Cory Greenberg of NBC’s “Today” show admitted to accepting a $15,000 payment from Apple Computer to promote the iPod, The Washington Post reports.

Corey Greenberg, tech editor for NBC’s “Today” show, appeared last July to praise Apple’s iPod as “a great portable musical player . . . the coolest-looking one” and suggested a compatible device to “share your music with other people.” “This is the way to go,” he declared.

“Let’s cut the Apple commercial here right now, okay?” co-host Matt Lauer interjected.

Deep Thought’s Take Uhm, unethical? Yes. Very. These companies aren’t the first to do such questionable things (Microsoft’s Mac-to-PC “switcher” from two years ago comes to mind), and some companies have done much worse (Enron comes to mind), but these companies should be ashamed of themselves.