Maria Bartiromo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Maria Bartiromo | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Gender | female | |
| Born | 1967-09-11 | |
| Birth place |  United States Brooklyn, New York, USA |
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| Age | 39 | |
| Circumstances | ||
| Occupation | journalist, columnist, news anchor | |
| Marital status | married | |
| Title | CNBC's Closing Bell co-anchor | |
| Notable credit(s) | ||
| Official website | ||
Maria Bartiromo is a business news anchor, reporter, and interviewer for CNBC television co-hosting the Closing Bell program from 3 to 5pm weekdays ET and is the host and managing editor for the nationally syndicated Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo program.
Bartiromo is also a columnist and writer for several business and general interest magazines and the author of the book Use the News: How to Separate the Noise from the Investment Nuggets and Make Money in Any Economy. She has won awards including the Union League of Philadelphia’s Lincoln Statue Award (2004) and the Coalition of Italian-American Associations' Excellence in Broadcast Journalism Award (1997) and was nominated in 2002 for a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism for a series covering the widows of September 11.
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[edit] Personal Life
Bartiromo grew up in the Bay Ridge section of southern Brooklyn. As a teenager, Maria checked coats at her parents' Italian restaurant, at which her father was the chef.
Bartiromo graduated from New York University with a BA degree in journalism and a minor in economics.
On June 13, 1999, Bartiromo married Jonathan Steinberg, who is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Individual Investor Group, a financial services company in Manhattan. [1]
[edit] Career
Before joining CNBC in 1993, Bartiromo was a producer and assignment editor with CNN Business News.
Although Bartiromo was not the first person (she took over from analyst Roy Blumberg) to report regularly live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, she quickly became the most popular. With CNBC she hosted their Marketwatch program from 10:00 to 12:00 ET, as well as being a regular contributor to Squawk Box for many years before leaving the morning program. Bartiromo was nicknamed the Money Honey during the boom years of the stock market in the late 1990s. "Money Honey" is the title of a rhythm and blues hit from the 1950s sung by Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters and covered by Elvis Presley. The Bay City Rollers also covered a version of this song. She has sought to cash in on this nickname by seeking trademark protection in 2007.
In addition, she has written monthly columns for Individual Investor and Ticker magazines, and she has contributed to NBC's The Today Show.
She has also made appearances on numerous non-financial television shows, including NBC Universal's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Caroline Rhea Show, and McEnroe, as well as guest-hosting on Live with Regis and Kelly.
Her first book was Use the News: How to Separate the Noise from the Investment Nuggets and Make Money in Any Economy.
Bartiromo currently (as of 2007) co-anchors with Dylan Ratigan the Closing Bell show on CNBC from 15:00 to 17:00 ET. She also anchors and co-produces Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo, a CNBC show where she interviews prominent business people, entertainers, athletes, and politicians.
[edit] Controversies
Nicholas Maier, a former employee of James Cramer, alleged in his book, Trading with the Enemy, that Cramer would feed rumors to Bartiromo intended to affect the value of his positions when Bartiromo repeated them on the air. Time characterizes this as Cramer "gaming" Bartiromo. Cramer denies the accusation. [2]
Scandal also surrounded Bartiromo when she broke live on CNBC that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had told her at the National Press Dinner on 2006-04-29 that his position on interest rates was "misunderstood". This appeared to indicate that he would not be soft on inflation compared to his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, contrary to the thinking of most market analysts. Other members of the press, along with Bernanke himself, felt that the comments had been made off the record, and that by using her seemingly random seating position at the dinner, Bartiromo got access to market-making news which other reporters had no way of attaining (interest rates, and speculation on them, being a crucial price-setting tool for many financial instruments). [3]
In 2003, Bartiromo interviewed Citigroup's CEO, Sanford I. Weill, and stated that she owned 1,000 shares of Citigroup stock. A number of journalism boards consider it unethical for reporters to own shares in the companies on which they report, and CNBC was later required to redraft its reporting guidelines. [4][5]
In 2007, controversy arose over the nature of Bartiromo's relationship with Todd Thomson, former chief of Citigroup's wealth management unit. Thomson at one point flew with a group of employees to China, then left the employees to make their own arrangements for the trip back while he took the corporate jet back to the U.S. with Bartiromo. In another instance, Thomson spent $5 million for programming on the Sundance Channel that Bartiromo was tapped to host. Thomson was eventually ousted by Citigroup for reasons including his contact with Bartiromo. ("Shake-Up Puts Citigroup CEO On the Hot Seat.") CNBC has stood by Bartiromo, claiming that her relationship with Thomson was a case of "legitimate business assignments".
[edit] Quotes
- "I ask the tough questions in a civilized manner." [6]
- [when asked about the Money Honey nickname] "Frankly, I'm flattered. I know what I do." [7]
- "I am a big saver, much more than my husband. It concerns me that this country has a zero per cent savings rate." [8]
[edit] Trivia
Joey Ramone of the punk band The Ramones wrote a song called Maria Bartiromo in which he praised the CNBC anchor for both her beauty and knowledge of the stock market. In typical simplistic Ramones style, the song contained lyrics such as "Those eyes make everything Okay, I watch her every day, I watch her every night, she's really out of sight." Following Joey Ramone's death in 2001, Bartiromo said in an NPR interview that she was incredibly flattered to have a legendary rock star like Joey Ramone write a song about her.
