Takeaways from the Cramer Interview

CNBC’s Jim Cramer entered his much-anticipated interview with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” like a lamb and left it like a lamb chop.

But Stewart’s on-air castigation of Cramer for his “Mad Money” histrionics, investment advice and trading tactics offers some important takeaways:

• Business journalism, and television business journalism in particular, is far more influential than even those involved in it were aware. Especially in hard times, people look to business journalists to get it right.



• Mixing investment advice with entertainment is always tricky because it can lead to exaggeration, punch lines and drama out of step with prudent investing. This funny game loses its humor quickly in bad times.

Television is a voice of the economy
While Americans may not be reading newspapers like they once did and many are not yet wedded to the Internet, they do have television sets. And they are watching.

It may be surprising to learn that television is the primary source of news about the economy for more Americans than newspapers, the Internet and radio combined. That’s what a nationwide research report released by the Reynolds Center in February found after interviewing 450 heads of households.

CEOs lied to journalists, complex risky investments were foisted on the public and deep debt became an accepted way of life. But if your home value and your retirement account kept increasing in value, why care about all that? Viewers and readers hear what they want to hear when times are good because they want times to get even better.

Sober up, journalists!
Peering into the rearview mirror, we see that journalists and the rest of society needed to be more sober in dealing with issues of money. The bursting of the technology bubble and the Enron debacle were modest brush fires compared to the current inferno encompassing the globe.

Hard-nosed, common sense reporting on investments and economic trends has never been more needed. The public is ready for it because it has just had a crash course in economic reality.

Journalists on-air, in print and online must push as never before for financial transparency by companies and the government, as well as intelligently point out the risks and viability of investments.

Fewer journalists but a bigger job
Ironically, all this is needed as the media is undergoing a dramatic contraction. That means that every journalist has become more important in carrying out this task.

At the Reynolds Center we believe that training for journalists in understanding complex financial topics can make a difference, and we offer it online and on-location to help.

But we also think that this is a time for all journalists to fully realize that what they say about business and the economy is important. Americans are deeply worried about their future and they are listening.

Journalists at every level of every medium have the potential to take intelligent business coverage to a higher level.
Cramer told Stewart: “I try really hard to make good calls.”

Every business journalist must try really hard these days. This game is for keeps and affects millions.

Copyright © 2009 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism