The Failure of the Media

Posted by Ray on July 2, 2009 under cnbc, Main, Politics | Be the First to Comment

The media has failed America, clear and simple. They prefer to cover Michael Jackson’s death or Britney’s latest blunder rather than tell us what is really going on. The press was given constitutional privileges to be the watch dog of the government, wow have they failed us.

All the networks are guilty of this, Fox is too conservative and filled with commentary, MSNBC and CNN is too liberal and kisses the democrats asses, but the worst is the financial media. Stop kissing Obama’s ass, we get it the first black president and the first one since Clinton who knows real words. His policies are dangerous and set a new standard in our country that is very dangerous. Stop giving politicians a free ride and hold them to what they actually did, not what they claim they will do, Dodd, Frank and company with your campaign contributions and mortgage deals.

While we understand what their job is and that their advertisers need cheerleaders they still have a duty to report what is really going on. Instead they concentrate on fluff and rail their own opinions and have on guests that agree with them. The recent stint the Dennis has given us is a great example of this. He said we want to debate, but he wanted to do what Howard Stern and Fox has done yell over the guest, cut them off and scream their point home.

CNBC does do a decent job of giving a balanced prospective, but they fail to see that one up day or one down day is not a market trend. In short, they are entertaining, but I still have a lot of respect for many commentators such as Mark Haines, David Faber, Joe, Bill and many others.

However, the new version of CNBC is just so dangerous to many of its viewers. Jim Cramer, Dennis and Kudlow keep pitching their prospective and cherry pick data, in some cases just make it up, to make their point. I appreciate their insight and opinions after all differing opinions make a market.

However, Jim Cramer, in July of 2007 said the sub-prime problem is nothing, tiny and could blow up and no one would know anything had happened. Let us not forget the infamous Bear, Sterns comments, made a few days and weeks before its implosion. Of course there is the infamous “the Fed knows nothing” rant and the September/October, I can’t remember at the moment, call to sell everything. Frankly, when the Fed starts injecting tens and hundreds of billion into the market over a period of a few days, and they never let up, that was the sign of a major problem. As a matter of fact I called my wife in early August 2007 saying the fed just injected some astronomical amount into the market, banks are going to fail, I was right jst a year early, but did move to cash then.

Regardless, Jim called a bull market in January 3rd, I think it was, of this year before the market hit its lows of March 9th. Then there was Dennis who did not even know what the VIX was and a whole host of other examples we could use. The point is they are great at getting their point out and ignoring those who got it right and reducing their exposure on their network, i.e. Peter Schiff.

I m not saying that none of these folks have any value, I listen to them everyday. What I am saying is that we all want things to get better, but we cannot ignore the immediate facts in front of us. Be optimistic, but do not make just crazy calls like its a bull market or the recession is over. let’s get back to real reporting and not, to quote Dave, what “makes good TV.”

For example, did you know that Helen Thomas and Chip Reid called out the Obama administration for controlling the press? We now know that every question had to be pre-approved before it could be asked, so much for transparency. It is also sad that Jon Stewart asks harder questions than other media personalities, not to mention more relevant questions, Christ he is on the Comedy Station people!

The press has the power and the constitution guarantees it, so what are you going to do with it? I am betting that you will continue to sweat over Jon and Kate Plus 8 versus what is really going on in the world. Nice job guys.