CNBC glamour anchor Maria Bartiromo recently took flack for an on-air disclosure that she owned stock in Citigroup -- just before interviewing Sanford Weill, the company's CEO.

Then, before you could say "online angle," CBS MarketWatch star columnist Thom Calandra touted stock in Ivanhoe Energy Inc. on "CBS MarketWatch Weekend" while making an on-air disclosure of stock ownership. Then the show's anchor, Susan McGinnis, disclosed that she owned shares in Ivanhoe as well. The Monday after the report aired, Ivanhoe's stock shot up 26.7 percent to a new 52-week high.

MarketWatch.com CEO Larry Kramer said that Calandra talked to his editor beforehand and was given the green light to talk about Ivanhoe with the disclosure. Kramer doesn't think Bartiromo or Calandra did anything wrong, but acknowledged that the appearance of conflict can be tricky. He noted that Dow Jones published a story on how Calandra's TV appearance moved the stock.

Different media organizations have different ethics policies governing stock ownership and many are still struggling to find one that works.

CBS MarketWatch's policy for stock ownership stipulates that full-time journalists -- including editors -- "who write about or have knowledge of upcoming stories about a security cannot trade that security until 48 hours after the story is published. In addition, full-time newsroom staff members cannot trade securities of companies that they regularly cover."

However, if a journalist already owns stock in a company he or she is assigned to cover, they must tell the editor about the conflict and either make a disclosure or recuse themselves.

"We're working on a possible addition to our editorial policy," Kramer said. "We might extend it so the executives here wouldn't trade in stocks that Calandra mentions. We don't look at every piece of editorial in advance, but the fact is, we have access to that. Because we're on the Web, we have to be careful. Online, there's a lot of commentary and hype masquerading as news. We have a brand, and people trust us, and we're vulnerable if we do something wrong."

Kramer said he will personally not trade stocks that Calandra mentions -- although he might already own stocks mentioned. However, he said he is still checking with other executives to see if this policy is workable.

Competing financial site TheStreet.com has long had a strict policy restricting all editorial staff from holding individual stocks -- except for TheStreet.com's. However, its leading commentator, Jim Cramer, has been in and out of trouble over the years for giving stock recommendations on TV while running a high-profile hedge fund.

Upstart site the Motley Fool has an interesting editorial policy ("Fool Disclosure Policy") that encourages its staff to own stock for two reasons: It would be "downright mean" to close off that avenue of investment to them; and they consider their writers to be "communicators and teachers" of finance and not journalists. However, Motley Fool still requires disclosure of stock ownership and restricts trading in stocks for five days before or after writing about them. While many news organizations operate stock ownership rules on the honor system, Fool.com goes one step further, requiring staffers to list all holdings on their personal profile Web pages.

To own or not to own?

Richard Warner is the CEO of a Web development company, What's Up Interactive, and also is managing editor and host for "Georgia Business Report," which airs on nine PBS stations in Georgia. He said that forbidding stock ownership for business reporters is like telling political reporters that they can't vote. Warner said self-regulation is the way to go with business journalism.

"What strikes me is how easy it is to apply the 'smell test' to each issue," he said via e-mail. "If it's not ethical, you know it. Someone who starts down the slippery slope of ethics violations will be aware each time it happens. ... I would say the media acts as its own police force, much as it does with politicians. A reporter won't hold back details on a company where he owns equity because the story will come out from another reporter."

While that view might hold in the long run, a reporter might trade on short-term inside information and make a bundle while no one is looking. Aly Col?n, the ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, said the ideal situation would be one where financial journalists don't own individual stocks -- though he added that's impossible with so many 401(k) plans investing in stocks. Plus, online journalists who hold stock in their own dot-coms have another set of conflicts.

"Stock ownership in the site itself poses issues," Col?n told me. "Many fledgling online operations found out in the late '90s, trying to cover a variety of news events in the financial world that could adversely affect their own organization's ability to be successful or have an IPO. ... The problem for online journalists is that their success or survival depends on their own stock prices, and the online world is relatively new and doesn't have the history or track record of more established financial outlets."

Col?n said he doesn't buy the argument about journalists needing to be in the game in order to write about investing. "There's some logic to that," he said, "but that logic can be taken in other directions where it might not seem so appropriate. Like court reporters having to go to jail to understand that experience. Or maybe have some reporters go bankrupt so they can understand the implications of what takes place there. It's an issue of balance and credibility. Whatever you do as a journalist, you have to maintain your credibility as sacrosanct."

He said that if viewers cheer Calandra's successful stock moves as a good example, then that's OK. The perception of readers is the most important aspect of conflicts. Just making a disclosure does not remove the conflict, but losing credibility with your audience is professional suicide for a journalist. And that's where financial sites must strive for complete transparency, honest dealings with their readers and disclosure wherever possible. In a world of skeptical, burned post-boom investors, the credibility of financial journalists online is just one stupid insider trade away from scandal and disaster.