Three Changes CNBC Should Make To Its Disclosure Policies

CNBC has taken a beating in the press lately following Jon Stewart's assault on the network and its commentators. And just recently, a new site called FixCNBC has been launched with an open letter saying the following:

Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism – asking tough questions to Wall Street, debunking lies, and reporting the truth. Instead, CNBC has done PR for Wall Street. You’ve been so obsessed with getting “access” to failed CEOs that you willfully passed on misinformation to the public for years, helping to get us into the economic crisis we face today.

You screwed up badly. Don’t apologize – fix it!

CNBC should publicly declare that its new overriding mission will be responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. As a down payment, we ask you to hire some new economic voices – people who have a track record of being right about the economic crisis and holding Wall Street executives’ feet to the fire.

I've always thought that CNBC could do a much better job of disclosing information about guests. We get info about the usual stuff like investment banking conflicts (not that anybody pays attention) or whether or not a guest owns any stock in a particular company.

But I think the GE-owned network could do a lot to improve its disclosure policies, starting with these three changes:

Online Records of Guests' Stock and Market Calls
Jim Cramer does a decent job of this at TheStreet.com. But CNBC could hire a few interns to log all guests' stock and market calls and post them publicly on CNBC.com. This way the public can better tell the difference between a savvy money manager and someone that just sounds good on television. If a particular guest is chronically wrong we should know about it.

Disclosures of Guests' Personal Investments
There's no need to reveal too much personal information here. I don't need to know how rich anyone is or whether they own six houses. But if a guest is telling me solar stocks are the way to go, I want a message on screen telling me just how much of his personal portfolio is in solar stocks. Everyone talks their books, but we should know if a chef is eating his own cooking. If any particular guest is unwilling to share their brokerage statements with the network, they should be shown the door immediately.

Disclosure of Advertising Conflicts
Whenever a guest working for a current CNBC advertiser (car company, brokerage firm, etc.) appears on the air, a disclosure should be posted on screen saying so. After all, can CNBC be truly independent if it covering its own customers? If Ken Lewis of Bank America (BAC) is being interviewed while running an extensive ad campaign on CNBC, I'd like to know. Tons of media outlets have these conflicts (like a camera review magazine printing Canon ads), but CNBC should take the high road and tell us then they're happening.

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These changes would be simple and cheap to implement, and would go a long way towards restoring the public's trust in CNBC. If CNBC truly wants to be on the side of the people who rely on it for timely, objective financial reporting, they'll listen.

What do you guys think? What else should change about CNBC's disclosure policies?

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