Categories: OLD Media Moves

Citigroup/CNBC plane ride is now a "scandal"

Fox News Radio host John Gibson has an editorial about the plane ride given to CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo on a Citigroup corporate jet that apparently led to an executive at the company losing his job.

Gibson makes some excellent points related to business journalism.

He wrote, “Now remember: This is a financial journalist taking a cushy ride halfway around the world on a corporate jet. She says she did nothing wrong, that GE and Citi settled the charges for the flight at the corporate level.

“As a GE shareholder I’d like to know what GE paid Citi for the use of that private jet. My staff made calls today. If I wanted to rent a G4 corporate jet I’d pay $5,700 per hour times the 17.5-hour flight from Beijing to Los Angeles and on to New York. I get a grand total of nearly $100,000. Just by the way, a first-class ticket on Continental Airlines is $3,900. So we seem to have an overcharge on a financial journalists’ air travel of 25 times or a 2,500 percent upcharge.

“Now, did I double-check the figures? Yes. We base our figures on information from airplanning.com, which charters everywhere.

“The conclusion? Somebody seems to have paid a lot of money for CNBC’s financial journalist to fly home from a China junket.

“So who paid? Did GE stockholders pay the full freight to bring the GE employee home? Or did GE stick Citi with the bulk of the bill, and it should be Citi shareholders screaming bloody murder?

“And just by the way: On the journalism issue, why could Citi want to treat a financial journalist to this kind of high-octane perk? Why would GE allow their CNBC financial journalist to be placed in this position of a possible conflict of interest?”

View Comments

Roger Bauer says:
January 24, 2007 at 8:14 pm
This thing is getting a lot of mileage, but I guess I don't see what the big deal is--this stuff happens all the time in every day life. Why is there such an outrage because her job happens to be in front of a television camera? If Maria was/is friends with the (now former) executive in question, is it so far fetched to have executive friends?
CNBCwatcher says:
January 25, 2007 at 12:04 pm
It shouldn't be permitted, regardless of whether it happens every day or not. Also, why wasn't that plane packed with Citigroup employees -- to maximize the outlay? I'm no big fan of John Gibson, who I haven't seen since his MSNBC days, and I understand that Fox is/rumored to be/maybe launching a business channel competitor to CNBC and may have an interest in seeing Money Honey compromised, but all that aside, he has very valid points.
Roger Bauer says:
January 25, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I can see your point that it shouldn't be permitted, and I agree with it in theory, but it's like people are ready to hang Maria or something. She's not a criminal--she's a television journalist.
My personal feelings are I've always thought Maria has been very fair with her reporting, and she's intelligent enough to hold her own with many of the high powered guests on the network. She's paid her dues and earned respect. Others on the network may not earn a pass so quickly. That's all I was trying to say.
I concur with wondering why the plane wasn't packed with Citi employees.