CNBC contributor Rick Santelli ranted against the media’s tendency to accept certain things as settled fact.
According to Santelli, the media, “whether press, TV or whatever it is,” aren’t focusing enough on presenting hard data. “I don’t care how many people visit a website. I want to know how many people, you know, have lost, how many people have gained, the intersection, how many people have paid, you know, kind of an analytical, quantitative approach.”
Santelli argued that this was due to the media accepting data from third party sources as settled science. “Seven million, it’s settled. Climate change, it’s settled. It’s all settled.”
He also expressed doubt about whether or not anyone was even capable of doing anything about climate change. “When we can’t get three intelligent people on this stock exchange to explain how HFT [high frequency trading] really plays out, what chance do we have to tackle things like Mother Nature? Where’s the hubris in any of this?”
Santelli is has a reputation for speaking out on CNBC. A Feb. 19, 2009, rant by Santelli against a potential bailout is widely credited with inspiring the start of the Tea Party [1]. This rant is commonly called, “the rant heard round the world.”
— Mike Ciandella is Research Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Mike Ciandella on Twitter. [2]