Danny Schechter - ColdType

206
The chances of a just outcome are only possible if and when
“the People,” in whose name all this was done, and rationalized,
rise up to demand it be undone. James Cramer, the
much maligned cable TV “moneycaster,” often a caricature to
be scorned, has it right in the pages of Lapham’s Quarterly.
There, he notes, that more banks today are robbing than being
robbed: “It’s more of a James Steinbeck tale,” he writes, “and
we are the victims, a new generation of Tom Joads, and it’s the
damn bankerman who broke us. No there won’t be a police
offer to investigate, and the government, at least this federal
government won’t save us … Get ready, many more dollars
will vanish before you discover you’ve been robbed.”
And you won’t hear that from the chattering upper classes
on CNBC. In fact by August 2009, CNBC’s ratings began to
slide.
The Observer newspaper commented: “The drop in ratings
is irresistible fodder for CNBC’s critics. The channel is loathed
by many on the left for its shouty style and unrestrained
embrace of Ayn Rand-style capitalism. It apes the machismo
of the trading floor and in gaps between genuinely informative
reportage, its presenters jostle to out-opinion each other.
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project
for Excellence in Journalism, says many of its shows are built
around ‘punditry and personality’ rather than any genuine
attempt to report business news ...
“Rosenstiel says that despite devoting its entire output to
finance, the channel failed to flag up warning signs sufficiently
prominently before the credit crunch began: ‘They missed the
financial meltdown. They missed the effect of derivatives and
toxic mortgages on the financial system. They missed the big
stuff.’ ”
By the fall of 2009, I felt vindicated as other journalists, filmmakers
and writers piled on. Michael Moore was out with a
film he called a comedy, Oliver Stone was making Wall Street
2, and my own investigative film on the crisis as a crime story,