CNBC's Midlife Crisis

Once upon a time, like maybe 2-1/2 years ago, just as the financial crisis was starting to deliver a series of swift kicks to the stock market's nether regions, CNBC was -- and had been, for years -- a terrific, informative, "must-watch" business news channel. Squawk Box in the morning was a fun, funny, and informative pre-market potpourri of economic and company-specific business news, information, features, and light banter. Power Lunch was two hours of the same, at mid-day -- different cast of characters, same mind-set. Market close brought a recap of the day's events, plus post-market earnings announcements. Throughout the day there was a procession of talking heads, usually analyst sell side and usually bullish, but that was to be expected. Listen with a dose of skepticism, but maybe get some good ideas. And stay in touch with the latest trends and company news. CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser, all manna in an investor's paradise.

Then something happened. I don't know exactly what caused it. But CNBC changed. For the worse, and hasn't looked back. Maybe several somethings happened. Not sure. Maybe it was the shattering of investor confidence in Wall Street, the devastating losses to folks' 401ks, despite daily insistence by the talking heads that the financials were a screaming buy and the sell-off was overdone, and thus a big ratings downturn. Maybe it was the proliferation of infotainment channels on cable tv, where to survive you needed an edge, conflict, confrontation, shouting -- not just talking, but shouting -- heads, to be noticed in an increasingly crowded media landscape. Maybe, more specifically, it was growing competition from Fox Business News, which epitomized the new, opinionated, strident, "my way or the highway", brass knuckles form of business journalism. But having swallowed the old Fnn 20 years ago and solidified its position as the preeminent voice in TV business programming since then, in its mid-life, about two years ago, CNBC morphed into something I no longer recognize most of the time.

More...