Analyst: How would Bartiromo interview herself about flap?

Charles Payne, the CEO of Wall Street Strategies, an independent stock research firm, spoke Monday night on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor” about the recent scandal involving CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo taking a trip on a Citigroup jet, which led to the firing of a bank executive.

Payne points out that few people on Wall Street want to criticize CNBC and Bartiromo because they want the business cable network to cover their deals, such as IPOs, in the future.

He said, “They’re the 500-pound gorilla. Nobody on Wall Street wants to take them on, because they’re the only game in town right at this moment….But whenever you have a new product, IPO or whatever, you send people there to appear on the channel — it’s still a prestigious thing on Wall Street to appear on CNBC…… even though the audience has dwindled. Nobody wants to mess that up right now.”

Later, he added, “If Maria Bartiromo could interview Maria Bartiromo, she would nail her on this thing. Imagine if an analyst had gone on a flight with a company that he or she covered. CNBC would nail that person to the wall. Particularly after everyone lost their money [in the stock market bubble] and they sort of changed the tone.

“Because you know, pre-market crash they were really rah-rah about the market. But after that, a lot of people felt, you know, ‘I lost money watching CNBC.’ They really turned a corner and they became really tough. Tough interviews.”

Read the transcript of the segment here.