Stewart attack on CNBC unfair, but accurate

Dan Mitchell of The Big Money writes that “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart’s attack Wednesday night on CNBC was accurate, but misleading.

Mitchell writes, “If you watch Stewart’s attack carefully, you might notice something: It was completely unfair. Not inaccurate, but unfair. Stewart did a bunch of things that no journalist could, or should, ever get away with. He showed ultra-short clips of anchors and reporters saying things that, by themselves, sounded really stupid but, in context, may not have been quite as dumb as they seemed (though some surely were). And he included clips of interviewees saying dumb things, something for which CNBC bears no blame (unless they went totally unchallenged, which I assume in some cases they did).

“This is all fine — for a satirist. The overall vibe of CNBC — with its “money honeys,” Jim Cramer’s inane frothing, and the lunkheaded fratboys on Fast Money treating economic news like a football game — is stupid. So showing clips that make the network look stupid works just fine — for a satirist.

“But not for a journalist.”

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