CNBC INSIDER: Maria Bartiromo's Comments About Us Not Working Hard Are Insulting And Baffling
Basically, Bartiromo said she was the only one picking up the phone and getting guests on the air.
From The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove:
"It wasn't just the intense competition, it was a competition with my own company at CNBC," said Bartiromo, who is marking five weeks of anchoring her two-hour stock market program on FBN, Opening Bell with Maria Bartiromo, and on Sunday debuts her live hour-long interview show on Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. (In other words, her famous name and face are all over both cable outlets.) "Six or seven years ago, my boss came and said, 'Maria, you're the only one who's working, the only one who's picking up the phone and getting big hitters on the air, and I need to make other people do that.'"
A CNBC insider told us that her comments "baffling" and "insulting." They're also not true.
"It's insulting Maria would say that none of her colleagues worked hard. CNBC is filled with producers, reporters and anchors who've busted their buts just like her for a long time and still do trying to get exclusives and cultivate sources," the source said, citing CNBC anchors/reporters like Jim Cramer, David Faber, Becky Quick, Scott Wapner, Kate Kelly and others as examples of folks who work really hard to book guests and break news.
The insider also noted that it makes no sense for her to keep "dropping these bombs."
Bartiromo, who's known as the "Money Honey," has a reputation as a power house when it comes to booking big name guests. However, she was also very territorial when it came to her go-to guests appearing on other CNBC shows.
That's why a bunch of folks felt relieved when she left for Fox Business after two decades at CNBC.