When legendary New York Times TV-business sleuth Bill Carter isn't busy following up on others' scoops, he spends a lot of time assiduously cultivating relationships with Hollywood machers. It helps with reporting, of course. But keep in mind that Carter has moonlighted in the past as a screenwriter for films that aired on HBO and TNT, both of which he regularly covers as a reporter. Now some critics wonder whether his close ties to networks make him the wrong guy to cover the cesspool that is show business.

Take, for instance, his relationship with newly anointed NBC Universal co-chairman Ben Silverman, whom Carter profiled on Monday in the Times. Earlier this year, Silverman was deposed as part of a fraud and breach-of-contract complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court against NBC and his production company, Reveille. In the course of the deposition, the details of which haven't been previously reported, Silverman was asked to identify Carter. He replied: "Bill Carter is a writer and a dear friend of mine from the New York Times."

The lawsuit was filed in 2006 by Maurice Fraser, a British former reporter and concert promoter who had an idea for a nationwide song contest that could take on American Idol. Fraser, whose father was a Times reporter, cold-called Carter for advice on how to pitch a show around Hollywood. Carter gave him some names, including Silverman, who was at the time still the head of Reveille. Fraser contacted Silverman saying Carter had sent him; Silverman set up a meeting. Fraser's idea never got off the ground. But at one point, according to internal Reveille e-mail records in the court file, Silverman pitched it in an e-mail to NBC executive Jeff Gaspin thusly: "Our creator came to us through my friend, Bill Carter at the New York Times...." (Fraser's suit charges that NBC and Reveille attempted to steal his idea before scuttling the show altogether.)

Needless to say, it's not a good idea for a TV reporter to become besties with the executives he writes about. Carter has mentioned Silverman in no fewer than 25 stories since 2000, including two lengthy profiles in the last 10 months. According to the New York Times Company's ethics policy, reporters should remember that "personal relationships with news sources can erode into favoritism, in fact or appearance.... Scrupulous practice requires that periodically we step back and look at whether we have drifted too close to sources with whom we deal regularly."

When Radar first contacted Carter for this item, he insisted that Silverman was no more than a professional acquaintance and chalked up Silverman's affectionate language in the deposition to his notoriously gregarious personality. "He's a big, warm-hearted guy," Carter said. "He's expressive. But it's beyond me why he would use that term. It's not accurate." As evidence of his appropriately cool relationship with Silverman, Carter volunteered the fact that the two had never met each other's families. "We don't have the trappings of friendship," he said.

In fact, Silverman and Carter have met members of each other's families. As Carter acknowledged in a subsequent interview, Silverman once met Carter's son during a visit to the set of The Office, which Reveille produces. Carter was there as a reporter, but he had asked The Office's show runner Greg Daniels if his then-20-year-old son, whom Carter described as "a fan" of the show, could tag along. NBC's publicist for The Office, who is responsible for organizing and scheduling working press visits to the show's set, said the Carter father-and-son visit did not go through her.

And according to a reliable source, Silverman has told people that Carter has met his mother—a former television executive for Court TV and other networks—and his sister and has described Carter as a "personal friend." (Carter denied meeting Silverman's mother, and said he doesn't recall ever meeting his sister.)

Asked if allowing his son to come along and see the set of one of his favorite television shows could be construed as a personal favor from Daniels and his then-boss Silverman, Carter replied, "I guess if you wanted to make something of that, you could."

Silverman declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. But a NBC Universal spokeswoman said, "They have a professional friendship."