Journalism

The Daily Show, on which Jon Stewart gave a smackdown to Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money show, is both entertainment and the kind of journalism we need to see more of -- where journalists are well-informed, ask probing questions, and do not accept glib answers, obfuscation, or outright lying without followup.

But we had to wait for a comedian to do it !!!

This is a major indictment of the current state of journalism, which too often thinks it's job is simply to present both sides of a controversy, without doing the background work to be informed or applying logic and common sense in questioning the obvious.

Newspapers are on the verge of collapse all over, with predictions that even some major cities will shortly be without a local daily newspaper. Of course the internet, cable news, and plummeting advertising sales are mostly to blame.

But I also give some blame to the low state that journalism has sunk in the Bush/Cheney era. Where are the courageous investigative journalists of the past? Only a few exceptions like Seymore Hersh, who broke the Abu Graib story.

"An informed public" is as much a necessity for a democracy to work as are the other three branches of our system. We seem to be fast losing an effective "4th branch." The internet and bloggers are taking up the slack, and some of the best reporting is taking place there. But they don't have the resources for the sometimes costly investigations that are essential. We'll see whether that develops into an effective counter to the misinformation bilged out daily on talk radio and most TV news reading.

Here is the link to the clips from the Stewart interview:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/03/jon_stewart_interview_with_jim_cramer.php

Ralph