CNBC's Uncomfortable Dinner with Its Overlords
Top GE and NBC Universal executives called a dinner meeting with CNBC bigwigs inside 30 Rock recently. This much is agreed upon. Still unclear: Whether CNBC was pressured to bash the president less.
Page Six "has learned" — such credible language from a gossip sheet — that such pressure was applied. But CNBC disputes any political overtones to the event, which it said was a "to thank CNBC for a job well done." Uh, really? A job well done?
In any case, someone at NBC clearly has an axe to grind. Six's source insists GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker (pictured) want the network in the tank, for the socialist in chief:
There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much... The whole meeting was really kind of creepy.
This account is definitely disconcerting, if only because there are far better reasons to call CNBC on the carpet: failing to warn investors about the pending financial meltdown, actively mocking experts with enough foresight to do so, swallowing so many CEO lies whole, and just generally being a part of the dysfunctional, broken Wall Street system rather than a check on it.
Rick Santelli's cheap Fox News schtick is the least of the network's many problems.