NP: John Cage, 4'33"

So far, this is by far the most enlightening story I've seen on last night's Stewart v. Cramer showdown. Poniewozik covers a lot of important ground about journalism in general, namely the insidious tradeoff of access vs. substance and the way groupthink can become pervasive in the media. He also dealt directly with one of Stewart's main lines of questioning, that being who CNBC is primarily catering to, and that's the traders.

This brings me back to the rise of the day-traders in the nineties, which may be a significant part of what spawned the monster that's threatening to swallow up whole now. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing, though as CNBC might not have "created" day traders, per se, as much as it enabled them once they showed up in the 90s when the tools became available. The influx of amateurs trying to play with the big boys may have upset some apple carts and introduced some unexpected variables or variability into the equation.

Of course, I blame a lot of the housing crisis on Extreme Home Makeover to begin with for the same reason -- inviting people to get in over their heads in areas they didn't understand -- so I have a history of explaining massive crises via basic cable.