Don’t hook up with your sources.

I laughed to myself the first time I saw a budding journalist friend of mine swagger into the office wearing a shirt displaying one of the unspoken cardinal rules of journalism. While building trust and rapport with sources is invaluable in the news industry, most know how damaging it can be to cross the line from professional to, well, personal.

Mirthala Salinas, an anchor/reporter for Telemundo, NBC’s Spanish-language station, seems to have missed the boat on the most obvious of J-School lessons. Just weeks after Los Angeles mayor and rising political star Antonio Villaraigosa announced he was separating from his wife of 20 years, Corina, reports surfaced that Salinas is the “other woman” behind the scenes of the Villaraigosa breakup. Salinas, who has reportedly also played footsies with Assembly Speaker Fabio Nunez and state Sen. Alex Padilla, kept mum about the affair up until last week, even as she delivered news of the split to Telemundo viewers.

The affair raises questions about the public’s expectation that politicians lead by example in both their professional and private lives. But, more importantly, it is a hit to the credibility of female journalists, reinforcing the age-old Hollywood stereotype of naïve female reporters sacrificing hard-earned credibility and journalistic integrity for a little bit of lovin’.

As a whole, the country is numbed by news of crumbling nuptials. The days of secure marital bliss are looked back on with nostalgia by the baby boomers, as four out of five marriages now end in divorce. Celebrity hook-ups and breakups steal headlines on both checkout-lane tabloids and cnn.com. Adultery among Washington’s elite is accepted if not expected, as even some presidents have been caught receiving special favors behind the closed doors of the Oval Office.

But this story isn’t your run-of-the-mill secret lovers tryst with a public twist. Villaraigosa cheated with one of the people purportedly positioned to keep him honest: a member of the press.

Salinas, a rising star in her own accord, covered Los Angeles city politics and Villaraigosa’s office for Telemundo until she broke it to her editors that she feared her “friendship” with the mayor might compromise her coverage.

Compromise? Is she kidding? Safe to say that Salinas’ conducting a full-blown romantic affair— the LA Times claims Villaraigosa was seen with wine and take-out at the reporter’s home and that he flew to her side when her mother passed away last year—with a key source and top news subject completely undermined her ability to fairly cover her beat. Regrettably, in cases like these, individual actions can also affect the larger reputation of the journalism community.

Reporter chicks have never had it easy. First, we had to break the gender barrier, securing a place in the old boy’s club of the newsroom with the help of such news visionaries as Nelly Bly (even if she did have to pretend to be crazy to get her big scoop) CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and Washington Post editor Katherine Graham.

As we battered against the glass ceilings of the newsrooms, we had to battle more than just agenda-setting sources and impending deadlines: we had to fight the media itself.

The image of the journalist, the female journalist in particular, in popular culture is often anything but heroic. On the silver screen, gals unabashedly use their feminine wiles to secure the story, even if it means bedding sources. Woody Allen’s Scoop/ and the hit mock-u-mentary, Thank You for Smoking both showcased self-promoting journalistas stripping for the story and, of course, ultimately getting burned for their bad decisions. Salinas should have added those dvds to her Netflix queue. In Never Been Kissed, Drew Barrymore’s character’s undercover assignment went awry when she fell in love, and Lois Lane found herself in the arms of her super subject time and time again. In sum, the Salinas affair could have been ripped from the pages of a Hollywood script (some columnists have compared the affair to Telemundo’s hit telenovelas).

Women still only account for about 39 percent of reporters and 34 percent of newsroom supervisors, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The scary thing about these statistics isn’t the obvious imbalance of the gender ratio, it’s that the ratio has stayed virtually the same for the past eight years. Those who do reach the top often face unwarranted criticism and scrutiny. CBS’ Katie Couric, the first solo female anchor of the “big three” nightly network newscasts, isn’t judged solely on the balance of her show’s coverage, or the quality of the stories, as are her male competitors. Katie, whose short tenure has seen the lowest ratings in CBS history, has been slammed for what she wears, how often she smiles and her overall matronly demeanor. Even news legend Dan Rather’s criticism of the show’s “tarted-up” content carries sexist connotations. If that isn’t gender discrimination at play, I don’t know what is.

So what’s the big deal?

There remains the feeling, despite constant erosion, that a journalist who crosses ethical lines betrays not only themselves and their institutions but also the public trust.

Amid the media frenzy surrounding the scandal, Salinas’ producers have announced she is on leave while they investigate whether she violated the station’s code of conduct.

Of course she did. As National Society of Hispanic Journalists President Raphael Olmeda told the Washington Post, “The short quote, devoid of context, is ‘Bad girl!’… You don’t get involved with your sources. It’s inappropriate on any number of levels.”

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics seems pretty clear on the matter, advising members to “avoid conflict of interests, real or perceived.” Journalists should “remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility, refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment… disclose unavoidable conflicts [and] be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.”

This story is not one to quickly fade from the headlines. It’s just too damn juicy. Though some have prematurely ruled out his viability for a 2010 gubernatorial run, Villaraigosa will recover. Politicians almost always do, as these sorts of public embarrassments are overtaken by valiant promises of filled potholes and gang-free streets. Salinas’ comeback, however, may take more than a splash of sugarcoated PR. Villaraigosa betrayed the voters who elected him on the premise of his highly touted morals and family values; a clear lapse in judgment coming from a leader expected to exhibit self-discipline and strong conviction. Salinas betrayed Telemundo viewers who tune-in each night for a fair account of city politics. She betrayed her coworkers at Telemundo, her peers in the industry and people like me— young women looking to female leaders to pave the way so someday we can have a scoop of our own without being written off as puppy-eyed floozies.

There’s irony in the fact that Salinas is being brought down by reporters seeking to hold the mayor accountable for his actions— the job she was supposed to be doing all along. She has become a subject of the beat she used to cover and is suffering as a result. That’s part of the power of the press, a fact she knew well enough from the start.

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Torey Van Oot is a staff writer at P+P.

Tags: ethics, salinas, telemundo, villaraigosa