I've never watched CNBC, so I don't really have a sense of how fair Stewart's criticism is, though his central premise makes sense to me: that if CNBC shows were going to have interviews with CEOs, giving them a platform to spew lies, then they had a duty to either a) investigate and do some in-depth reporting or b) clearly present themselves as nothing but entertainment.
Stewart makes a couple other points worth making that don't have much of anything to do with CNBC (except to the extent they ought to have been a watchdog on behalf of average investors): 1) that publicly-traded corporations have lately been managed for short term gain, while average joe investors have been investing for the long term (based on the misunderstanding that corporations were managed for the long term) and that mismatch has robbed investors of their savings; and 2) there are two markets, one of hard-earned dollars by ordinary people on an ordinary scale being invested to own a piece of companies and a second that is a big game in which market players use the money of average investors in their betting games. (I could swear I posted my own made-up theory that was similar to #2, but I can't find it.)
The Daily Show has made the whole interview (much longer than what appeared on the show) available on its website, and available for embedding, so here you go:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
My problem with "interviews" these days is that the interviewee never gets to fully answer a question. And Stewart isn't the only one who does this. O'Reilly and Hannity are 2 examples of those who ask suprt-long questions, then interrupt the answer after about 10 seconds. I though Stewart asked some great questions and made great points, but never really let Cramer answer them.
Yep, I think that is disappointing about this interview.
Post a Comment