throughout the entire episode can only be described as a verbal head-butt as he assailed Cramer, stating, “I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a [expletive] game.”
By the end of the show, Stewart had Cramer apologizing in every other sentence as he retreated off the battlefield. While I applauded Stewart for doing a serious show for once, my only lingering question was, When did we as Americans start having to rely on people like Jon Stewart for our serious news? What’s next? Is Stephen Colbert going undercover as a gang member and break up a drug ring?
Three weeks ago, I wrote an article about the media’s obsessive coverage of the Octo-mom and its lack of priorities as it chose to ignore all the more important stories. While most news sources have since moved on, it has become more evident that nothing has changed.
This week’s hot-button topic is Lindsay Lohan. Did she really get another DUI?! What will this mean for her acting career?!
All I have to say is that, while I’m sure a large portion of Americans care more about Lohan’s purse designer than they do about the political turmoil in Pakistan, media sources should still be held to a higher standard of reporting than that which is required to satisfy the public’s desire for entertainment. That’s what E! News is for.
In his closing remarks, Stewart made a very candid point. He suggested that we remove all the extra, unessential distractions that cloud the American media and “get back to fundamentals in reporting.” He states that CNBC could be an “incredibly powerful tool of illumination,” but its irresponsible presentation of the news and lack of self-accountability has left it foundationless.
He established that this is the responsibility of the mainstream media, those whose job it is to educate and inform the American public. After all, as Stewart explains, “He just wants to make fart noises and funny faces.”
Case in point: when we rely on satirists and jokesters to give us the real news, something in the American media has gone terribly wrong. Give us the news that matters.
Alex Ehmke is a freshman political science, economics, and public policy triple major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
