Maria Bartiromo: How to destroy a lifetime of reputation

Oh, how the mighty do fall. Especially when greed, a lust for fame and a feeling of superiority take hold.

Maria Bartiromo has spent more than three decades building a name in American television journalism. CNBC. Wall Street. The New York Stock Exchange. FOX News. Intimate interviews with Presidents and billionaires. All leading to millions of viewers and a level of fame few manage to attain and hold on to for such a long period of time.

No doubt, that's a hell of a résumé.

Then, in a shocking (to the general public) flash, out at Fox News. Lose the usual semantics that always accompany such stories such as "Maria decided to explore new avenues".

FOX News Media announced that Bartiromo was no longer with the company, effective September 3, after more than 12 years. As is usual policy, the network didn't explain why.

They used the time worn PR line that the move was "a business decision". Even the FOX publicity wags knew that wasn't going to last.

Bartiromo's attorney says reports that she was fired or is no longer employed by FOX are "absolutely and unequivocally false."

OK, we'll bite. He's nt entirely wrong because, for the moment, Bartiromo is still under contract and still collecting her hefty salary while making plans to be chauffeured to her next hair styling appointment.

For the moment, let's put the employment dispute aside. There's a much bigger story here.

What happens when the reputation you spent decades building becomes the story?

Bartiromo didn't arrive at FOX as some unknown television personality. She had a serious résumé and was well-respected in several financial and media fields.

But over the years, her FOX career became intertwined with some of the most consequential controversies in modern American television news.

Her programs were part of the record examined in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation case against FOX. False claims about Dominion's role in the 2020 election were aired on FOX programs, including interviews involving Bartiromo. Instead of taking the journalistic tack, she became a full-throated mouthpiece for the misinformation regarding Dominion. She was, as one commentator remarked, "Team Trump all the way" in defending the President and his claims of voter fraud.

FOX ultimately settled the Dominion case for $787.5 million. As an excellent attorney told me long ago, you don't settle if you're innocent.

Smartmatic, another company slandered by misinformation, disinformation and provable lies, has a separate case against FOX that remains unresolved. FOX knows that sooner or later, they're going to have to cough up another fat check to try and make it all go away.

Those are facts.They're not internet gossip. They're not somebody's anonymous Facebook post. They're part of the public record.

Which brings us to Bartiromo's latest entanglement over what has been proven time and again to be the real "fake news".

Reporting has raised questions about whether Bartiromo shared internal FOX editorial guidance with White House officials concerning coverage of claims about the 2020 election.

That allegation is, of course, disputed. FOX hasn't publicly and definitively said that's why she left, so for the sake of journalistic integrity, don't make the mistake of pretending we know more than we know.

Here's what we do know: Reputation is cumulative.

Every interview, email, decision, promise, every shortcut. Every time you decide that something is "close enough." Every time you believe nobody is watching and here's one that will just slide by with a "no harm, no foul" attitude.

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It all becomes part of the record. And eventually, somebody may pull the record together.

That's the world we live in now, and any person of even average intelligence should be aware of it. Your email can surface. Your text can surface. An old television interview can surface. A screenshot can surface. A former employee can tell the story. A customer can produce the receipt.

And increasingly, artificial intelligence can connect pieces of your professional history that you thought were completely unrelated.

That's why the permanent record isn't some abstract idea anymore. It is your professional history.

Here's where this gets uncomfortable.

A lot of people think reputation means getting people to like you.

Rubbish. It doesn't. Popularity is not credibility. Visibility is not credibility.A giant audience is not credibility, and money certainly isn't credibility.

Credibility is what remains when somebody has a reason to question you.

So here's the question: If somebody audited your professional reputation tomorrow, what would they find?

Would they find someone who protected the truth even when it was inconvenient? Someone who protected the client when nobody was looking? Told the boss what the boss needed to hear instead of what the boss wanted to hear? Refused the easy shortcut?

Or would they find a vast collection of compromises that seemed insignificant at the time?

That's how reputations get destroyed. Usually not in one spectacular explosion. Instead, one compromise at a time.

Here's the part that should scare every executive: You may be able to leave your job, change companies, hire a publicist, even reinvent yourself.

But you don't get to fire your reputation.

You built it. Now you have to live with it.

Control the Narrative. Or someone else will do it for you.