At this point, you may have seen or heard CNBC’s Jim Cramer appear on the Daily Show with John Stewart. I’ve not seen it because I’m actually trying to avoid it. However, while driving Friday night, I heard on the Mike O’Meara Show some clips of the interview. In it Cramer defends his defense of Lehman Bros. from months back by saying he knew the Lehman CEO, that he trusted the Lehman CEO, and that the Lehman CEO lied to him. Stewart hits back suggesting that journalists have some obligation to actually check out what they’re being told. It’s a good point. What good are journalists if they’re just blindly relaying to the public whatever some company wants the public to hear. Cramer didn’t have a good comeback.
However, this appears to be endemic at CNBC (if not everywhere else). Silicon Alley Insider noted in January an instance where a blogger was challenging CNBC and their Silicon Valley bureau chief’s reporting of Apple and Steve Jobs’ health — an instance where CNBC was pretty wrong. The video of the encounter does little to inspire confidence in journalists/reporters.
The bureau chief defends himself by saying that he believes his sources and that the sources believe what they told him. He seems to feel no obligation to investigate whether or not they’d actually have access to the real information. One of the CNBC talking heads adds points like:
The dirty secret of journalism is you have to believe most of what your told.
and
He reported what he was told and that’s what every journalist does.
How’s that for inspiring confidence. And to think that some people trust this information and use it for making investment decisions.
