Ethics questions raised about CNBC's Bartiromo

By Dan Wilchins

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The friendship between television news anchor Maria Bartiromo and former Citigroup executive Todd Thomson raises questions about ethical boundaries between reporters and their sources, experts said.

Thomson found himself out of a job recently after spending $5 million of Citigroup's money to sponsor a show hosted in part by CNBC news anchor Bartiromo, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The report said Citigroup executives were also irked by Thomson's flying Bartiromo, called "the Money Honey" by tabloid newspapers, to New York from Beijing, China in a Citigroup corporate jet.

A spokesman for financial news network CNBC said Bartiromo's plane trip had been approved by her managers, and that CNBC paid Citigroup for her flight. He declined to elaborate on further questions regarding Bartiromo and Thomson.

This is not the first time Bartiromo has been at the center of controversy.

In May, she roiled stock and bond markets after discussing in a broadcast a conversation she had with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the White House Correspondents' Association's annual dinner. Many reporters understand the dinner to be off the record.

Personal relationships are crucial to reporters who vie to get stories first. But friendships that are too close can raise questions about objectivity, said Bob Steele, senior ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a training and research center for journalists.

"Was there any personal connection with Mr. Thomson that could raise concerns about competing loyalties? It's a reasonable question to ask, and important for her to answer in a meaningful way," Steele said.