Round two: Stewart vs. Cramer. Stewart wins on points

One of my esteemed local Nevada bloggers, Ann Onn Everything,suggested the other day that Jon Stewart may have taken advantage of poor old Jim Cramer Thursday night on his Daily Show - worth noting, on Comedy Central. Get that - Comedy Central, not PBS.

I don’t often watch this show,so I had to pull it up on the web, but before I could do that, my darling daughter called to tell me about this funny interview between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer. Ronda is a graduate of the Reynolds School of Journalism at UNR, and was for a time, one of Reno’s news talking heads, then producer. She’s not naive when it comes to this sort of exchange. She thought it hysterical.

Needless to say, perhaps, I ran right in and pulled it up. Yup. Funny stuff, alright - made even funnier when Cramer went on Martha Stewart earlier in the day to bake a pie. And, she was the one who did jail time?

Here’s where we get into trouble: one network is selling snake oil and tells us so up front, the other doesn’t. I know, when I watch Bill Maher, that he’s going to be snarky and not particularly gracious. That’s why we tune in. Comedians can tell us things about ourselves from behind the clown nose and red shoes - ala the court jester of old - that we would kill other messengers for.

It’s what I’ve been saying for several years now, that the 24/7 news cycle is a enormous sucking black hole that must be filled or fed  ala Jabba the Hutt, and not always with hard hitting factual journalism. Once in a while P. T. Barnum steps in, all filled with authority, intensity and hyperbole- dressed like Jim Cramer and his cohorts.

I thought Stewart was being pretty gracious, considering, and said up front that he wasn’t holding Cramer responsible for what CNBC - and practically every other for profit news and infotainment outlet has been pumping up the investing publics’ backside for several years now - thinly disguised as the straight skinny and the real deal.

I do give Jim Cramer points for having the balls to show up on The Daily Show, but it takes a set of brass ones to do the show that he does every day - perhaps that shouldn’t be seen as anything particularly special in the way of character. But don’t take my word for it. Watch for yourself:

An on-air television feud between “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart and CNBC’s Jim Cramer has sparked debate about media coverage of the current economic crisis. CBS News’ Jeff Greenfield reports.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Sorry, but I don’t think anybody is buying the ‘poor old Jim Cramer thing’, and rightly so. It’s time somebody called him - and the media- on it.

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