Maria-gate: Did she squelch the news?

Stick to business reporting and away from gossip. Whould you have reported on this the same way if the subject had been a male? This is clearly a sexual innuendo story that is designed to bring into question a woman's ability to do her job. If there is a story here with some semblance of fact then print it. If not, shut up.

When ever she comes on the air I switch to Bloomberg channel. She no longer has any credibility. Who else on that network is getting the freebies for not doing their job?
Bill(NH)

DID BUSH SQUELCH THE BULLSHIT WAR IN IRAQ ?

Maria joins the mile high club...she got more than a story.....big tits, small brain, what's new?

Maria joins the mile high club...she got more than a story.....big tits, small brain, what's new?

Beautiful, smart, so she cought a ride in a private jet
Does to good a job to be harassed about this event

Maria Bartiromo is a very lovely,very nice,and very smart person. She is the main reason I watch CNBC.
I do not believe she is guilty of any wrong doings.
In fact I would vote for Maria if she ever ran for President...she is a quality person!

What did she do wrong? Not report that somebody was quitting? That happens everyday! Frankly, I think reporters report too much. Only half is newsworthy.

The people trying to defend Bartiromo over this continually growing story crack me up, particularly people like the poster above who ridiculously tried to shift the spotlight by citing Bush and the Iraq War. Riiiight...because as we all know THAT is a rational comparison to this story at hand (insert mocking Rodney Dangerfield eye roll here).

Look, the bottom line here is this. After a long, long time of no one ever questioning or giving a good, cold look at her actual work habits, Bartiromo finally got caught with her hand in the cookie jar and got caught of doing the NUMBER ONE thing they teach you in Journalism school that you're NOT supposed to do: namely, she let the very people she was supposed to be covering affect the coverage and she certainly went one step too far by accepting gifts, trips, and goodies when in truth she was supposed to be specifically DISTANCING HERSELF from all that in order to fairly cover a story -- a principle ANY good reporter should follow.

And the key word there is "reporter." Look, if Bartiromo wants to play off her looks and shift to being a jet-setting personality type who goes out to collect all the goodie bags she can lay her fingers on, who then wants to be Robin Leech doing a "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" type of broadcast where she simply comments on things she's seen, places she's been...that's fine. I'm okay with that. But to Maria I would say this: at least be HONEST ENOUGH to admit THAT'S the role you're playing. But to say instead she's an UNBIASED journalist while at the SAME TIME accepting gifts or trips under the table from select people -- or is even romantically involved with someone (which is how this whole flap came about) to the point of using her clout to KILL particular news stories -- only PROVES that she's crossed a journalist line in the sand.

Of course to that end this becomes modern day politics and news coverage as usual. I'm sure there will be those who will defend Bartiromo by saying "Oh come on! Maria's only doing what other people do" or those who will even take it further and try to spin doctor this in a "sexism" angle and say "Oh come on! You're only picking on her because she's a WOMAN that got caught doing what men do!" And to those intellectual carrots I can only say this: YOU'VE COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT OF WHY BARTIROMO'S BEHAVIOR IS A NEWS STORY. Hey, if you're a fan of hers, then at least be honest enough to simply say THAT and quit trying to defend her actions as if they were morally right. Because they WEREN'T and you're only showing yourselves to have a pretty low sense of morality yourselves.

Which to me, is what this comes down to -- and which brings us full circle to the poster who brought up Bush and the Iraq War. This Maria flap strikes me as yet another marker of how divided we've become as a country. Case in point, those on the Left complain that there's not enough coverage how "Bush lied" or "manufactured evidence" to get us into war...meanwhile those on the Right complain about how the media is "too liberal" and therefore is completely unwilling to show how the War is actually going BETTER than they routinely report, to the degree that the press actually buries any and all good progress reports to support Left-leaning politicians, particularly now as we race towards the 2008 elections.

So basically what we have with Bartiromo...once again and just like the War argument...is a personal cat fight where everyone simply picks a side, the ACTUAL truth or ACTUAL morals of the situation be damned. Hey, if you hate Bush, then anything and everything goes to tear him down. Conversely if you support Bush, anything and everything goes to shout out dissent. Same case here - if you like Maria then, hey, no problem with her violating journalistic ethics, so long as "your person" (in this case Maria) gets to continue doing her thing. Why? Because "your guy" (or in this case "your girl") won.

Frankly -- and I say this to everyone on ALL sides of the political spectrum -- we used to be a better nation than this, a better people. We used to hold people accountable to a higher standard and it's sad to me that everything now is based on pure personality and on a perpetual slippery slope of "conditional morality" where the lines of right and wrong change from moment to moment NOT due to the actual case at hand, but based on "who" is involved and whether you want to prop "your guy" (or girl) up, the truth be damned...