The 'I Factor' in the Bartiromo Coverage

Writing in Slate, Jack Shafer today wrestles with the "I Factor"-- "I" as in Innuendo -- in the media circus concerning Maria Bartiromo:

Delineating a friendship that includes a trans-Pacific flight alone in a corporate jet, an apparently significant sighting in an expensive restaurant, and a dressing down in which a corporate executive is told to reduce his contact with his friend of the opposite sex, all but draws the doughnut and tosses the hot dog through it.

There's another factor that hasn't been explored, which is the "J factor" -- the professional jealousy that I think is hovering beneath a lot of the coverage. Whether one likes her professional output or not (and I am not a big fan), there is no question that she has been smashingly successful. And then there is the fact that she is not terribly bad looking. Might there not be just a wee bit of jealousy behind all the media overkill?

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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