CNBC is now scrambling to undo the damage caused by Rick Santelli’s outburst and NBC’s aggressive promotion of the harangue.
And all it took was a conspiratorial piece posted on Playboy.com that way overreached to claim Santelli’s rant was a premeditated part of a conservative PR effort tied to the Koch family. The New York Times points out that that post has been removed with no explanation (if you want to read it, Megan McArdle has it posted here). I’ll venture a guess: Somebody’s lawyer called up Playboy, which isn’t exactly rolling in cash these days.
Yesterday, Santelli pushed back with a blog post on CNBC.com, saying he’s not affiliated with any of the “tea party” campaigns around the country and apparently trying to change the subject a bit:
Just for the record I have NOT been in favor of any of the bailouts not in the Bush administration nor the Obama administration. Not for the banks, the insurance companies, or the homeowners that purchased homes they can no longer afford.
Right, although here’s what he said in September about banker bailouts:
I do agree something needs to be done, I guess what I don’t agree on is that we need to do this in a haphazard way in six hours. Let’s spend a few days on it. This is a lot of money.
Not exactly a clarion call for tea parties and such.
Plus, Santelli still offers no explanation or apology for his comment that homeowners struggling with their mortgages are “losers”—hardly an appropriate comment for a journalist to make on national television.
But the lesson here is that CNBC has a PR mess on its hands, one of its own doing. Forget the extremely flawed Playboy.com post. This kind of blowup was easy to foresee. CNBC (and NBC and MSNBC) pushed a rant for short-term ratings at the expense of their long-term credibility, with chyrons that said “Rick’s Revolution” and such.
Now the worm (I use that metaphor intentionally) has turned and it’s seeing news stories like this one from the AP:
CNBC says reporter Rick Santelli is not connected to a Web site that used his name to promote a series of political protests against President Barack Obama.
And so the fifteen minutes are up. Here’s the Times:
The attention around Mr. Santelli’s views now appears to be a distraction at CNBC. (The New York Times has a content-sharing agreement with the network.) Mr. Santelli declined interview requests on Monday, and the network canceled his appearance on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” on Wednesday. “It was time to move on to the next big story,” a CNBC spokesman said.
Back to the futures, Rick.
So "scrambling to undue the damage" includes posting on a blog and canceling a Daily Show appearance? T
he emergency blog post also includes links to "Shout Heard Round the World" and "Rick's Revolution" at the bottom. Maybe they for got to remove those with all the other scrambling they're doing.
#1 Posted by Chris Corliss, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 11:07 AM
Any journalist who appears on CNBC has got to have his or her head examined. The Santelli episode demonstrates how its business model is predicated on entertainment and not journalism.
When one appears on CNBC, the modus operandi is to interrupt and talk over, whether by one's fellow guests (often paid industry PR types) or the "hosts" and "on air editors" themselves.
Journalists who appear there are often goaded into adopting their same tactics, in order to fit in and seem like "one of the boys," and presumably to be invite back. But journalists need to weigh whether that is in their interests to behave like trained seals and not as serious professionals. eing a straight man for their clowns may be in CNBC's interests, but rarely the guest's.
#2 Posted by Anonymous, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 11:07 AM
Funny how bombastic the libs get when someone does not agree with the Messiah's big government spending and debt plans. Santelli simply says what most Americans believe, and now look at the liberal blogosphere blow up with anxiety. Kill the messenger!
The next 4 years is gonna be fun watching these folks try to justify our new socialist regime.
#3 Posted by Blowgut, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 11:28 AM
It's hard to get too worked up about CNBC (although I have written that it was symptomatic of the age), but the odd thing about all of this is that Santelli was for many years the best reporter and analyst on the network. Lots of important information and context about why it mattered, with very little (but worthwhile) commentary along the way.
While I don't see much of his work, it seems like since the financial crisis started eighteen months ago, he has gotten off of his game by becoming more political and emotional in his approach, and less rather than more helpful to people trying to understand the markets.
#4 Posted by tom brakke, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 11:33 AM
Again with the Santelli screed.
When liberals have opinions, yay! When conservatives (conservatives? In the media? Gasp!) have opinions, boo! String 'em up!
Y'all aren't doing the cause of press independence any favors, but then again I have to wonder if hat's what you really want.
#5 Posted by Mike, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 12:33 PM
The problem is that conservatives don't see their opinions as opinions but as fact, and then try to ram their opinions down everyone's throat with a 200-ton hydraulic press. When they are stopped they scream "discrimination". Sorry, but although you have the right to speak, you don't have the right to force anyone to listen, or to agree.
In the same way, a conservative can call a liberal a baby-killing mass murderer and that's A-OK, but a liberal can't even say a conservative is factually wrong without being called a "hater", even if the liberal has proof.
Conservatives screech in rage, whining "Unfair!!!", when they are not deferred to as superior. They see loss of privilege as discrimination.
#6 Posted by Charlene, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 12:51 PM
Interesting conclusion...Playboy tries a smear, backs off and it is still Santelli's fault...re his loser comment, you are so right. It was reported in WSJ, that "in December, the Mortgage Asset Research institute reported that mortgage fraud increased 45% in the second quarter of 2008 compared to a year ago. The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reports a similiar rise for the full year ended in June of year"
Perhaps Mr. Santelli should have said crook, con-men or liars instead of losers.
From the report you talk about elsewhere on your website re IndyMac, "In one case cited in the report, IndyMac gave a borrower a $926,000 loan to buy a $1.4-million home. The borrower did nothing to prove a stated income of $50,000 a month.
"This guy made, in total, payments of $5,300 before defaulting," Thorson said. "The property later went up for sale for $599,000. It was that kind of thing that they weren't checking out"
#7 Posted by Dan McGlinchey, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 12:52 PM
http://iowahawk.typepad.com
The above link I think captures well anti-Tea Party sentiment...."I'm sure you've heard of them or read their emails: "Wah, I paid my mortgage." "Wah, I didn't use my house for an ATM." "Wah, Dave I need that hundred back I lent you at Christmas." Now, I'm as sympathetic to a good sob story as anybody, but these whiners have nobody to blame but themselves for their predicament. Anyone who kept track of the Gallup presidential polls last year should have known what was coming, so don't blame me if you decided to waste your money paying your stupid mortgage. But, in the six-dimensional bizarro world of these noisy tax gripes, they expect me to give up my bailout to pay for their irresponsible lack of foresight! Helloooo?! Beam me up, Scotty!
The most ludicrous aspect of these protesters is their utter lack of understanding that the mortgage bailout benefits everyone - even them. Let me explain to these unpatriotic whiners how the economy works: The money that government is now wisely investing in our mortgage system will free up billions of extra dollars in spending by Americans like me, which will directly create jobs. For you economic illiterates, this is what experts call the "multiplier effect."
#8 Posted by Dan McGlinchey, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 01:06 PM
It is partially Santelli's fault but this is mostly on NBC/CNBC/MSNBC. Such blowups with a partisan tilt is going to be attacked by the other side and other networks. Instead of just brushing this under the rug, as it was not a typical Santelli moment (If Cramer said something like this it would just be another day), they promoted it as something so worth noting. It was pure synergy and narcissism. This is not necessarily Santelli's fault but his 15 minutes are up and the mothership looks foolish for sending one of their own to the wolves. Something, even something like the Playboy article that lacked credibility, was bound to happen to make this look bad.
Also I see no reason why they would not let Santelli on Jon Stewart. That just shows they are totally in a turtle mentality.
#9 Posted by CMG, CJR on Tue 3 Mar 2009 at 04:01 PM
And who owns NBC? GE owns it, with its GE Capital division tanking the whole ship fast.
This Obama mortgage bailout isn't going to work for the would-be homeowners in most cases, and it certainly won't prop up the housing bubble. Rick Santelli is right.
But, the Obama mortgage bailout will no doubt send a couple bucks to the coffers at GE Capital--and they do desperately need it-- so Rick Santelli should shut up and collect his paycheck like all the other US "journalists."
I think you do have to consider the possibility that in addition to seeking to place blame for its own criminal negligence onto the "losers," that GE Capital (or is that GE Socialized Losses?) could well be interested in sending an actual libertarian pro-capitalist reporter to the gallows.
Think about it--how popular is Ron Paul?
Meanwhile, the Obamabots are just sooo emotionally overwrought to hear The People accurately described as "losers" that they'll place all their attention in exactly the wrong spot. Maybe we'll get a summary execution.
It's all so predictable.
Is this the "Columbia Journalism Review"? Okay, everybody, on cue: let's all think exactly alike. That will certainly "fix" everything.
You know, I am not a conservative, a libertarian, or a Republican, but I do hold out the possibility that it is the Obama Administration that is the newest, latest problem, here.
#10 Posted by JTFaraday, CJR on Wed 4 Mar 2009 at 07:42 AM
By the way, shouldn't the author know who owns NBC rather than chasing after conspiracy nuts, getting further and further from the truth all the while?
I'm sorry, but I just can't get over how much this publication is disgusting me, given its pretensions.
#11 Posted by JTFaraday, CJR on Wed 4 Mar 2009 at 07:47 AM
@Charlene ... It's ironic that you present your own opinion as fact, when in fact it's simply not true.'Tis true, many conservatives try to pass their opinions off as fact. 'Tis ALSO true, however, that many liberals approach truth with some disregard and attempt to force opinions down throats with great vigor.
#12 Posted by Mike, CJR on Wed 4 Mar 2009 at 10:35 AM
So many divergent viewpoints here, it makes me wonder if most people even understand the economic crisis and its primary cause. It was not caused by people defaulting on mortgages, although that contributed to it. There are just not enough mortgages defaulting in a normal U.S. economic environment to destabilize the world credit market. Look at the value of the mortgages vs the value of the world economy. Those who control most wealth in this nation, the oligarchy, have done their best to convince most people, who barely understand finance, that it was caused by a mass of people who out of the blue took on more debt than they could repay.
In fact they were offerred and often co-erced into signing fraudulent loan documents that benefited those writing the documents thru inflated and fraudulent fees, while those who benefited most then abrograted responsibility by selling the fraudulent loans as bonds fraudulently underwritten by rating agencies who were paid by the fraudulent bond funds which sold these fraudulent securities to banks, pension funds, investors etc.
This was terrible in itself but was not sufficient to destroy the world economy. To do that they had to insure these bonds with credit swap derivatives that were leveraged at 40 times face value, for every dollar in reserves they could own 40 dollars of fraudulent crap, to compound this banks began to treat this crap a reserves, since it was insured. Now they have no money in reserve just very large amounts of worthless fraudulent bonds and insurance, when the underlying assets begin to change in value even slightly (ie house prices decline) it is amplified by 40 times, since the insurance is written on a faulty formula ad is unreliable, the insurer (usually AIG) has written more insurance then there is money in the world. How can we fix a problem that requires more money than exists by at least 4 times the current world GDP combined?
It is difficult for most folks to understand this, and the media makes no effort to explain it. They can use air time to discuss a missing child for months 24/7 but they can't seem to find the time to document what happened in the financial industry. If the media were not owned by corporations that I have been trained to trust all of my life, I would be suspicous of this.
To place the blame of the economic collapse at the feet of those who were suckered into buying overinflated property on bad terms from shady lenders is like punching them in the face after you take their wallets.
I don't have a mortgage, and I don't have any debt. This doesn't matter when the whole economy collapses and my money is worthless, which is a very real possibility, that is why I don't mind if some sort of financial help is offered to those at the bottom of the food chain and why I'd rather burn all my cash than see it given to wall street and the banksters who collapsed our economy to make themselves even richer. The greed is past criminal, they have not destroyed home owners, they have managed to destroy themselves and the world economy and now are begging for government help.
Santelli is a tool of GE, like all the hand puppets on CNBC. I especially enjoy watching Larry Kudlow who apparently has a string on his back and whenever anyone asks him a question he pulls the string and answers "we need more tax cuts!"
I'm am glad to see the system change, I'm sorry it is because it is failing. I wonder what will be left of democracy when there is no food and no power?
These discussion, these opinions are merely static to cover the noise of the incoming tsunami.
#13 Posted by Jane Quatam, CJR on Sat 7 Mar 2009 at 04:00 PM
Hindsight being 20/20, this blog is garbage! False Playboy story baby, why aren't you blogging about that?
#14 Posted by Alex, CJR on Mon 31 May 2010 at 04:29 PM