Newsmax's use of its negative coverage of President Obama's economic policies to sell its own personal financial products has drawn criticism from business news veterans.

As Media Matters recently revealed, the conservative Web site and its CEO, Christopher Ruddy, use sharply negative rhetoric about the administration's policies to stoke readers' fears about the economic outlook, and then urge those readers to purchase Newsmax's financial schemes. Fox News political analyst Dick Morris plays a key role in Newsmax's promotional efforts.

Alex Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, ripped the Newsmax practice.

“This kind of site is calculated to look like news. But it is in fact, pushing products,” said Jones, a former media reporter for The New York Times. “It is quasi-journalism mixed with promotion.”

He also criticized Morris: “Dick Morris and ethics are two words that do not belong in the same sentence. I don't think he is a man of any integrity.”

Marty Steffens, a business and financial journalism chair at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, stated: “Hyperinflation is just the latest scare tactic, evoking images of people having to load up cash in wheel barrels to buy groceries. It's highly unlikely hyperinflation will ever happen, but by playing on fears, it can drive sales of books or pamphlets with advice. It's an age-old story of doomsday prophecy and urging the masses to protect themselves.”

Others agreed that the Newsmax practice is wrong.

“I don't think you should tie your coverage to products you are selling,” said Xana Antunes, editor of Crain's New York Business and a former New York Post business editor. “It is an editor's job to be that bright line. The value of your brand resides in the quality of your journalism.”

Rick Edmonds, a media analyst at The Poynter Institute, said such practices are becoming too common across all media platforms: “It is in the new financial model.”

Then there is David Cay Johnston, the former business writer for The New York Times and Los Angeles Times and a popular economics author. He said Newsmax's lack of credibility in its regular reporting is actually more of a problem: “The actual content of what they're reporting and its lack of facts and connection to reality is what we ought to focus on.”