Mainstream media need to return to ideals after failures

Jim Cramer (left), host of the ''Mad Money'' show on CNBC, appeared on Jon Stewart's ''The Daily Show'' on Thursday. (Jason Decrow/ Associated Press)

WASHINGTON - "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart's attack on the nation's business media and his blistering showdown last week with CNBC anchor Jim Cramer could be another nail in the coffin of the mainstream media.

Or it could be a sign of how desperately people are yearning for the kind of probing, agenda-free coverage that the mainstream media promise, though don't always deliver.

Stewart's accusation that the media failed to play watchdog over the nation's financial systems clearly struck a chord. And journalists should pay attention, because it suggests a failure to do the kind of digging that mainstream journalists say is the difference between them and the alternative media - blogs, talk radio, and comedy shows among them.

It's the second time this decade that the mainstream media have been accused of sleeping on the job. The first was the alleged failure to closely scrutinize the case for war in Iraq.

It was a quiet failure. There were thoughtful explorations of what the media did wrong, but no agreed-upon fix. There were vows to do better, but no structural change. Lacking a person or practice to cite, blame attached to the entire enterprise. Many young people now read or watch the news (if at all) with a skepticism of their own. Some have turned to the alternative media.

Stewart's clips of CNBC anchors touting soon-to-be defunct stocks and reporters lobbing softball questions at soon-to-be-bust CEOs may well send readers and viewers in the same direction. Which is why mainstream journalists should take the criticism seriously.

There are similarities between the business coverage of recent years and the Iraq coverage of 2002. First, the lapses weren't by everyone. There were reporters and columnists who raised serious questions about former President George W. Bush's case for war in Iraq, but they had trouble penetrating the dominant narrative.

Recently, National Public Radio reporter David Folkenflik looked at the pre-crisis business reporting and found the same thing. "Dissonant views about the vulnerabilities of the system were heard on CNBC and in print, but they were largely swept aside as part of a greater conversation about how to keep investing," Folkenflik declared.

That suggests another similarity: Cable TV established the "conversation," and the format served to exaggerate tendencies that were also present, but less pronounced, on broadcast TV news or in newspapers.

These included an over- reliance on government or industry sources who, having an agenda to push, make themselves only too available for comment. The dissenting voices also carried an agenda, so their views, no matter how forcefully rendered, failed to register as anything but ritual disclaimers. The most credible sources may actually be people who weren't motivated to appear on TV. They might talk to journalists with the time to prepare a layered report, but they have to be sought out.

In fact, many mainstream news organizations have strived to maintain or enhance their investigative units in the face of overall budget cuts. But even in the flushest years, there aren't enough resources to provide in-depth reporting for 24 hours of programming. So round-the-clock networks tend to repeat the dominant "conversation" over and over, while the more diligent reporting comes and goes quietly.

Commentary fills some of the gaps. Thus, the dominant face of CNBC is Cramer, the former hedge-fund operator who advises viewers on which stocks to buy. His goofy, arm-flailing personality makes him weirdly watchable, but he's not a journalist in most senses of the word.

"I try really hard to make as many good calls as I can," he promised Stewart last week.

But there was a consolation for the mainstream media in the same toxic clip. Stewart's complaint, like most critics, wasn't that the mainstream media should be more like the alternatives - it was that it should live up to its own ideals.

That yearning for integrity may be driving the young people who turn to the ideological media - the blog that is frankly liberal, the radio host who is reliably conservative, the comedy show that openly dedicates itself to exposing right-wing hypocrisy.

Younger people want a news outlet that delivers what it promises.

"We do label the show as snake oil here," Stewart conceded at one point. "[But] isn't there a problem with selling snake oil and labeling it as vitamin tonic? Isn't that the difficulty here?"

Stewart asks only that the mainstream media be what it says it is. The answer to how it should preserve its credibility seems to be inherent in his question.

Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.