The Daily Show entertains us with actual journalism

I love it when Jon Stewart steers the national conversation. After eight years of watching the news media reduce itself to little more than stenographers for the Bush Administration, The Daily Show has been one of the few places you could turn and actually get a critical look at the government. All while laughing your arse off.

Stewart is making headlines again for an eight minute segment last week that eviscerated CNBC, the business news network. I took a particular interest in this segment because CNBC is in my face all day long. Televisions are mounted all over Hoover’s so that we can keep an eye on the breaking headlines, and the glow of the network sits just above my line of sight for eight hours a day.

During the steady economic slide of the past year, the network has been increasingly criticized for financial advice that’s been as wrong as Dewey Defeats Truman (loudmouth Jim Cramer boldly asserting Bear Stearns was just fine right before it collapsed), anchors who drift too far from the news into opinion (I’m looking at you Larry Kudlow), and softball interviews with incompetent executives like Merrill Lynch‘s John Thain. Then there was reporter Rick Santelli’s hissy fit on the Chicago trading floor about President Obama’s mortgage rescue plan. He was going for a Howard Beale, “Mad as Hell,” moment and just came off looking like a doofus who needs a Xanax.

All of these moments have drifted piecemeal into the national conversation, but it took the Daily Show to put it all in perspective with one blistering segment. Now, making fun of CNBC has prompted news reports and opinion columns in The New York Times, among other publications.

Bravo, Jon Stewart.