"You knew what the banks were doing, and yet were touting it for months and months. The entire network was." -- Jon Stewart

In an interview last week with CNBC's Jim Cramer, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart cut through the bull and did what few others in the traditional media were willing to do: expose CNBC's strategy of climbing in bed with the CEOs who created this financial crisis, instead of asking tough questions and reporting the truth.



Cramer is not the broadcast news station's only offender by far: reporter Erin Burnett is a repeat offender of relentlessly spouting Wall Street talking points on Meet the Press. Adam Green describes NBC's "Erin Burnett Problem" at the Huffington Post, giving this recent example of her 'reporting' from last week:

This morning, on Morning Joe, for no apparent reason, [Erin] blurted out, "I'm going to throw this out there, it's just a question..." and then went on a long rant about "the whole question about unemployment benefits themselves." As in, should they even exist?

After all, she pointed out, they don't have them in China (the epitome of a pro-worker country). She asked, "Does that encourage people in places like China to go get jobs more quickly rather than waiting to exhaust their unemployment benefits?"

Responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable has been sorely lacking from this once-credible broadcast news giant, who in recent months has seemed to be doing PR for Wall Street--instead of investigating and debunking lies to report the behind-the-scenes facts the public needs to know.

From the "Fix CNBC" website:

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!

CNBC should publicly declare that its new overriding mission will be responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. As a down payment, we ask you to hire some new economic voices - people who have a track record of being right about the economic crisis and holding Wall Street executives' feet to the fire.

The momentum to pressure CNBC to hold Wall Street accountable has been building at a rapid rate. Since launching yesterday at 12:15 p.m., the open letter at www.FixCNBC.com has gathered over 17,000 signatures from leading progressives and economists demanding that the network publicly change its mission to focus more on Wall Street accountability.

Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism--don't you agree? Click here to sign the "Fix CNBC" open letter.