I like Jim Cramer. I think he’s a lying dog and pisspoor stock-picker (not that I can do any better), but I admire the media franchise he’s built for himself. Last night’s dissection at the hands of occasional funnyman Jon Stewart wasn’t about making him the bogeyman or sacrificial cow for Madoff, and it wasn’t—as someone actually wrote on my Facebook wall—because Stewart is a member of a business-hating “organized media disinformation conspiracy.” Sheesh.

No, the real reason Cramer got his ass kicked is because he is totally unaware of the dramatic cultural changes sweeping our country and our culture right now. Americans are sick of being lied to by bankers and their friends. We may start letting bankers call the tune again in a few years when we have our jobs back (if they ever come back), but for now the man needs to have his hearing checked. When Obama talks about a new “era of responsibility,” he’s not just talking about a little partisan Bush-bashing; he’s talking about the power of transformative transparency of the kind that Google and other web-based technologies are bringing to every corner of our life. That’s the promise we’re praying Obama really honors.

No doubt, there will be some “responsibility-taking” by those who broke the law during the Bush years, whether it’s Cheney, Gonzalez, or Ashcroft or Madoff himself. But heaven help those—especially those in the remaining pockets of mass media still flush with power—who don’t understand that they too are responsible for this mess. If they want to survive the coming generational changes in the nature and kind of news coverage we imbibe, they need to dig deeper into the financial dataset, beyond the bull frenzy, beyond the rah-rah financial journalism of the last 10 years, beyond the kind of reporting that leaves its analytic powers at the doorstep,and most importantly beyond annual reports and quarterly earnings reports.

Whether you are left or the right isn’t really the issue. It’s how you do your job—whether you are in the trenches of data transparency and exposure or whether you limited yourself to a 200 words earnings report based on what AP said that morning (instead of actually reporting on what companies are doing and how well they’re doing it relative to their competitors). In other words, the focus of business news has to shift away from short-term reporting on a company’s share price to shining a lens on a company’s strategy and operations and whether it’s doing well or poorly relative to its rivals.  Yes, some business magazines already do this, but with a few exceptions (Bloomberg and some web-based business news),  financial media today is wrapped around the pinky of the investor class and C-suite: no wonder 90% of the Wall Street Journal’s readership is white men over age 45.

Obviously we’re unlikely to see that kind of shift in business coverage in the near term. So what should Cramer do now to get his mojo  back after last night’s pathetic dissection? Saying Obama is pro-business like he did earlier today isn’t going to work. (C’mon Jim, no one’s gonna fall for that.) For Cramer not to be tarred as a Madoff -proxy, he has to climb out from the well of financial cheerleading and help teach us how to rebuild our national and personal wealth.

Otherwise, Jim, I’m afraid it’s vaya con Bernie.

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Tagged: Cramer, Finance, Google, Madoff, Obama, Stewart

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