Tag Archives: Maria Bartiromo
Bartiromo in contract negotiations
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Silicon Alley Insider’s Nicholas Carson reports that CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo is currently negotiating a new contract, and that there are competitive bidders.
Carson writes, “CNBC spokesperson Kevin Goldman says ‘Maria is under contract, period.’Â But he wouldn’t say when Maria’s current contract ends.
“According to a source familiar with Maria’s thinking, she might consider moving to general news if an extraordinary offer came along (say it ain’t so, Maria!). Given the breadth of people she interviews on her show, it would be easy to see her making this transition.
“In any event: If we’re FOX, we act now.”
Read more here.
A democratization of information
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Kimberly Palmer of US News & World Report talked for an upcoming story to CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo and asked her about financial journalism.
Here is an excerpt:
How has covering financial news changed since you started reporting?
There’s been a true democratization of information that’s enabled people to have confidence that they can be armed with enough information to actually dictate their own financial life and make their own decisions. It’s spawned the discount brokerage inÂdustry and a whole new set of tools for investors. That’s been very powerful. That’s why more than 100 million Americans invest in stocks today, be cause people can. Look at the major firms that took on all this risk — maybe they didn’t know any more than we know. It’s been a real level playing field when it comes to investing.
Are CEOs more willing to go on television now?
Investors demand information. CEOs recognize that they have to comÂmunicate. They have to be out in front, explaining their business. That doesn’t mean they need to give us earnings guidance every three months, I’m not a fan of near-term earnings guidance, but I want to know what the business plan is. I want to know what the long-term goals are.Â
Read more here.
Business news takes center stage
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Greg Morago writes Thursday for the Hartford Courant how business journalism is taken on more credence with the current economic turmoil.
Morago writes, “That transitional focus to business and financial news has shone a spotlight on media business reporters in print and broadcast. The financial talking heads, business scribes, Wall Street analysts and market-watch hacks are now media’s most visible stars, thanks to the specter of recession. Money stars like Suze Orman, Jim Cramer and Maria Bartiromo have been joined by a crop of eager faces (many of them new to mainstream news consumers), all eager to give their take on the ups and mostly downs of the global economic situation. The stock market tumble and all its repercussions have brought business news and the business reporter front and center.
“‘More than ever, the general-interest reader wants to know about business news and more than ever business news is relevant to everyone,’ said Joanne Lipman, editor in chief of Conde Nast Portfolio. ‘Business news intersects with every aspect of life and that is more true now than ever.’
“Business news now routinely pushes its way to the top of the television broadcast, to the lead story in daily newspapers and the cover story in magazines. It would surprise no one that viewership is up at Bloomberg Television and Fox Business Network or that Internet traffic for business news is soaring (Yahoo Finance, the largest finance site on the Internet, experienced its biggest weeks in viewership last month). For CNBC, the global financial crisis has been a boon. CNBC’s ‘Business Day’ and ‘Market Hours’ both had their best month ever in total viewers and were both up more than 90 percent from last October.”
Read more here.
Bartiromo? Winner. Gasparino? Loser.
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Hamilton Nolan of Gawker presents Wednesday his winners and losers in the business media during the economic crisis.
Nolan ranks them on a 10-point scale and says that his scores are “are based on how much the media person or outlet has benefited from the crisis, how right they’ve been, and how much influence they’ve had.”
Here are some winners:
And some losers:
Read the entire list here.
No cat fight at CNBC
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Suzanna Andrews of Vanity Fair interviews CNBC anchors Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett and comes away convinced that the two stars are not feuding, as has been suggested in gossip columns.
Andrews writes, “Both of them, though, think the idea of a rivalry between them is particularly absurd, considering the on-air bitchfest among their male colleagues. Viewers at CNBC are regularly treated to screaming matches. Charlie Gasparino dressing down fellow correspondent Dennis Kneale during the Eliot Spitzer scandal: ‘You’re not Client No. 1, right?’ Kneale, voice shaking, shouts back: ‘I’d like an on-air apology. Show some class.’ Viewers have yet to see Maria and Erin hack at each other like that. ‘Oh my God, that is so true,’ says Maria, bursting into laughter.
“There are some who believe that the rumors of a feud between Bartiromo and Burnett were started either by a disgruntled former CNBC employee or someone at Fox Business Network, or perhaps someone who falls into both categories, mainly because so many items about their rivalry have appeared in the New York Post, which, like FBN, is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
“Bartiromo and Burnett, however, have their own suspicions about who may have started the rumors. ‘Erin and I have spoken about this,’ says Bartiromo, ‘and I just think that we both feel like, well, maybe at the end of the day someone is doing this, planting this, because it puts more attention on the network.’ Asked if she means executives at CNBC, she smiles and says nothing. CNBC roundly denies this, but it sort of makes sense.”
Read more here.
Remain steady, don't create fear
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Broadcasting & Cable business editor Robert Marich interviewed CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo and Fox Business Network anchor Alexis Glick about covering the Wall Street turmoil during the past week.
Here are some excerpts, first from the Bartiromo interview:
Would you say general TV news has done a good job covering the stock-market turmoil?
It’s hard to say “yes� on a day-to-day basis because on any given day, there can be some scary headlines. I think people need perspective, analysis and depth. I am not a fan of sound-bite situations.
We all have a big responsibility to make sure we are providing the full picture. For example, we talk until we are blue in the face about how weak this economy is. But I think it’s also very important to recognize that the United States benefits from selling to China, India, Brazil and other booming economies around the 
world. That has provided a bit of a cushion for the United States.
From the Glick interview:
How would you rate general TV-news coverage of the turmoil?
I have been glued to the TV and read every newspaper I could get my hands on. If I had to grade the news community and business community, I’d give them an A. We are telling people what is happening and why it is impacting you and me.
Besides covering the news fairly, do you feel that it’s your job to try to be a calming influence on viewers?
Absolutely. You have to be very calm, well thought-out and reasonable. If you feed into the panic of what is going on with these financial institutions, you are going to create more fear. We at all times have to be very calm and very level-headed on why this is happening to these financial corporations. The last thing people should do is panic.
Things we hate about CNBC
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Kevin Price is compiling a list on Seeking Alpha of things that occur on CNBC that he doesn’t like.
Here’s a sampling:
- Erin Burnett insisting that her guests say something positive. We like positive stuff ourselves–where it’s justified. But scraping around for a “silver lining” for its own sake strikes us as something other than disinterested.
- Dennis Kneale. We don’t understand Kneale’s relentless, damn-the-evidence optimism on the economy and the markets. But the real problem with Kneale is that no one on CNBC’s air gets more immediate corrections, curious looks, and dismissive headshakes. It’s the willful cluelessness, not the opinions themselves, that make Kneale CNBC’s most mutable voice. We simply do not understand why the network has made him such a fixture. Perhaps it’s because no one with a fuller sense of reality could muster Kneale’s spin–a kind of spin CNBC’s decision-makers think they need to sustain their audience.
- “It’s four o’clock on Wall Street. Do you know where your money is?” What in the world is that supposed to mean? Why do Maria Bartiromo and her understudies insist on saying it every day? This is a daily must-mute moment.
Read more here.
Invasion of the money honeys
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Ben Stein, who writes a weekly economics column in The New York Times, writes in the latest issue of Best Life magazine about how business journalism has suddenly become the domain of good-looking women, at least on TV.
He has five theories as to why that’s happened.
Stein wrote, “Think of clerks in Dickensian counting houses, and you are not far off the mark. Business is largely about counting shekels and adding them up and moving them from one pile to another. Wall Street is largely about entering trades and adding up gains and losses. It’s exciting how much money can be made, of that there is no doubt. But unless you have skin in the game and are on the edge of your seat with fear and greed, the actual process is a bit mind-numbing.
“There’s a reason economics has been known for centuries as the dismal science. It’s not exactly skydiving or climbing the Andes. If you really love Wall Street, well, you probably thought statistics and algebra II were fascinating. But throw in mouthÂwateringly good-looking women, and then it’s a whole different story. Jenna Lee could be reporting about dishwashing liquid and it would be mesmerizing. As Don Henley sang, ‘She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.’
“The beautiful women can spice up the closing commodity prices or the spread between Treasury yields and junk-bond yields simply because they are beautiful fantasy material. You imagine them talking about money while they spread out their hair on the pillow next to you. They counter all of that boredom and routine with the thing we humans like to counter it with: thoughts of sex.”
Read more here.
Bartiromo interview of prince an SNL skit waiting to happen
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Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters writes Monday that CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo‘s interview with Prince Alwaleed, the largest investor in Citigroup, has the makings of a future Saturday Night Live skit.
“But no, there he was sitting outdoors, apparently by his stables, with seated camels and sleek horses very visible in the background.  And rather than being attired in business or traditional Saudi dress, the Prince was duded up with an open collar, tinted glasses and a scarf warding off the desert’s cool night air. He could be seen occasionally fingering what appeared to be golden worry beads.
“The conversation began with the prince expressing his views on current and past Citi management: Alaweed expressed great faith in current CEO Vikram Pandit and put much of the blame for the company’s woes on former CEO Charles Prince. He was optimistic that the current moves by the US government to shore up Citi would restore confidence in the company. Although he is not an investor in the auto industry, Bartiromo elicited his views on the potential Detroit bailout. Alwaleed said this would be up to ‘President-elect Barack Obama,’ emphasizing the need for strict standards for any bailout.”
Read more here.