For those that didn't see Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, was recently interviewed for 30 minutes by Jim Cramer of Mad Money. Jim essentially treats Tim like a prognostic God, taking everything Tim says with enthusiastic belief. It's clear Jim views Tim as the white knight that will save the global economy (this is the same guy that wanted to quit just two months ago and Obama talked him in to staying, it's also the same guy who said America would never lose its triple-A status just months before it did).
Over at Business Insider though there was a gust-busting, pointed-stick-in-the-eye (and very short) article pointing out that Cramer a few years ago identified Tim as the worst possible candidate for Secretary of Treasury and how we were all doomed if he was selected for the job. He begged the administration not to hire Geithner.
Yikes!
Talk about egg on your face.
Cramer has gone from seeing Geithner as the worst possible person to be Treasury Secretary, to basically treating him like a genuis with all the answers.
From a credibility / reputation perspective the media have to be weary of the same issues that corporations do. Flip Flopping is bad bad bad. Especially if you are a so-called expert. You can't say global warming is real one year and then deny its existence the next year, no one trusts you after that.
And as the media is learning (or at least Cramer is in this case), in this digital age we live in, what you say never goes away.
Cramer has always been considered a bit of a Tasmanian Devil, prone to manic flights of fancy, but his flip flop on Geithner is excessive and basically suggests that you can't really take anything he says to the bank (in fact the opposite, take it with a grain of salt).
Anyway, I just thought this was a great example of how even the media need to be concerned with PR as they have reputations/brands to protect / grow as well.
Over at Business Insider though there was a gust-busting, pointed-stick-in-the-eye (and very short) article pointing out that Cramer a few years ago identified Tim as the worst possible candidate for Secretary of Treasury and how we were all doomed if he was selected for the job. He begged the administration not to hire Geithner.
Yikes!
Talk about egg on your face.
Cramer has gone from seeing Geithner as the worst possible person to be Treasury Secretary, to basically treating him like a genuis with all the answers.
From a credibility / reputation perspective the media have to be weary of the same issues that corporations do. Flip Flopping is bad bad bad. Especially if you are a so-called expert. You can't say global warming is real one year and then deny its existence the next year, no one trusts you after that.
And as the media is learning (or at least Cramer is in this case), in this digital age we live in, what you say never goes away.
Cramer has always been considered a bit of a Tasmanian Devil, prone to manic flights of fancy, but his flip flop on Geithner is excessive and basically suggests that you can't really take anything he says to the bank (in fact the opposite, take it with a grain of salt).
Anyway, I just thought this was a great example of how even the media need to be concerned with PR as they have reputations/brands to protect / grow as well.
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