Embarrassing interviews have consequences

Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer last Tuesday has, apparently, motivated a number of voices to call for change at CNBC. Sam Stein reports:

Building off of the momentum from last week, in which CNBC personality Jim Cramer was subjected to an embarrassing lecture by the Daily Show's Jon Stewart, the group is launching, alongside its letter, a website: http://fixcnbc.com/.

"Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism -- asking tough questions to Wall Street, debunking lies, and reporting the truth," the letter reads. "Instead, CNBC has done PR for Wall Street. You've been so obsessed with getting 'access' to failed CEOs that you willfully passed on misinformation to the public for years, helping to get us into the economic crisis we face today. You screwed up badly. Don't apologize -- fix it!"

Considering that Cramer's show, in particular, went back to normal the day after the interview, this call may fall on deaf ears. I say "may" because, at the end of the day, I don't think Cramer was ever the problem (and the letter tacitly acknowledges this). In his show, Jim Cramer is not a journalist, he is a former hedge fund manager...an insider. CNBC, on ther other hand, touts itself as a news outlet. In other words, real change needs to occur in order for the network to fulfill this role in good faith, not on the set of Mad Money, but on that of the Squawk Box and The Call.