CNBC CEO Interviews: Must They All Be Puff Pieces Now?

This week, CNBC has provided us with a number of "puff piece" interviews of various business and governmental leaders.

The network's Chicago correspondent, Phil lebeau, met with Alan Mulally, new CEO of Ford, and Rick Wagoner, embattled CEO of GM. Maria Bartiromo, meanwhile, was given access to President Bush, as part of the pre-election publicity campaign by the White House.

Just what is the value of these talking heads lobbing softballs at these CEOs and politicians? We all know that if the network interviewers ask a hard or embarrassing question, a) they won't get a straight answer, and b) they won't ever get another interview with that exec, or any other senior exec.

LeBeau didn't ask any penetrating questions of Mulally or Wagoner. I'd be surprised if Bartiromo did not have to provide a list of her questions prior to the session.

So, what is the value of these interviews? Isn't it just like the sell-side analysts who get pressured, and sometimes fired by their employers, for being too candid about badly-managed firms or potential fraud, etc? The presumption is that a carefully staged game of mis- or dis-information is being played in front of the camera.

I put much more trust in the writing or reporting of someone who simply deals with publicly-available information, and their own logic, without resorting to a staged interview. If anything, I find that the latter causes me to view the reporter/writer as compromised.

Thus, I put a lot more stock in, say, Alan Murray or Holman Jenkins, Jr., of the WSJ, than I ever will in Phil Lebeau or Maria Bartiromo of CNBC. Somewhere in the middle are Joe Kernan and Becky Quick of CNBC, who don't arrange the interviews, but frequently fire hardball questions at tele-interviewees, such as CEOs of firms reporting earnings.

If anything, I see the CEO interviews as simply giving more opportunities for them to obfuscate, or simply deny reality. Who is this serving? Especially in the cases of GM and Ford, which are in real trouble. In neither interview did LeBeau get even close to pressing the subject to acknowledge their difficulties, and what they might do if worst came to worst.

Granted, these CEOs don't want to be on camera doing that. So why give the interview in the first place? Personally, I think they are a waste of everyone's time.