From Reddit to You, or The Internet Cannot Be Everywhere At Once, or Can It?
First thing: Jon Stewart criticizing Jim Cramer and CNBC
Second thing: The real reason I wanted to post. The top Reddit comment to the story says,
Some people accuse this generation of excessive irony. Perhaps this irony stems from the fact that our information sources attempt to entertain us, and our sources of entertainment attempt to inform us. The truth is laughed at and we are expected to take nonsense seriously. In this context, irony is simply a self-defense mechanism for the human brain.
Viva la Stewart!
Third thing: But if you read just a little further, you find a nugget that goes,
If you think Stewart is doing journalism, you don't know what journalism is.
It may not be your fault, especially if you are young. In your lifetime, journalists are untrained monkeys asking uninformed questions of celebrities. Stewart also does that, so maybe it seems similar.
Stewart is a comedian. That's a very specific job and it's not all about laughs. Seinfeld called comedy "the truth, only faster". It's about seeing absurdity and pointing it out in a specific way that makes you realize your own doubts, uncertainty, fears even. It makes you laugh sometimes and cry other times.
Stewart can see absurdity, and point it out, but he's not doing journalism and he would have no talent for it.
Journalism would be something like becoming an expert in derivatives and risk and, based on that knowledge, asking CEOs of banks questions, rooting out hidden problems in published balance sheets, maybe even investigative reporting. Here you aren't hobnobbing with celebrities, you are developing contacts in the records department of various firms, interviewing recently fired or retired employees who have an axe to grind, analyzing disclosed activities of lobbyists, developing your own sources within Congress, and just generally pursuing a story with dogged and grim determination until you finally piece together the truth. And then, having the credibility to fearlessly communicate that to an audience, advertisers be damned.
Stewart cannot do any of that. But he can point to the lack of it.
Fourth thing: And likely the most encompassing comment was,
It's not fucking about Jon 'destroying' Jim, he said so himself when he said "it's not all about you".
It's about the bullshit media, it's about the bullshit mainstream, the bullshit politics behind doors, and the bullshit people believe in.
I like to hope that as our generation gets older, with all the globalization going on, that this sort of shit will start to disappear. It's much harder to tell a boldfaced lie with the entire world watching. The internet will be a great help in that regard.
So don't sit here thinking its about Jon vs Jim, or it's about Jim giving shitty stock advice. The general point was that the news media has a responsibility to call out bullshit when they see it, and the ONLY FUCKING PERSON doing that who gets any airtime is Jon Stewart, which is fucked up no matter how you look at it.
Second thing: The real reason I wanted to post. The top Reddit comment to the story says,
Some people accuse this generation of excessive irony. Perhaps this irony stems from the fact that our information sources attempt to entertain us, and our sources of entertainment attempt to inform us. The truth is laughed at and we are expected to take nonsense seriously. In this context, irony is simply a self-defense mechanism for the human brain.
Viva la Stewart!
Third thing: But if you read just a little further, you find a nugget that goes,
If you think Stewart is doing journalism, you don't know what journalism is.
It may not be your fault, especially if you are young. In your lifetime, journalists are untrained monkeys asking uninformed questions of celebrities. Stewart also does that, so maybe it seems similar.
Stewart is a comedian. That's a very specific job and it's not all about laughs. Seinfeld called comedy "the truth, only faster". It's about seeing absurdity and pointing it out in a specific way that makes you realize your own doubts, uncertainty, fears even. It makes you laugh sometimes and cry other times.
Stewart can see absurdity, and point it out, but he's not doing journalism and he would have no talent for it.
Journalism would be something like becoming an expert in derivatives and risk and, based on that knowledge, asking CEOs of banks questions, rooting out hidden problems in published balance sheets, maybe even investigative reporting. Here you aren't hobnobbing with celebrities, you are developing contacts in the records department of various firms, interviewing recently fired or retired employees who have an axe to grind, analyzing disclosed activities of lobbyists, developing your own sources within Congress, and just generally pursuing a story with dogged and grim determination until you finally piece together the truth. And then, having the credibility to fearlessly communicate that to an audience, advertisers be damned.
Stewart cannot do any of that. But he can point to the lack of it.
Fourth thing: And likely the most encompassing comment was,
It's not fucking about Jon 'destroying' Jim, he said so himself when he said "it's not all about you".
It's about the bullshit media, it's about the bullshit mainstream, the bullshit politics behind doors, and the bullshit people believe in.
I like to hope that as our generation gets older, with all the globalization going on, that this sort of shit will start to disappear. It's much harder to tell a boldfaced lie with the entire world watching. The internet will be a great help in that regard.
So don't sit here thinking its about Jon vs Jim, or it's about Jim giving shitty stock advice. The general point was that the news media has a responsibility to call out bullshit when they see it, and the ONLY FUCKING PERSON doing that who gets any airtime is Jon Stewart, which is fucked up no matter how you look at it.