Waiting for CNBC
May 8, 2009 7:59 AM Subscribe
Waiting for CNBC: A tragicomedy in one long act.
The Colombia Journalism Review also has an extensive list online of what the business press did (and didn’t do) while the financial crisis was brewing.
The Colombia Journalism Review also has an extensive list online of what the business press did (and didn’t do) while the financial crisis was brewing.
The "I Am CNBC" campaign in particular makes me want to heave, but I have to admit a certain fondness for what turned out to be a short-lived offshoot:
"I am Donald Trump. I am American business. And I watch CNBC."
They ran this ad for a few days in late February, about two weeks after Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for Chapter 11.
posted by malocchio at 8:54 AM on May 8, 2009
"I am Donald Trump. I am American business. And I watch CNBC."
They ran this ad for a few days in late February, about two weeks after Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for Chapter 11.
posted by malocchio at 8:54 AM on May 8, 2009
CRJ apparently has issues linking to the things that are discussed in their articles (and capitalizing the letter i).
The links:
They mention the now defunct CNBC sucks site who has turned that job over to some guy named Don on you Tube (sweet jesus that is terrible).
And they also mention Fix CNBC
Could not find a link for this:
The end of the piece finishes with a lengthy reference to an exchange on CNBC between Erin Burnett, Dennis Kneale, Melissa Francis, Larry Kudlow and Charlie Gasparino where he is quoted as saying "the auto industry did not destroy the economy. And that’s the problem that Wall Street has " but there is no air date referenced, or footnotes or citation. That is a CNBC piece I would watch.
Also: BEWARE the CURSE of JON STEWART.
posted by zenon at 9:06 AM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
The links:
They mention the now defunct CNBC sucks site who has turned that job over to some guy named Don on you Tube (sweet jesus that is terrible).
And they also mention Fix CNBC
Could not find a link for this:
The end of the piece finishes with a lengthy reference to an exchange on CNBC between Erin Burnett, Dennis Kneale, Melissa Francis, Larry Kudlow and Charlie Gasparino where he is quoted as saying "the auto industry did not destroy the economy. And that’s the problem that Wall Street has " but there is no air date referenced, or footnotes or citation. That is a CNBC piece I would watch.
Also: BEWARE the CURSE of JON STEWART.
posted by zenon at 9:06 AM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]
The answer to the question "What is wrong with CNBC?" is all tied up with the answer to the question "Who owns CNBC?" CNBC is largely owned by GE which has financial and business interests that are so wide as to encompass the entire economy. Any surprise that CNBC would be a relentless cheerleader of stocks and completely uninterested in investigating financial shenanigans betrays a lack of understanding that almost beggars belief.
posted by jefeweiss at 9:53 AM on May 8, 2009
posted by jefeweiss at 9:53 AM on May 8, 2009
I saw Jon Stewart spank Jim Cramer on TDS. Cramer seems properly chastened.
posted by RussHy at 10:41 AM on May 8, 2009
posted by RussHy at 10:41 AM on May 8, 2009
Blah blah blah. CNBC's audience is for people who (a) have jobs regardless of the economy, and (b) want to make money in the market regardless of conditions. We know this to be the case because there is no reason why you'd need to have instantly updated financial news before 9:30 unless you are active in markets that are open before 9:20, and that isn't most people, or even most investors. CNBC assumes you already understand economics and finance. Yes, it is often noisy an inane, but this is also because it is live and unscripted. At 8:29.59 they don't actually know what what they are supposed to say at 8:30.00. So, like any normal realtime conversation between people, there are a lot of um's and uh's.
Contrast this with CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and network nightly news, which is scripted, consciously biased and skewed, human interest illogical drivel. The topic is national healthcare? So the story is 4 seconds about some policy statement made by a politician , followed by 86 seconds of a story about the Shitheads of Cleveland, OH who are down on their luck now that Big Momma won heart disease after eating her 9000th bag of Doritos. That's not news, that's propaganda.
Or better yet, let's consider the op-ed stylings of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly, and Jon Stewart. Despite the fact that they all know exactly what they are going to say hours before they say it, they still come across as bloviating, smug, self-important idiots. And in Stewart's case, if he's so concerned about the quality of television news, maybe he could ask his parent company Viacom to include at least one second of news on any of their 33 television channels that run nothing but wall-to-wall lowest common denominator programming for every demographic group.
I saw Jon Stewart spank Jim Cramer on TDS. Cramer seems properly chastened.
posted by RussHy at 1:41 PM on May 8
Cramer went on Stewart's show and listened to a dummy lecture him about finance. "It's not a game." Spoken on behalf of the losers of the game. House flipping isn't a game. Lying on your mortgage application about your income isn't a game, its a fucking felony. Taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity loans to afford big screen TV's, SUV's Vikings stoves, granite countertops and all the other bullshit wasn't a game, but no one dared say that in the mid 2000's. Because that was when everyone was still playing the game and thought they could win.
posted by Pastabagel at 1:02 PM on May 8, 2009 [2 favorites]
Contrast this with CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and network nightly news, which is scripted, consciously biased and skewed, human interest illogical drivel. The topic is national healthcare? So the story is 4 seconds about some policy statement made by a politician , followed by 86 seconds of a story about the Shitheads of Cleveland, OH who are down on their luck now that Big Momma won heart disease after eating her 9000th bag of Doritos. That's not news, that's propaganda.
Or better yet, let's consider the op-ed stylings of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly, and Jon Stewart. Despite the fact that they all know exactly what they are going to say hours before they say it, they still come across as bloviating, smug, self-important idiots. And in Stewart's case, if he's so concerned about the quality of television news, maybe he could ask his parent company Viacom to include at least one second of news on any of their 33 television channels that run nothing but wall-to-wall lowest common denominator programming for every demographic group.
I saw Jon Stewart spank Jim Cramer on TDS. Cramer seems properly chastened.
posted by RussHy at 1:41 PM on May 8
Cramer went on Stewart's show and listened to a dummy lecture him about finance. "It's not a game." Spoken on behalf of the losers of the game. House flipping isn't a game. Lying on your mortgage application about your income isn't a game, its a fucking felony. Taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity loans to afford big screen TV's, SUV's Vikings stoves, granite countertops and all the other bullshit wasn't a game, but no one dared say that in the mid 2000's. Because that was when everyone was still playing the game and thought they could win.
posted by Pastabagel at 1:02 PM on May 8, 2009 [2 favorites]
It's on in my office constantly. I can't stand it.
Maria Bartiromo screeching at people she disagrees with. Painful, literally and figuratively.
Santelli and Kudlow yelling about socialism and nationalization, and how Obama is destroying the American Dream, and picking on people who "just want to make a profit".
The commercials that have gone from promoting investment firms, banks, and investment opportunities to 30 second informercials for snuggies and shamwows, (although there of fewer of these now than even two weeks ago).
Fox for the wealthy employed.
posted by Chuckles McLaughy du Haha, the depressed clown at 1:10 PM on May 8, 2009
Maria Bartiromo screeching at people she disagrees with. Painful, literally and figuratively.
Santelli and Kudlow yelling about socialism and nationalization, and how Obama is destroying the American Dream, and picking on people who "just want to make a profit".
The commercials that have gone from promoting investment firms, banks, and investment opportunities to 30 second informercials for snuggies and shamwows, (although there of fewer of these now than even two weeks ago).
Fox for the wealthy employed.
posted by Chuckles McLaughy du Haha, the depressed clown at 1:10 PM on May 8, 2009
"It's not a game." Spoken on behalf of the losers of the game.
Wow, don't you get it dude? We are all losers in this particular game. People with jobs, people without jobs, everyone.
You don't have to have a big screen tv to have lost your job in the last six months. My Dad retired this year, and his superannuation (think 401k) had lost something like 80k in four months. I am seeing people who have poured their precious savings into their home watching its value slide like a drunk fireman down a pole.
Welfare here is under more and more pressure as people ditch their health insurance so they can afford to feed their families, and taxes are almost certain to rise as the budget gets bigger and bigger.
But no, I guess it's just stupid people. Stupid people who had access to all the information they needed to make educated financial decisions, in no way egged on or encouraged by businesses, governments, and media organisations. They deserve to go broke, stupid bastards who have jobs, or savings, or whatever.
posted by smoke at 10:50 PM on May 8, 2009 [2 favorites]
Wow, don't you get it dude? We are all losers in this particular game. People with jobs, people without jobs, everyone.
You don't have to have a big screen tv to have lost your job in the last six months. My Dad retired this year, and his superannuation (think 401k) had lost something like 80k in four months. I am seeing people who have poured their precious savings into their home watching its value slide like a drunk fireman down a pole.
Welfare here is under more and more pressure as people ditch their health insurance so they can afford to feed their families, and taxes are almost certain to rise as the budget gets bigger and bigger.
But no, I guess it's just stupid people. Stupid people who had access to all the information they needed to make educated financial decisions, in no way egged on or encouraged by businesses, governments, and media organisations. They deserve to go broke, stupid bastards who have jobs, or savings, or whatever.
posted by smoke at 10:50 PM on May 8, 2009 [2 favorites]
I wouldn't have put it quite as harshly as Pastabagel, but I think he has a good point. There are a lot of people — Stewart included — who are jumping on the blame train now, but weren't exactly trying to get everyone to put on the brakes a few years ago. Guess what: they didn't see this coming either. If they'd been working in finance or business journalism instead of comedy or standard blood-and-sex news, they'd have been cheerleading too.
There are a limited number of people who really saw this thing coming, who deserve a big collective apology for being ignored, and who have earned a platform from which to levy accusations at the motives of others. But Jon Stewart and some of the more vigorous MSM hand-wringers do not; they're just Monday-morning quarterbacking.
I'm no real fan of Jim Cramer, and while I agree he deserves to be taken down a notch, he deserved to be taken down by someone like Peter Schiff — someone who could actually say "you asshole, I told you so" — not by someone who profited quite handsomely off of the hyperconsumerism of the past few years via their advertising-supported TV show, and is now capitalizing on populist rage to score a few more points on the downswing.
At any given time, advertising-driven media in a competitive entertainment marketplace will always provide viewers with what they think those viewers want to see and hear. Over the last few years, people wanted to hear — and outlets like CNBC delivered — economic cheerleading. Now that the bubble has burst, people want blood and scapegoats, and Stewart and others are falling over themselves to deliver that instead.
CNBC, Fox, et al play the "long" side of trends, building them up; Stewart is the ultimate "short": once the public's fickle tastes have turned, he profits on the inevitable disappointment and cynicism.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:35 AM on May 9, 2009
There are a limited number of people who really saw this thing coming, who deserve a big collective apology for being ignored, and who have earned a platform from which to levy accusations at the motives of others. But Jon Stewart and some of the more vigorous MSM hand-wringers do not; they're just Monday-morning quarterbacking.
I'm no real fan of Jim Cramer, and while I agree he deserves to be taken down a notch, he deserved to be taken down by someone like Peter Schiff — someone who could actually say "you asshole, I told you so" — not by someone who profited quite handsomely off of the hyperconsumerism of the past few years via their advertising-supported TV show, and is now capitalizing on populist rage to score a few more points on the downswing.
At any given time, advertising-driven media in a competitive entertainment marketplace will always provide viewers with what they think those viewers want to see and hear. Over the last few years, people wanted to hear — and outlets like CNBC delivered — economic cheerleading. Now that the bubble has burst, people want blood and scapegoats, and Stewart and others are falling over themselves to deliver that instead.
CNBC, Fox, et al play the "long" side of trends, building them up; Stewart is the ultimate "short": once the public's fickle tastes have turned, he profits on the inevitable disappointment and cynicism.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:35 AM on May 9, 2009
up yours, deeply and softly, pastabagel.
posted by Hat Maui at 6:42 PM on May 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Hat Maui at 6:42 PM on May 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
up yours, deeply and softly, pastabagel.
We saw more or less the same diatribe from him in the last thread about Jim Cramer. And the one before that.
Pay no attention to the fact that these commentators have a less than 50/50 shot at being correct about the financial market, i.e. their predictive ability is somehow worse than flipping a coin, despite their media connections and corporate backing. What they do is worse than journalism being done by manner of picking random words out of a dictionary.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:30 PM on May 9, 2009
We saw more or less the same diatribe from him in the last thread about Jim Cramer. And the one before that.
Pay no attention to the fact that these commentators have a less than 50/50 shot at being correct about the financial market, i.e. their predictive ability is somehow worse than flipping a coin, despite their media connections and corporate backing. What they do is worse than journalism being done by manner of picking random words out of a dictionary.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:30 PM on May 9, 2009
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posted by grubi at 8:29 AM on May 8, 2009