A Changing of the Guard at the Gates of the Fourth Estate

A tiny storm has swept the world of basic cable. Buffoonish stock picker Jim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money was called out by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show as being symbolic of the business news community’s failure to report on the machinations of Wall Street in the recent economic unravelling. Stewart, who has criticized hack punditry before (See Jon Stewart’s appearance on the now-defunct CNN show Crossfire) first chastised CNBC after one of their commentators, Rick Santelli, referred to defaulting homeowners as “losers” live, on the air, from the floor of the Chicago mercantile exchange (Santelli was slated to appear that night on the Daily Show, but allegedly backed out under pressure from CNBC executives) Stewart went to town on the business “news” network, a humbling worthy of your time and probably one of those odd cable television awards.

Jim Cramer, who is the subject of a great deal of the Daily Show evisceration, took the bit particularly hard. In response CNBC sent Cramer on a NBC tour, in which he showed up on at least two of the conglomerate’s other networks (NBC and MSNBC). Judging by his defeated demeanor during this media tour it is likely that the plan was devised without his input. Jim may not have known what he was in for, but NBC should have. Other networks picked up the story, and in response to Cramer’s griping across the basic cable band, Stewart did a second segment targeting him specifically. How did Cramer respond? By agreeing to be a guest on Stewart’s show.

I give Cramer credit for taking his lumps straight up, but he didn’t challenge Stewart in any significant way on any point. Perhaps he couldn’t, because there really wasn’t any good excuse for his actions or that of his network. Cramer’s evisceration at the hands of Stewart was so fierce (watch the unedited version here) Jim may lose his audience and his show. I suppose Cramer was hoping to come on, get a few raps on the wrist and be let off with a warning. But brother this ain’t a US federal court with its propensity toward leniency in “white collared” crime cases. And, as Jim was soon to discover, this wasn’t the pathetic hollowed-out shell known as mainstream media who masquerade as professional news organizations. No sir. This was one of the few surviving members of that endangered species once respectfully referred to as the fourth estate.

The Fourth Estate was the name given to newspapers by the statesman Edmund Burke. In years since the title has come to represent the media’s role and sacred duty to protect the public interest, to report the facts and expose the truth. However, through the ever widening scope of capitalism, media has entered the marketplace to be bought and sold, merged and acquired. This was always a slippery slope, entrusting a vital resource of democracy to a group principally concerned with profit and nothing else. Now we have begun to harvest the consequences.

On many occasions Jon Stewart has highlighted the complete absurdity of his show’s position in the world of news. The Daily Show is, after all, a spoof, or at least it was supposed to be. Instead, it has come to fill the void in a world awash in news programs that report nothing beyond what their corporate sponsors will permit. There are a few others who also carry the banner of decency in journalism, though they are few and far between. These include Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Nevertheless, this general absence of journalistic standards has left the American public ignorant and susceptible to the most flagrant abuses of power (See the Presidency of George W. Bush and the theft committed by Wall Street). Oh how the news has abandoned us! Where were they in the lead up to the Iraq war? Cheerleading the invasion. Where were they while frauds were repeatedly perpetrated by Wall Street? Gagged by the corporate barons that own them. Corporate stewardship of mass media has run the ship aground destroying its credibility with respect to content and bias. Now its relentless profit seeking threatens the last vestige of traditional mass media’s journalistic integrity – the newspaper.

Sure, American’s read less now than perhaps ever before and those who do read newspapers do so online rather than in print. However, the death of the paper on newsstands will soon lead to its demise online where it continues to struggle to find a role amid the mass of dis/information. And when the papers are no longer the home of respectable journalism, where will most people turn for information? They will turn to TV. In that barren wasteland of commercialized, bite-sized and eroticized data they will have to search, nay, excavate for something they can plausibly refer to as legitimate. Good luck. As the late David Foster Wallace discusses at length in his essay E Unibus Pluram (which I won’t elaborate on in great detail, though I suggest you read it), TV programs recognize their inherent trickery and dishonesty and so does the audience watching them. Can this be the best forum for reporting truth and fact? In between car commercials and ads hawking cures for the very insecurities this medium has helped to create? No, of course not, but here we are.

It shouldn’t be surprising that the nation without a meaningful public broadcasting outlet is also one in which the political system is home to legal, institutionalized bribery. I’m sorry you must be confused; I’m referring to what are known as campaign contributions. The buying of votes has led the United States to become a form of semi-democracy in which citizens elect impotent politicians who are unable to fulfill on their promise of promoting the people’s interest. America has effectively deregulated and privatized itself into a corporatized brand state where a citizen is likely to get more for their money by supporting their favorite company than by voting for their preferred candidate. After all, why deal with the bagman when you could talk to the Don?

But hope is not dead and in that vast universe we call the Internet there are opportunities to continue the tradition begun by newspapers and even to expand its reach. The Internet has transformed our ability to track and compile information making it increasingly difficult for CEOs and politicians to change the story and rewrite history. Furthermore, the web has provided an outlet for whistle blowers and citizen activists to contribute directly to the shared body of knowledge and to report on the actions of governments and corporations alike. These individuals are motivated not by compensation, but by a belief in justice and accountability (See Wikileaks.org). Though access is not yet universal, the Internet is a truly democratic tool and an opportunity to preserve and protect the fourth estate. We can no longer rely on so-called professional journalists to protect our interests, the responsibility is ours and the time is now.

~Old Major