Dylan Wohlenhaus' Final paper

Dylan Wohlenhaus
Final Paper
The Habermasery of Jenkins' photoshoped Democracy

The separation between satire and journalism and reporting at a certain point was clear. You have variety shows, comedians, TV hosts and journalists all working in television but by no means could comedians affect the credibility of journalists. Never could a variety show become the watch dog of the media big dogs. The news director, station manager even the managing editor are still the boss in today’s media world but they are far from the only people you have to answer to in the public sphere. In this paper I will explore the idea of Jugen Habermas’ Public Sphere along with Henry Jenkins chapter six, Photoshop for Democracy. The media artifact I will be looking at is the Jon Steward and Jim Cramer “Brawl Street” battle. With both authors arguments you will see how satire can now serve as a media watch dog.

Jim Cramer, a prominent CNBC financial reporter, advisor and analyst. Mad Money first aired in 2005 mainly an entertainment show for financial speculation and investment opportunity. For anyone including myself that is global economic market illiterate, Jim Cramer and his Mad Money television show was an outlet you could turn to for some free financial advice. Mad Money, an interesting show for a not so interesting topic, buying stocks and buying the right stocks to maximize your investments. “In Cramer we trust” you see as a slogan for his show, essentially asking you to trust him with your money in responsible advisement on where it should go. Well in early 2009 he made some terrible even catastrophic (to some) financial projections. They landed him in some hot water not with the CNBC news director. Not with Jeff Zucker, president of NBC but a TV host. A comedian that claims he and his show has no journalistic traits. It was the accuracy check that factcheck.org didn’t catch and the giant miss many watch dog organizations didn’t call out. At least if anyone up until Stewart held Cramer accountable that nation sure didn’t catch on.

Jon Stewart, a comedian, a satirist and the current host of Comedy Central’s Daily Show. He gained his prominence through small acting roles and MTV Spring Break hosts even appearing in the movie Half Baked as a stoner buying a bag of weed. The ideal journalist or even someone who should be taken seriously, of course not, or should he? Since 1998 when Jon Stewart took over as host of The Daily Show it has been gaining prominence among its viewers and Stewart is getting more credit for his work than I think he even gives himself. Making fun of current events and many times the people that report on them Jim Cramer just happen to fall in line with Jon Stewart’s satire shtick in March of 2009. The now infamous companies, Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns and Lehman brothers all have one big thing in common. They are the big three companies that helped drive America in to an economic down turn. Up until the economy collapse in the spring of 2009, Cramer advised the people who were watching his show to buy stock in Bear Stearns and that “It was doing fine” and he “Still believes in Bear Stearns” overall this clearly was a problem that CNBC had. Because of Mad Money’s popularity Jim Cramer became the face of the faults with CNBC but he himself wasn’t to be spared from his bad judgments either.

The pot really boiled over when Cramer went on the TODAY show in early march and essentially belittled and claimed Stewart inferior to himself and the power that he had. When Cramer was asked by Meredith Viera, “You’re coming under fire with Jon Stewart” Cramer replies “A comedian, a comedian is attacking me, wow, he runs a variety show”, the last draw for Stewart. Jim Cramer finally made his appearance in The Daily Show as a guest. John Stewart made Cramer look completely un prepared, un professional and overpowered Cramer with his tough questions and points. “We feel like it’s a game that you know, that you know is going on but that you go on television as a financial network and pretend isn’t happening.”, Stewart says to Cramer about the stock market crash Cramer replies “absolutely we could do better, there’s shenanigans and we should call them out.” More mea culpa less the mono e mono that the title “brawl street” trumped up.

Increasingly The Daily Show is gaining a more intelligent audience. When it first began in 1996 with the host being Craig Kilborn its audience was the South Park viewers and the small pop culture audience who really tuned in to Comedy Central. But over the years Jon Stewart’s claim to being a “non journalist” really didn’t matter because he was gaining credibility with an audience of well educated politicians and the people who tuned in to main stream news and a generation of young adults getting their news from satire shows like The Daily Show. In Jenkins book he cites a PEW survey taken in 2000 that states 9% of people under the age of 30 received their news from comedy shows. That percent rose to 23% in 2004. Soon after you started to see a segment on George Stephanopoulos news program on ABC highlighting the week’s satire political skits, many shows were soon to follow in having similar segments. Point being traditional journalism was losing ratings and comedy alternative media was the leading news source with the younger generation. About ten years ago never would the credibility be legitimately questioned in a satire segment, and here we are now with the “brawl Street” battle.

In Henry Jenkins chapter six he talks about how popular culture is changing the way people think about traditional media and politics. I find this media artifact extremely relevant because ratings of Jim Cramer’s Mad Money fell 25% after the beat down by Stewart, The Daily Show’s ratings rose 20%. On page 219 of Jenkins he talks about pop culture, “Changing the ways people think about community and power so they are able to mobilize collective intelligence to transform governance”. In essence the ratings drop in Mad Money displays what Jenkins states as the change in community mentality, that no longer the professional stock adviser is any more credible then the professional comedian. The stock market crash was nationwide and even leaked in to other nations. Before Jon Stewart’s call out on Jim Cramer no one really challenged the CNBC network for the bad calls that it made prior to the market crash. Jurgen Habermas argues that in the public sphere is getting smaller and the public sphere is no longer representing the public opinion. Indeed this is true. You have the group of few journalists and financial analysis in the media claiming they have the insider information and that they should be trusted with where you should invest your money. When the stock market crashed it wasn’t the public sphere, the politicians, the financial advisors and people in government who were representing the average Joe, but a comedian. In line with Habermas’ argument of the Public Sphere Jon Stewart represented the mass opinion that what happened was bad and needed to be brought to someone’s attention. Public opinion was represented in poll numbers, sure, but there was no main stream voice there to call out the people that put us there. Stewart acted as a check and watch dog essentially to the forces of the ones who called themselves professionals. “There were the private individuals who were excluded from the public authority because they held no office, public no longer referred to the representative”. A direct quote from Jurgen Habermas, he is talking about a different time when there were princes and kings, but can be applied to modern times.

Habermas argues that todays, mass media is increasingly cheap and increasingly powerful and that it attempts to manipulate and even create a public where there is none. It seemed as if Jim Cramer was representing the people on Wall Street, he saw Bear Stearns going under and in an attempt to revive it he said buy stock in it. Again the public sphere is taking on a feudal aspect as politicians and organizations represent themselves rather than the voters, which seems to be the general perception. The age of a the convergence culture is here, Henry Jenkins speaks again if pop culture and a converging media culture, “No one voice speaks with unquestioned authority” and Jon Stewart is acting as that outside authority on CNBC and Jim Cramer. In a Photoshop for Democracy pop culture media whether it be YouTube or Comedy Central can serve as a check and represent a mass opinion more so than ever.

Both of these theories are very relevant to a modern society. More so Henry Jenkins because he is writing in our modern society. There are many instances where popular culture and grassroots media have affected political campaigns, media ratings or overall political discourse. I think the “brawl street” battle reveal the validity of Jenkins. He mentions several times The Daily Show as having prominence over news stations, especially during the 2004 presidential election. “Comedy Central offered more hours of coverage of the 2004 Democratic and Republican national convention than ABC, CBS and NBC combined”. The circulation of the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview through outlets such as The Huffington Post and YouTube brought about the notion that the media was distorting the facts. Jenkins argues that the circulation of media is more watched illegally and legally then the broadcast of the interview itself. It seems the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their ques on integrity and the American people respond to Stewart and people like him as their spokesmen, which also falls in line with the Public Sphere.

I think the theories that Jenkins and Habermas both present reveal that Stewart and Comedy Central have more political power than they are willing to admit. Now Stewart isn’t stupid he knows somewhat the political and journalistic clout he is gaining. I also think satire and programs that make fun of the news; essentially pop culture is gaining a reputation as more reputable than traditional journalism. When you have a generation already increasingly getting the news from these shows, a new generation will be growing up with the same thing. The public sphere as Habermas explains it has only one fate is to shrink and constantly be held accountable to the private sector and to people like Stewart. The form of news medium that is The Daily Show also pushes people to become informed citizens. It presents them with a platform to sift through fact and fiction because they label the show as “snake oil” viewers know not everything is literal.

Drawing a conclusion from all of this I find that alternative media is vastly becoming the choice of the young people today. Newspapers are failing, nightly news ratings across the board are dropping and the overall ratings of the television news industry are suffering. Where are they going? To alternative media outlets, such as The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live and even YouTube episodes of The Young Turks. Photoshoping Democracy to whatever views the private sphere wants to believe. The public sphere as Habermas explains, crumbling before our eyes. Wake up Jim Cramer, and pro journalists you have a new boss, popular culture.

Works Cited

Jenkins, Henry. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York University Press: New York and London.

Habermas, Jurgen. The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcVp_3Ix76o

Jim cramer on the TODAY show, March 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwUXx4DR0wo

CNN News story about Mad Money and The Daily Show ratings. Full episode, March 2009