One of my favorite tech columnists, Bambi Francisco, has left financial news Web site MarketWatch, with lingering questions about her ethical chops. She resigned last week, after an eight-year stint with the Web site, following potential conflicts of interest between her prose and a video start-up she's involved with.
Several news outlets reported on the conflict, citing a few examples. For instance, Francisco wrote about Powerset, a new search engine, without a disclaimer that one of its soon-to-be board members, Peter Thiel, was also an investor in her company,
Vator.tv, a video Web site where entrepreneurs can pitch their companies to venture capitalists.
In other cases, she wrote about companies that had previously posted videos on Vator.tv.
In her
recent column, Francisco wrote:
"My boss, David Callaway, MarketWatch's editor-in-chief, gave me his blessing, with certain ground rules, many months ago. Dave allowed me to stay at MarketWatch while incubating Vator.tv in my spare time. The understanding had always been that if it got to a point at which I could not proceed without conflicts of interest, then I would leave MarketWatch to focus on Vator.tv.
So I have decided to run Vator.tv full-time, and I believe in the company.
With much regret, I'm leaving MarketWatch, my employer for eight years, as a full-time columnist and correspondent, though I hope to maintain ties."
If she deliberately crossed the ethical line, that's too bad, considering she was one of my favorite columnists. I liked her for her insightful coverage of one of my former San Francisco employers, CNET Networks, in addition to her solid reporting on other topics. Plus, how many tech columnists are named Bambi?
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