The news, or the Money Honey?

Washington & Lee journalism ethics professor Ed Wasserman writes in the Miami Herald that both Maria Bartiromo and cable business news channel CNBC failed in the recent brouhaha about her taking a plane ride on the Citigroup corporate jet.

Wasserman wrote, “The problem here isn’t just that a richly paid news diva is tone deaf to flagrant conflicts that would end the careers of lesser beings, who are forbidden to accept a coffee from people they cover. Bartiromo’s squirrelly standards were already apparent in 2003, when she interviewed then-Citigroup chief Sanford Weill on the air while noting she owned 1,000 shares of his company’s stock.

“Lately she had taken steps, the New York Post says, to trademark ‘Money Honey,’ which started out as a derisive nickname. That would enable her to get royalties from T-shirts, bumper stickers, chewy toys and the like.

“The surprise isn’t Bartiromo; it’s her handlers. In 2003 CNBC, chagrined by her Weill interview, radically tightened its conflict-of-interest rules. Now the same network sees no problem.

“CNBC no longer perceives a difference between journalist and show pony. Bartiromo’s jet-setting isn’t, as the network claims, source development. She isn’t doing legwork on stories. She’s a corporate emissary and brand-enhancement, helping favored companies — many of them CNBC advertisers — to put on successful events. She partners with the world she’s supposed to cover.

“So what happens when her duties as a journalist — duties to inform us, her public — obligate her to report news that would displease her network-approved consorts on the intercontinental banquet circuit? Do we get the news, or do they get the Money Honey?”

Read more here.