Maria Bartiromo
Bartiromo moderating a session at the World Economic Forum.
Born	September 11, 1967 (1967-09-11) (age 42) Brooklyn, New York
Occupation	journalist, columnist, news anchor
Title	CNBC's Closing Bell co-anchor
Spouse(s)	Jonathan Steinberg (1999-)
Ethnicity	Italian
Official website

Maria Bartiromo (born September 11, 1967) is an American business news anchor and interviewer. Since 1993 she has worked for CNBC television, where she is currently co-host of the Closing Bell program from 3 to 5pm ET on weekdays, as well as host and managing editor for the nationally syndicated Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo program. In 2007, NewsBios.com named her one of the 100 most influential business journalists in the United States.

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.

Personal life

Bartiromo grew up in the Bay Ridge section of southern Brooklyn. As a teenager, she 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, son of investor Saul Steinberg. Jonathan ("Jono") is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of WisdomTree Investments, a financial investment services company in Manhattan, most noted for their issuance of exchange-traded funds.¹

Career

Maria Bartiromo advertisement in Times Square.

Before joining CNBC in 1993, Bartiromo was a producer and assignment editor with CNN Business News.^{citation needed}

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 Market Watch 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 due to her striking looks. She was also nicknamed the "Econo Babe".²

Since the 1990s, the nickname "Money Honey" has spread to refer to attractive female financial news reporters in general. On January 16, 2007, Bartiromo filed to trademark the term for herself. The multiple trademark applications were for many children's products including piggy banks, cookie jars, mouse pads, jigsaw puzzles, coloring books, comic books, notepads, children's paper place mats, coupon books, backpacks, and other play items such as toy banks and toy cash registers.³⁴⁵

Bartiromo has also made appearances on numerous non-financial television shows, including NBC Universal's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Caroline Rhea Show, McEnroe, and The Colbert Report, as well as guest-hosting on Live with Regis and Kelly.^{citation needed}

Bartiromo's first book was Use the News: How to Separate the Noise from the Investment Nuggets and Make Money in Any Economy.^{citation needed}

As of 2009, Bartiromo anchors the Closing Bell show on CNBC from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM ET. Her current contract with CNBC expires March 2009.⁶

Joey Ramone released a tribute song to Bartiromo on his solo LP release Don't Worry About Me. The song was simply named "Maria Bartiromo".⁷

Host shows

• The Business of Innovation (2007-present)
• Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo (a CNBC show where she anchors and co-produces. She interviews prominent business people, entertainers, athletes, and politicians in this program.)
• Closing Bell (2002-present)
• Market Wrap (1998-2000)
• Business Center (1997-1999)

Controversies

Maria Bartiromo at World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2008

• Nicholas Maier, a former employee of Jim Cramer, alleged in his book, Trading with the Enemy (Collins, 2002), 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 denied the accusation.⁸

• In 2003, when Bartiromo interviewed Citigroup's CEO, Sanford I. Weill, she prefaced the interview with a "full disclosure" statement 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 subsequently updated its disclosure policy.⁹

• Media interest also surrounded Bartiromo when she broke live on CNBC that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had told her at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in May 2006 that his position on interest rates was "misunderstood". This appeared to indicate that Bernanke's interest rate stance was less dovish than had been interpreted by some 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). A CNBC spokesman responded that Bernanke had never told Bartiromo that his remarks were off the record.¹⁰

• 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.¹¹ In another instance, Thomson spent $5 million for the sponsorship of programming on the Sundance Channel that Bartiromo was tapped to host.¹² Thomson was eventually ousted by Citigroup for reasons including his contact with Bartiromo.¹¹ CNBC has stood by Bartiromo, claiming that her relationship with Thomson was a case of "legitimate business assignments".¹²

• On September 1, 2009, Bartiromo had an exchange with Rep. Anthony Weiner about health care reform that touched on how the American Medicare system works. In the exchange, after Wiener made a favorable comment about Medicare, Bartiromo challenged him by saying "How come you don't use it [Medicare]? You don't have it. How come you don't have it?" Wiener is 44 years old, 21 years below the minimum age for participation in the American Medicare program. Bartiromo also made the claim that the National Health Service in the United Kingdom does not pay for Erbitux.¹³¹⁴¹⁵ An August 26, 2009, article in the Daily Telegraph reports that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence approved of the use of Erbitux in certain circumstances.¹⁶

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maria Bartiromo

• Official website
• Maria Bartiromo at the Internet Movie Database
• The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo - CNBC.com
• CNBC.com profile