It's been a rough week for the mainstream media. And a deeply disturbing week in many ways.
First, we had The Boston Globe announce that it was closing its foreign bureaus. Just like that. Boom. No more original foreign reporting from one of the nation's biggest newspapers. Write it off to cost savings. But the more this happens, the fewer voices we will have interpreting foreign events for us -- at precisely the time when we need them the most.
Then, The Wall Street Journal reported on the ouster of a senior Citigroup executive, highlighting some allegedly inappropriate uses of company resources on a sponsorship and speaking engagements for CNBC star Maria Bartiromo. This story has turned into a free-for-all against Bartiromo, who now stands accused by the media of getting too close to her sources.
I think this is outrageous. (Disclosure, some of my firm's clients appear on CNBC shows, including Bartiromo's.)
Why am I outraged? Aren't journalists supposed to be objective and report the news without getting too close?
Yes. In theory. But that theory is seriously flawed. Journalism today is going through a wrenching period, where the entire mainstream media is losing readers and viewers en masse. Back when I was reporting, there was a push to add context to the standard, objective reporting that had been the status quo for some time. Context means detail. Detail means reporting. And reporting means spending time with the people and institutions you are covering.
Today, the media are still seeking that context. But now, newspaper, magazine and broadcast executives are asking for that context -- the real story -- while cutting back on the number of reporters and the resources, like foreign bureaus, needed to achieve it!
Into this mix comes Bartiromo, who seems to be on the air all day, every day. At a time when in-depth reporting is on the Endangered Species List, Bartiromo gets slammed for getting too close. And, for that matter, just about everything else that has a whiff of impropriety: corporate appearances -- paid for by CNBC, i.e. part of her job -- and at one point owning stock in one of the nation's most widely held companies. Yada. Yada. Yada. Take a look at a couple of examples:
Now it turns out that Bartiromo made nearly 50 appearances last year for corporations, trade associations and other groups, with three of them involving Citigroup in such far-flung locales as London and Hong Kong.
CNBC executives say they approved and paid for each trip, and reimbursed Citigroup for the corporate flight. But the time and distance involved raise questions about how close Bartiromo has gotten to some companies she covers and whether she has become more of a celebrity journalist than the Wall Street workhorse of her earlier years.
Ms. Bartiromo has drawn criticism before. In 2003, she disclosed during an interview with Citigroup’s chief executive, Sanford I. Weill, that she owned 1,000 shares of stock in his company. Many journalistic enterprises consider it an ethics breach for reporters to own shares in businesses they cover, and CNBC tightened its guidelines soon after the interview. In 2006, she reported off-the-record comments by the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke.
OK. So it's clearly a feeding frenzy. And as is usually the case, it is off the mark.
The real problem is this. It is simply not fair to ask reporters to get inside the story, and then turn around and rip them to shreds for doing just that. It is not right to ask reporters to add context and perspective to their stories, and then take away the resources -- like foreign bureaus -- needed to do just that.
Is this really a cry for help on the part of the mainstream media? If so, we should all pay attention. We need good journalists and good news organizations today, perhaps as much as ever before. And we're losing them at an alarming pace.
Technorati Tags: bartiromo, cnbc, communications, media
