Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, recently interviewed Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC's Mad Money. Jon takes a dig at the business news channels that failed to educate viewers on what was happening in the financial markets and Cramer is defenseless.
The interview has had a huge fan faollowing in the US. The Washington Post reports White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying "I Enjoyed It Thoroughly", when asked about the show.
When the equity markets were in a bullish phase, CNBC's Indian unit - CNBC TV18, made the mistake of celebrating (literally) every additional 1000 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange, knowing very well that the market was frothy. The reporters wore colorful dresses, cut cakes and decorated the studio with balloons! Why did they do all that? The TV channel has a stake in the market going up all the time and small investors feeling gung-ho about it. So it was just an act of playing to the gallery. One wondered whether CNBC TV18 is a business news channel or an entertainment channel.....
Watch Jon Stewart's interview here:
I hope shows like this highlight and encourage debate on the important issue of an inherent conflict of interest that the news media faces these days - the quest for profit versus the duty of quality reporting and investigative journalism. If the issue of conflict of interest is not resolved, news media risks failing in its role as a pillar of democracy.
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they had bloody cheerleaders dancing for every 1000 points in the sensex. in trading forums we have named cnbc as cartoon network buffoon channel.
speaking of conflict of interests, its all about access to ceos and scoops of "breaking news". For mario bartiromo or Erin Burnett, getting that exclusive interview with Dick Fuld or Allen Stanford is more important than say do serious financial reporting. And why bother about brains when we can flash boobs. Its worse in india, last week we had mitali mukherjee laughing at Meredith Whitney for saying gloomy stuff about banks. And last year She was dissing Dr YVR about not cutting rates. Think about it - mitali frakking mukherjee dissing Dr Reddy. Dr. R should go "thookula thongify" for suffering this ignominy
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