If you haven't seen the Stewart/Cramer showdown, you should link here

It has also drawn a lot of comment. Matt Yglesias does a good job drawing the moral with this:

"The big Stewart-Cramer faceoff was funny and it made good television. But what's striking about it is that basically Jim Cramer had nothing to say on his own behalf and then at the end of the day that's not going to make any difference. People talk about how sad it is that you need to turn to Comedy Central to get real journalism. And it really is sad because Comedy Central just can't do what journalism is supposed to do, and it can't do the things that make a difference. It's worth thinking a bit about the General Electric Corporations news media properties more generally. They hired Phil Donahue, and then fired him when he had the highest ratings on the network because they didn't like that he was against invading Iraq. They hired Keith Olbermann, expecting him to not be a liberal. But he turned out to be pretty progressive. And that turned out to be pretty popular. So they started featuring him more. Which prompted a huge freakout from their big news stars like Tom Brokaw about how it was injuring their credibility to appear on a network that's cobranded with a network that features a liberal. Meanwhile, at their other cobranded network, CNBC, they have on air a bunch of frauds. People show up and pretend to have sage investment advice. Larry Kudlow is put forward as someone who's knowledgeable about economic policy. And when someone points the fraud out, the whole GE circles the wagons to defend Jim Cramer and CNBC. Liberals? That wrecks their credibility. Liars and frauds? That's great. Go peacock! It's a deep rot, and John Stewart satirizing it doesn't really change anything. It would require the people working at NBC News to develop a conscience. link here"

I have not see the Stewart/Cramer "showdown". I have seen a few excerpts though. It is my opinion that this situation is a lot more complex than presented. First, there is an unstated political current. Cramer has been highly critical of Obama's economic policy, Immelt (the CEO of GE) appears to be in the Obama camp. Essentially, Cramer is out on the proverbial limb.

My take - "someone" who nobody will admit to knowing appears to has initiated a whisper campaign to discredit Cramer. Of course it doesn't help that Fox News for whatever reason has been remorsefully attacking NBC for a while. Comedy Central appears to be late to the "party". (Please note, I am not defending NBC, I have been immensely disappointed with the quality of their non-business news)

One thing that needs to be said about Cramer, he is one of the few analysts who will actually offer REAL advice. When one offers real advice you can be right and you can be wrong, but it is real advice. If someone gives real advise, they need to be recognized for it.

I get extremely tired of listening to so-called pundits who offer the following advice: "Buy good quality stocks". In fact some of these pundits, when asked, face to face, what stocks they would recommend - refuse to answer. It appalls me when so-called experts are vague and refuse to answer questions. Crammer sticks his neck out and does answer the questions.

As I indicated above, I did not see the Stewart/Cramer "showdown". But I take it that this show did NOT mention that Crammer called the market downturn as it started. I assume that Stewart highlighted Cramer's mistakes and ignored Cramer's correct calls. Of course, it would have been up to Crammer to "correct" Stewart on these purposeful biased oversights.

Regretfully, we seem to be in a Soviet style orchestrated effort to discredit a person where the truth is irrelevant.

@Steve R: Stewart was calling out CNBC, not Cramer. Cramer became the whipping-boy as a result of other people's efforts. Stewart began the interview with something along the lines of 'why did CNBC act as a cheering section for an economy it _knew_ wasn't sustainable'. He attempted to return to that theme several times during the interview. When Cramer wasn't kowtowing, he was deflecting the questions from CNBC to himself.

You _need_ to watch the interview. It's painful, but extremely telling. The real problem for me wasn't that Stewart was one-sided, but that Cramer was incompetent. He wasn't prepared to talk about CNBC at all. If Cramer had been able to offer a counter-argument, it would have been much, much better for everyone.

I'm also not sure that Cramer's habit of telling you what stocks to buy is a mark of a good analyst. If you're playing the market, you need to make your own decisions. The analyst is just there to give you more information to make your own decisions.

Correct, that saying what stocks to buy is not necessarily the mark of a good analyst. You are also correct that you need to make your own decisions. My point, however, was that so-called pundits who get payed big bucks and then provide empty useless advise such as "Buy good Quality Stocks" are simply not providing the viewer with anything of real value. I would gladly appear on-screen and provide that type of vague useless advice for a few $$$. If someone can't take a stand and make an informed recommendation that provides value to the viewer, they should be tossed off the air.

Cramer, since he is employed by CNBC may be somewhat muzzled. But you may well be correct that his "defense" of CNBC was less than adequate. It also takes an incredibly adept person who is really really good a doublespeak to defend an impossible position. Crammer may not have had it in him.

I haven't seen though the show itself wherein Stewart and Cramer had a face-to-face encounter on Stewart's show. It would not be as funny as it may seem if viewers will really understand the whole message of the show. If Cramer admitted that he also commits mistake and on the other hand, a lot of our citizen believes everything he says for he is known as a popular former hedge fund manager and a financial analyst who we thought could really help us to be out of this economic mess. But for those who had the chance to view the interview of Jon Stewart, I hope that we have still to be critical in everything we see and hear. The interview won't make any difference or won't even solve the global economic crisis but then somehow it may give us a clearer view on what was really going on. At least a lot of viewers had fun and Jon Stewart became known again in his ability.