Categories: OLD Media Moves

CNBC reporter's contract not renewed

Jeff Poor of The Daily Caller writers that CNBC reporter Matt Nesto did not have his contract renewed and speculates that it was because of some anti-Obama statements he made on the air.

Poor writes, “Nesto, known for his market research in appearances on the network throughout the broadcast day, is generally a low-key actor. However, back on the CNBC’s ‘Closing Bell’ program on June 16, Nesto was asked whether BP acted appropriately by agreeing to the White House’s terms of cutting its dividend payments and agreeing to a $20-billion escrow account in the wake of the Gulf oil spill disaster.

“According to Nesto, the administration was circumventing the legal system with such a demand.

“‘I don’t think they [BP] had a choice,’ Nesto said. ‘In cutting the dividend or in joining up with that fund? I mean, cutting the dividend – yeah it is smart and prudent to save cash in the face of an unknown liability, but I’m very troubled by the fact, uh, that the President has once again created his own sense of, of a legal system.'”

Read more here. CNBC spokesman Brian Steel declines to comment on Nesto’s status with the network. His contract expires at the end of the year.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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ink-stained cliche' says:
December 14, 2010 at 10:36 pm
It's very doubtful that he would've been "let go" over those statements. What he said was tame compared to the partisan right-wing nonsense uttered by his colleagues on an hourly basis. If anything, CNBC probably loves it when their reporters get political. They're hoping it'll boost ratings.