The cable news wars have been raging for years. But for the most part the combatants have been confined to the big three: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Headline News and CNBC have been regarded as niche players that weren’t really on the front lines.<\/p>\n
All of a sudden CNBC has become the most talked about cable news network, just as the nation has inaugurated a new president and tries to weather a fierce economic storm. Much of the attention is couched in ridicule. Rick Santelli’s rant, that cast a bunch of elite commodities traders as emblematic of average Americans, was only taken seriously by the likes of Michele Malkin and her mush-brained followers. Jim Cramer was exposed as the clown that he is by a much better and more professional clown, Jon Stewart.<\/p>\n
The backwash of this publicity parade is a boost for CNBC’s ratings and visibility. But why is it happening now?<\/p>\n
CNBC has long been a friend to the business community. Its reporting rarely alerted viewers to imminent crises (like the the one we are enduring now) or corporate malfeasance (like Enron and Madoff). The anchors were openly chummy with CEOs, whom they courted for access, and some, like Larry Kudlow, were overtly partisan. CNBC elevated the art of bloviating by introducing the Octo-Pundit, where as many as eight self-styled experts yelled at each other from their respective video cages.<\/p>\n
But with a lineup like Fox News and current events that favored their niche, they still needed a little extra push to get the recognition they felt they deserved. So along comes Santelli and Cramer and a concerted effort to expand their conservative profile.<\/p>\n
Despite the blathering of Bill O’Reilly, the NBC News division has never been left wing. MSNBC was once the cable home of Michael Savage, Oliver North, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and it still features Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan. The rise of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow occurred strictly because of their success, not ideology. Nevertheless, in the past NBC has demonstrated its cowardice in the face of criticism. They are the network that canceled their own number one rated program, Phil Donahue, for fear of being tagged anti-war.<\/p>\n
By ramping up the rightist rhetoric on CNBC, NBC News is attempting to harvest popular outrage from both ends of the political field. They can continue to throw liberals a bone with their primetime MSNBC schedule, while cozying up to their natural right wing allies on the business-oriented CNBC. And neither network will have its programming muddied with ideological balance. As an ancillary benefit, NBC will try to tamp down the criticism they receive from the right by pointing to their new heroes of ham-handed conservatism.<\/p>\n
In the end, CNBC just hopes to siphon a few viewers away from Fox News, and to smother the new born Fox Business Network in its crib. Unfortunately, the way they have chosen to do that is to emulate the Fox model which is focused on aggressive conservatism, and hysterical, paranoid personalities. That won’t work for CNBC in the long run because Fox viewers are too cult driven. They won’t abandon the comfort of that with which they are familiar for a subsidiary of that which their Fox masters have convinced them is evil.<\/p>\n
Now, more than ever, CNBC needs to concentrate on providing responsible financial journalism. By making themselves truly indispensable in the field for which they claim expertise, they will be far more likely to succeed and to serve the interests of their viewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The cable news wars have been raging for years. But for the most part the combatants have been confined to the big three: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Headline News and CNBC have been regarded as niche players that weren’t really on the front lines. All of a sudden CNBC has become the most talked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[219,1],"tags":[233,33,139,22,101,519],"class_list":["post-1218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-general","tag-cnbc","tag-fox-news","tag-jim-cramer","tag-msnbc","tag-nbc","tag-rick-santelli"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-jE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":841,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=841","url_meta":{"origin":1218,"position":0},"title":"Fox Business Network Ad Deliberately Dishonest","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/24\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of weeks ago, CNBC's Jim Cramer was asked by an emailer if he should liquidate his account at Bear Stearns. Cramer said: \"No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear.\" Shortly thereafter,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1231,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1231","url_meta":{"origin":1218,"position":1},"title":"Bill O’Reilly: MoveOn Forced CNBC To Hire Howard Dean","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/29\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill O'Reilly gets funnier by the day (or scarier, depending on your perspective). His latest broadcast falsehood is that MoveOn.org has wielded its mighty power to \"force\" NBC\/Universal CEO Jeff Zucker to hire Howard Dean as a contributor to CNBC. This display of domination was allegedly in response to conservative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1222,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1222","url_meta":{"origin":1218,"position":2},"title":"Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post Attacks Jon Stewart","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/17\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In another example of Rupert Murdoch using his financially disastrous New York Post to whip people with whom he disagrees, the Post's Page Six published a ridiculous hit piece on Jon Stewart. The article points an accusatory finger of shame at Stewart for the sin of talking to his brother:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=338","url_meta":{"origin":1218,"position":3},"title":"Fox News Slump Spurs Desperation","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/30\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Fox News appears to be caught in a downward spiral from which there is no relief. Ratings just released comparing January 2007 with January 2006, have more bad news for the \"Only Cable News Channel That Does Not Bring You The Usual Left Wing Bias.\" Jan. #'s: Total Viewers vs.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":196,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=196","url_meta":{"origin":1218,"position":4},"title":"Fox News Sinks Again","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/1\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In the July ratings for the cable news networks, Fox continues its steady year-over-year decline. This July's book includes reporting on the Israel\/Lebanon conflict. Breaking news events like this spike ratings for news programs. So when comparing this year's July book with last year's, it is important to note that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=271","url_meta":{"origin":1218,"position":5},"title":"The Olbermann Steamroller Still Rolling","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/1\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Ratings for the cable news nets have been released and October 2006 to October 2005 comparisons again look sweet for Countdown. MSNBC scored hefty gains driven by Olbermann's 61% rise in viewers 25-54. His total viewer increase was 67%, while O'Reilly's dropped (again) 22%. Countdown improved more than any of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}