As Atrios Would Say, "Time for a Blogger Ethics Panel."*

The Wall Street Journal has just fired its chief foreign affairs correspondent because he was negotiating a business partnership with an arms merchant that he was also covering:

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday fired its highly regarded chief foreign affairs correspondent after evidence emerged of his involvement in prospective commercial deals — including one involving arms sales to foreign governments — with an international businessman who was one of his key sources.

The reporter, Jay Solomon, was offered a 10 percent stake in a fledgling company, Denx LLC, by Farhad Azima, an Iranian-born aviation magnate who has ferried weapons for the CIA. It was not clear whether Solomon ever received money or formally accepted a stake in the company.

"We are dismayed by the actions and poor judgment of Jay Solomon," Wall Street Journal spokesman Steve Severinghaus wrote in a statement to The Associated Press. "While our own investigation continues, we have concluded that Mr. Solomon violated his ethical obligations as a reporter, as well as our standards."

Azima was the subject of an AP investigative article published Tuesday. During the course of its investigation, the AP obtained emails and text messages between Azima and Solomon, as well as an operating agreement for Denx dated March 2015, which listed an apparent stake for Solomon.

………

Read some of the source documents here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3871143-Jay-Solomon-Documents.html

This doesn't just happen with people covering arms dealers. 

The very rich use their wealth to shape the news and bribe and or intimidate journalists routinely

^*Atrios was early to the blogging phenomena, and noted how many in the MSM dismissed blogs because there were no editors, and thus no journalistic ethics. Whenever a mainstream reporter is shown to be corrupt, he ironically made this comment.