The TV Zone

(Jason DeCrow, AP)

Oh yeah, Stewart-Cramer has hit a raw nerve.

I think, in fact, said nerve has been carted away to recuperate. Last week's interview actually almost feels like one of those WWE brawls that spilled outta the ring, and into the audience. This is no longer about who won, or who lost - Stewart won, duh - but more about what Stewart's dismembering of the guy says about a whole range of civic issues that are vital to country and democracy.

At least if some comments I got on last week's post are any indication.

There's quite a range of opinion on this one, much of it focusing on the presumption that I missed the point of the interview. Little value in arguing that again - I didn't miss the point and you'll just have to take my word for it - but I do think it's important to clarify one overwhelming mis-characterization among some readers: That Jim Cramer is in some way representative of the failure of the news media to anticipate the debacle that has befallen the world's economy.

Let me now state this as clearly and as concisely as I possibly can: In no way, shape or form does Jim Cramer represent the print news media.

At all. Period. His failures, considerable though they may or may not be, have absolutely nothing to do with the way the rest of the (print) media has covered the U.S. economy and I can't imagine how anyone of sane mind or judgment could ever begin to conflate the two. Stewart certainly didn't make the link, the best I could tell, either.

The print reporters who cover finance - let me add to that, the ones that cover ANY subject - that I've known over the years are honest, dedicated, and hard-working. All of them, the ones I know or have known, got in this business because they cared about the truth, and the difficult craft of conveying the truth. They also care deeply about people, and how the actions of certain people - notably those in power - have a profound impact on other people - notably those without power. I've never known a reporter who piped quotes, or fudged the facts, or made up stories, or created fictions. I've never known one who didn't experience sheer agony over a story missed, or sheer joy over the story that perfectly captured one that he or she set out to capture.

And this notion that the print press somehow missed the economic debacle because it was "lazy" or full of "cheerleaders" or "full of itself" or "willfully stupid" or "incompetent" (those are not actual quotes from my comments, but they DO seem to represent a certain bias among some) is an outright falsehood.

I'll get off my high horse and go back to real TV subjects ("Lost!" "24!" "Celebrity Apprentice!") in a minute, but please allow this one last observation. In fact, the press HAS covered the housing crisis, and sub-prime loans mess, and the hedge fund danger and other stock market shenanigans. It has for years. Plug in the phrase "housing bubble danger" - or "sub-prime mortgages risks to the economy" - into the Nexis's search field, limit the years (let's say from 2003 to 2008) and you'll get so many hits that they run into the thousands. On the New York Times alone.

The print press has covered the economy RELENTLESSLY; it's been a nattering Cassandra on the subject for years, but because it didn't give the exact date and time of the collapse must now be lumped in with Jim "Boo Yah" Boy Cramer?

Oh, please.

Here's a thoughtful comment by Ashwin - and thanks to everyone for taking the time to write in - then please go to the jump for a just a few random examples of press coverage over the years...

"There had been concern about the stability of subprime mortages over a year before banks like Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers collapsed. I have friends working in the lower levels of investment banks who were telling me how a beating was about to take place. Don't tell me that in 1+ years time there were no journalists with the intelligence and the savvy to understand subprime loans. It seemed as if as soon as the bottom fell out of the financial market, news reporters were coming out of the woodwork to tell us how subprime mortgages were garbage, how there had been insurances sold on these loans that were equally garbage, and how the whole house of cards could be simply explained. Where were all these people before the bottom fell out? People like Cramer..."