So the webosphere 2.0 has been buzzing about the Stewart takedown of Jim Cramer and CNBC. If you haven’t seen it, then I can’t help you.

Anyway. What’s interesting about all the buzz is not that a “comedian” actually put Cramer on the hotseat – after all, Stewart took down Crossfire a few years ago – no, the interesting thing has been the media reaction to it.

I’ve read article after article about how this was how ‘journalism should be done’ and that it journalists should ‘take note of this’ and how this was the canonical example of tough investigative journalism.

Huh?  This is news? This is a revelation to hundreds – maybe thousands – of print and tv journalists in this country and around the world?

You’d think the 24hr news cycle would foster a greater need for investigative journalism, if only to fill all the on-air time for the tv people and to find the really juicy stories first for the print guys.  But it’s not a motivating variable because news is a for-profit venture and megacorps hold the purse strings. And what passes as “news” these days is primarily a pick-your-bias editorializing a la The Huffington Post or Fox News or maybe an investigative piece on some local, state, or federal government agency or a corporation already hobbled by scandal.  BFD.  That’s a day late and a dollar short.

Stewart/Cramer was great entertainment.  And maybe it was journalism a bit, too.  But I’m willing to bet that Jon would love to be out of this kind of business.  All of us should be, too.