The Columbia Journalism Review takes a closer look at the “quiet but surprisingly fierce feud” between CNBC and Barron’s. It goes back to a Barron’s story in August that questioned Jim Cramer‘s stock picks during his Mad Money show.
The clash shows what happens when one business-news outlet goes after another: bad blood. In a recent interview with me, a visibly distraught Cramer displayed an emotional intensity entirely different from his ranting but comical on-air persona. “It was just so outrageous, so Kafkaesque,” he says of being a Barron’s target.
CNBC says it did not actually banish Barron’s, though it says its experience with the [Bill] Alpert piece left it questioning the magazine’s integrity and basic fairness.
CJR eporter Dean Starkman sums it up this way: “So, was CNBC wrong to throw Barron’s off the air? Actually, no. It’s its air. Did CNBC behave unprofessionally, as Barron’s contends? No — except to the extent that its own policies force it into disingenuous arguments about what is and isn’t a ‘pick.'”