CNN on Top of the World: Porn Beats Out Pakistan

UPDATE (5:20 p.m. BST): CNN has now put in a new Number 1 story, "Obama: US Auto Industry Must Not Vanish", which (as far as I know) has nothing to do with pornography whatsoever.

CNN's international website now has "Pakistan police academy attack kills 8" as its Number 2 story.

Number 1? "Husband's porn threatens [British] minister's job".

Next up: Christiane Amanpour puts the tough questions to Afghan President Hamid Karzai --- Playboy or Penthouse?

Death of a Blogger: Sayafi dies in Iranian Prison

News is emerging of the death of journalist and blogger Omidreza Mir Sayafi in Evin prison in Iran.

The 29-year-old Safayi's blogs were mostly on music and culture, but he was charged with "insulting Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei" and inciting others against national security. He was sentenced to two years in prison. A pending case accused him of "insulting sacred values".

According to Iranian human rights activists, he was taken to the prison clinic on the morning of 8 March this year in critical condition. According to Safayi's doctor, Hessam Firouzi, "[He] was deeply depressed and prison conditions would have been unbearable for him." The physician added, "The prison doctors were even reluctant to have blood pressure and basic medical tests done. Everything was done because of my persistence at every step of the way"

Iranian officials have not commented on the case.

Flashback: Jon Stewart, Politics, and Crossfire in 2004

Related Post: Jon Stewart: Can “Mainstream” Media Put Him Back in His Box?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE[/youtube]

One of the delicious ironies of the post-mortem of The Daily Show-CNBC clash, which we've covered elsewhere this morning, was the appearance of puffed-up talking head Tucker Carlson. Carlson, who rose to small-screen prominence in the 1990s pundit explosion with a distinctive appearance (his bowtie) rather than any expertise or insight, had Jon Stewart all figured out as a "partisan demagogue":

[Jim Cramer's] real sin was attacking Obama's economic policies. If he hadn't done that, Stewart never would have gone after him. Stewart's doing Obama's bidding. It's that simple.

To be fair to Carlson, who in no way is a partisan demagogue, he may still be smarting from a 2004 incident during his short-lived tenure as co-host of Crossfire on CNN. In a few minutes, Stewart --- no doubt as a comic rather than as a "serious" observer --- took apart the artifice of "political" commentary. Crossfire, which had been a useful forum for debate with Tom Braden and Pat Buchanan in the previous decade but which had become a shouting pit with the likes of Carlson, was soon cancelled.

Jon Stewart: Can "Mainstream" Media Put Him Back in His Box?

Related Post: Flashback - Jon Stewart, Politics, and Crossfire in 2004

For a sharp-eyed, detailed examination of the issues of collusion between business and media highlighted by Stewart, see the analysis on Naked Capitalism.

One of the side effects of The Daily Show's takedown of financial pundits, and specifically CNBC and Jim Cramer, has been a sustained attempt by "proper" journalists to put Jon Stewart back into a comedian's chair. Leave aside, for the moment, the noticeable silence of the immediate victim, CNBC, and its partner channels NBC and MSNBC. Consider instead the Twitterings of media monitor Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post:

I depict Stewart as an avenging media critic, saying what others can't or won't, but of course he can fall back on "I'm just on a comic".

Of course Stewart, as a non-journalist, doesn't have to be balanced or give [the] other side.

Artificial "balance" can be silly when facts are on one side. But journalists, unlike comics, have an obligation to include the other side.

What Kurtz is spectacularly missing, in the CNBC incident, is that most "journalists" failed to pick up on the seriousness of the economic situation, accentuated by speculation, some very dodgy financial and investment practices, and a lack of regulation.

In a Post article, Kurtz did offer the anodyne statement, "Business journalists generally failed to anticipate the magnitude of the Wall Street collapse," but he was blind to the sharper point of Stewart's critique: in some cases, business journalists walked hand-in-hand with the markets and investors they were supposedly observing. As long as the market rose and the shakiness of the loan structure was not exposed, everyone could be blissfully happy; the only problem was when the economic walls came tumbling down.

That's when Stewart's line, "It's not a f****** game," is not just a shriek of anger (again, as the media is framing it); it is the pertinent point that the "mainstream" media didn't make. Indeed, they dare not make it because the questions raised about the system fuelling the artifice of wealth would have been too daunting.

Stewart did not choose to be the point-man on this journalistic challenge; had Cramer kept his mouth shut at the start of last week, this would have been a (very good) one-off Daily Show shot at financial expertise. But, when Cramer's snide retort at the "variety show" of a "comedian" opened up the issue, Stewart on the challenge.

He did so seriously. Effectively. Critically. And, if the "journalists" fail in the future to do their job, I will be grateful if he does so again.

Headline of the Week

From The Times of London on Friday:

Officials complained about ‘innacurate’ Iraq dossier