Confused about the state of modern mass media? Join the club.
You could see the current landscape nicely displayed within a few minutes on CNBC's Fast Money stock talk fest, which I took in courtesy of Jet Blue yesterday.
First the panel wowed itself with its own press clippings, or rather video clippings of the day -- where the Fast Money crew had appeared on....TV. Among the clips, one of Jon Stewart's Daily Show. It was the one in which Stewart interviewed CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis, and used Fast Money clips, among others, to skewer money program jargon. (As Motley Fool picked up, there was irony within irony here as Willis, asked to interpret the jargon, got it exactly backwards.)
Media eating media eating media.
And then the Fast Money crew moved on to the newsmagazines, laughing about their collective obsolescence and holding up the current Newsweek cover: "The Road to Recession."
Well, when Newsweek reports a recession, it may be the bottom of the economy and the start of the way back up, the panel joked. The newsmagazines, they were saying, are so yesterday and so financially illiterate. Elements of truth in both.
More media eating media.
Of course, you've got your NBC and your CNBC and your MSNBC, long-time home of Newsweek. Media madness indeed.

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