Impact
Though Cramer's appearance on The Daily Show had been hyped by NBC in the lead up to Cramer's appearance, CNBC declined to comment directly following its airing. Instead, CNBC issued a broad statement in defense of its track record: "Recognized as the worldwide leader in business news, CNBC produces more than 150 hours of live television a week that includes more than 850 interviews in the service of exposing all sides of every critical financial and economic issue. We are proud of our record and remain committed to delivering coverage in real-time during this extraordinary story and beyond." Insiders at CNBC, however, privately acknowledged that the interview was ultimately a public relations disaster for the network; viewership went down 10% in the first three days after the interview. In a conference held March 18, the CEO of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker, called Stewart's attacks on business network CNBC "incredibly unfair" and "completely out of line".
Days after the airing of the program, a group of economists and progressives issued an open letter to CNBC and called for public signatures. The letter demanded that the network set higher journalistic standards and said that, "Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism — asking tough questions to Wall Street... Instead, CNBC has done PR for Wall Street." The letter was signed by a variety of economists and journalists, such as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Doug Henwood, author of Wall Street and After the New Economy. Funded by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political action committee focused on electing progressive Democrats in congressional elections, the group also launched a website, fixcnbc.com. Their stated goal was to persuade CNBC executives to prioritize investigative financial journalism over Wall Street "access".
In a May 2011 interview with The New York Times, Cramer explained that he was unprepared for Stewart's intense interview, saying "As soon as he started, I realized Stewart was on a mission to make me look like a clown. I didn’t defend myself because I wasn’t prepared. What was I supposed to do, talk about how often I had been right? Praise myself? Get mad? I was mad, but I didn’t want to give the audience any blood. The national media said I got crushed, which I did, and made me into a buffoon... They wanted to make me the Face of the Era, and they succeeded. Rick Santelli’s a conservative. Ideological. O.K., I get that. But me? I was very anti-Bush. I’m a Democrat, I’ve got the canceled checks to prove it, and suddenly I’m the enemy? Me? Me?"
Read more about this topic: Jon Stewart's 2009 Criticism Of CNBC
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