Instead he’ll be getting a 9-11 morning spot starting June 29 on MSNBC. Which means he’s keeping in the GE family, but will be in direct competition with Squawk Box‘s Erin Burnett and Mark Haines. Who will show us their tits first in the name of ratings (or just good will)? Stay tuned. Passive aggressive statement from D-rat: “While I look forward to broadening my scope in covering the multitude of issues facing our country today, what draws me to MSNBC is that they have offered me a 2-hour forum to discuss any and all political issues with no directive other than to provide compelling content. Which apparently now I actually have to do.”
Earlier: Late Night With Dylan Ratigan
Dylan Ratigan Stays with NBC, Will Join MSNBC [mediabistro]
Erin Burnett
When John Mack was almost lured into enough of a false sense of security (or perhaps a conspiracy) to nearly disclose his plans to raise new equity* and pay back TARP money by CNBC’s Erin Burnett we thought it might be curtains for the guy. We are also not sure how he could have lived with himself after making such a slip it in front of Lloyd’s of Goldman. Our Bess Levin was (virtually) there to capture the moment:
Burnett: Let’s talk TARP…you’ve said you want to return it after the stress test, as early as April…do you still want to do that?
Blankfein: We didn’t say shit. TARP has never been permanent capital…we will return it, at some point, with interest.
Burnett: How ’bout you, Stanley?
Mack: We’re in the same position…we can pay it back…we’ll do it if our regulator wants us to.
Burnett: Okay, more about TARP. If you give the money back, and something catastrophic happens again, and you need the money will you–
Mack: Erin, stop. This was not what the meeting was about. We talked about what are we going to do, how are we going to do it, what are the issues.
Burnett: Your stock is high again…are you going to raise equity?
Blankfein: We’ll be talking to our regulators.
Mack: I need to talk to my board first. As much as I like CNBC, I’m really not going to go there.
Yes, yes. Everything is fine. And how dare you ask that question, you little minx. You’ll never work in this town again! (Phew, that was close). Oh, wait:
Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John J. Mack, who will run the largest broker-dealer when the acquisition of Smith Barney from Citigroup Inc. is completed later this year, told employees in a nationwide conference call yesterday that 2009 will be “a difficult year,” mostly because of so many toxic debts that have yet to be cleansed from the bank’s holdings. Among the 529 financial institutions that received loans from American taxpayers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley isn’t yet prepared to pay back the $10 billion it received from the U.S. Treasury in October.
Earlier: Coffee Klatsch With Mack and Blankfein
Mack Warns Morgan Stanley of ‘Difficult Year’ in 2009 [Bloomberg]
* Not that there are now or will be any such plans or that such plans are or are not being considered or that said plans exist or could ever be said to have existed.
Except to express our total lack of surprise that the Goldman alum Treasury Secretary thinks we are a total humiliation as a nation, (or more precisely: “We have in many ways humiliated ourselves as a nation with the recent turmoil.”) and our equal lack of surprise that he does it while glaring at what must be a spot of mustard on Erin’s lapel and displaying the universal hand sign for “the count is 3 and 2 with two outs.” No, it is nothing more suggestive than that. Besides, he told us Erin is totally not his type anyhow.
It seems that our obsession with Erin Burnett may not be accidental. According to her big New York Times profile, by none other than the highly influential Brian Stelter, Burnett’s rise to celebrity was carefully engineered by CNBC.
Erin nicely handles the question that is asked of any successful, beautiful woman: what role did her looks play in her success? This is especially relevant at CNBC, where many of their viewers are known to watch with the volume turned all the way down until important news breaks. “There is an element of TV that is visual. You can’t deny that,” she tells Stelter. “But you’re not going to be able to move to the next level without the passion, the contacts, the journalistic drive.”
And man does she have drive. Erin (notice how well programmed we are by CNBC that we feel comfortable calling her by her first name) started out at Goldman Sachs but immediately began gunning for television business news stardom. She wrote to Willow Bay, the co-anchor CNN’s “Moneyline” and landed herself the job of Bay’s assistant and then as a writer at the network. Later, she somehow turned a job writing a business plan for an internet media start-up at Citigroup into an on air job. (It seemed she pulled a Dick Cheney and chose herself for the role.) This caught Bloomberg TV’s attention, which got her noticed by CNBC.
One thing that the article doesn’t explore is Erin’s fascination with China, which she continued this morning on Squawk On The Street by announcing that she’s far more interested in seeing Mongol than Dark Knight. (By the way, this might be the official contrarian line of the week. Two hedge fund managers said exactly the same thing to us this weekend.)
Needing a Star, CNBC Made One [New York Times]
It’s no secret that CNBC sweetie Erin Burnett like taking trips to “exotic locales.” This time around her trip is in India, where cricket is simply huge. So huge, in fact, that sporty Erin couldn’t resist getting suited up and taking a few whacks at the ball herself.
She’s also doing things like going to banks and the stock exchange. But for some reason, we find ourselves much more interested in the cricket segment than any of the “serious” stuff.
Cricket in India [CNBC]
Speaking of cute girls, Erin Burnett, the CNBC Street Sweetie who interviewed Jon Corzine on Street Signs this afternoon, might have born and raised in a small town on the eastern shore of Maryland, but she attended the tony boarding school St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Delaware. She graduated in 1994, when he high school yearbook famously predicted that in 20 years she would become a talkshow host.
Click here to download the pdf of The Griffin, her highschool year book.
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