The picture above is of Jim Cramer, a financial news anchor, host of Mad Money. The one beaten up by John Stewart there and there. The whole clash is a must-see and is about the transmission of information. On one side, the financial news industry in the US and probably to a lesser extent in Europe is simplifying the complicated intricacies of modern financial sectors. Because educating wouldn't be good for ratings. This is about the diffusion of financial news to the wider public with the mask of entertainment. But the relationship between media and finance at the beginning of the transmission belt is problematic too. Oberlechner and Hocking studied empirically the linkages between financial journalists and analysts:
More than two thirds of journalists agree strongly or agree that market participants can influence news providers (87%), that news media and market participants have become more dependent on each other (75%), and that the immediate reporting of events has significantly gained in importance vis-a-vis background analyses (67%). Sixty three percent of financial journalists agree that they depend on market participants to interpret news. More than half of the journalists agree that new technology has brought along an increased risk to report unverified news (59%), and that speed has become more decisive than contents in financial news reporting (55%). [...] Foreign exchange traders and financial wire journalists mutually rate each other as the most important information source. The most important informa- tion sources of wire journalists, their personal contacts at commercial banks, are also the main customers of the financial wire services. Consequently, information of the news services often consists of trading participants' perceptions and interpretations of the market, which are fed back to the traders in the market. As a result, a highly circular cycle of collective information processing in the market emerges. The finding that for non-wire financial journalists, the wire services are the most important sources of information further enhances this circularity of information gathering and disseminating in the foreign exchange market
More photos of Jim after the jump.
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