The Silence Was Deafening

MSNBC Barely Touches Stewart vs. Cramer

By Broadway Carl

Every time someone uses the phrase,"liberal media," I look for the nearest brick wall on which to pound my head against.

In anticipation for the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer knock-down-drag-out, Cramer took to the airwaves of the morning shows in his defense to attempt to rehabilitate his image and rebut his main critic with a specific message: "A comedian’s attacking me. Wow. He runs a variety show." I remember him saying it at least twice. He appeared on the Today show, got Joe Scarborough to shill for him on Morning Joe, and even pounded dough with Martha Stewart.

After the bloodletting, Joe Scarborough was touting an exclusive interview with Cramer on Morning Joke™ using Twitter.



I even got up at an ungodly hour to watch. No Cramer. Then this.



So much for Jim Cramer taking it like a man. Did he no-show or was he cancelled? Maybe the latter.

..."MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today." In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn't sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. "I enjoyed it thoroughly," the Press Secretary said.

Keith... Keith... Why have you forsaken us?

The biggest disappointment in all of this is that the "liberal media" (namely MSNBC according to its detractors) took its marching orders with the culmination of Keith Olbermann completely ignoring what was probably one of the best journalism pieces this short year. Not. A. Word. And the silence was deafening.

Now we all know what side KO's bread is buttered on, but I think this qualified as a pretty big news story and if Olbermann doesn't think he can mention it because of a conflict of interest with separate NBC network entities, then he actually did no better than Jim Cramer.

Luckily, there is still one person on the MSNBC line up that kept her integrity.

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Yes, Rachel Maddow framed the feature of this "Dust Up!" story in regards to what millions were interested in, in comparison to other newsworthy stories... but she mentioned it. She didn't ignore it like the rest of the day of MSNBC programming, from Morning Joke™ to hours of inane coverage of that missing Halleigh girl to even more news of Anna Nicole Smith two years after her death. That's what they talked about. But something that happened to one of their own in the NBC family? Mum's the word.

Chris Matthews, who got his own drubbing in my opinion with the Ari Fleischer crapfest, ignored it. David Shuster? Did he mention it? Apparently not, since it seems to be the talk of the intertubes that except for Maddow, the Cramer story was ignored (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Let's not forget that this isn't some little side story about television personality rumbles. This was the true outing of the lack of financial oversight and regulations that have put our government in an economic crisis that we all fear, an admission from a former hedge fund manager as to how the inside game is played because the SEC doesn't understand it, as well as a complete deficiency of investigative journalism on the part of the financial "reporters" on financial news networks like CNBC and Fox Business Channel. If they have doubts about a certain company, do they seriously expect a CEO of said company to come on their show for an interview and be honest?

As for Jim Cramer, he was the only other NBC regular that actually mentioned "what happened yesterday" on his Friday broadcast, proving to all that it was going to be "business as usual" on his show, bell, whistles, red buttoned sound effects, plastic sledgehammers and all. So much for the promise of change, Mr. Cramer. So much for the promise of change.

Excuse me while I go find a brick wall.

Cross-posted at Broadway Carl's Blog-O-Mania!