And the Edward R Murrow award goes to Comedy Central

I've been a fan of the Daily Show for a long time. I remember when it came on at 7 pm and was hosted by the blonde giant.  When Jon Stewart took the helm, I wasn't so sure. The first month was a little rocky. But Jon found his footing, the writers found their niche, and the supporting cast filled in the rest.  

Not having been a fan of George W, I loved when the Daily Show trounced the administration. A job made incredibly easy by the ineptitude, incompetence and downright corruption of the administration.  Jon and crew made it easy to laugh, and that was better than crying. (For anyone who thinks the Iraq war is/was a good thing, I urge you to watch the documentary Iraq For Sale.)

Then the Daily Show began to morph. It grew a little edgier, its digs got a little deeper.  Jon took on the notorious Tucker Carlson and the Crossfire crew.  He berated faux reporters for being entertainers but passing themselves off as newsmen.  When Carlson tried retaliating with a similar charge, Stewart reminded him that the Daily Show is on the Comedy Channel.

However, with the Daily Show's latest hammering of CNBC, I'm thinking the show needs to move from Comedy Central to its own media outlet.  There are some days I actually get more news from the Daily Show than I do from watching morning, afternoon or evening "news" shows.  And while other reporters are telling us that "no one could see" the debt debacle heading our way like a Hurricane Katrina, no one is asking the hard questions except for the crew at the Daily Show. 

I'm no whiz at finance and I still think a hedge fund sounds like it should be in the gardening section at Kmart, but even I knew this gravy train couldn't last forever.  House prices were going to have to either stabilize or come down. We were going to have to start manufacturing something (besides great cinema) and stop buying everything China makes.  We needed to go back to doing some things for ourselves and stop outsourcing every tiny fraction of our lives. 

And yet the people we trust to bring us the most current, event-changing, global happening news didn't see this coming?  Really?  Or did some reporters see it happening and were told not to report on it because it was a downer?  (It really grinds my choobies when people complain that the news is only bad stuff. Well folks, when good news starts being the thing that's so different that it is the news, we have a whole lot more problems than Wall Street shenanigans.)

Are we all at fault for being greedy and everyone wanting to live the life of a Rockefeller?  Or is it our fault because we hate when journalists really do their job and ask the hard questions?  Did we see it coming and look the other way, hoping this mess would fall into the laps of the next generation?  Or did we just trust all the wrong people?

I'm not sure I have answers for the above questions. But apparently, neither do the news outlets.  You think Wall Street's turned upside down? You're living in a country where the only dependable accountability for what's happening in people's lives and government is from a comedic parody called the Daily Show.