Henry Blodget of Clusterstock talks to former CNBC “Fast Money” host Dylan Ratigan about why he left the business news network and what he plans to do next.
Here is an excerpt:
Blodget: So, you’re one of CNBC’s biggest stars. You’re running one of the most successful shows they’ve got. And you bolt. Why?
Ratigan: A lot of things came together. One, it became apparent to me that there had been some major policy failures in America. While clearly pursuable at a place like CNBC, in my opinion, they are more broadly pursuable from a wide variety of other news platforms.
Blodget: Such as?
Ratigan: Pick them. ABC, CBS, HBO, MSNBC, CNN, FOX. When you’re dealing with economic problems, you want to be speaking from an economic platform. When you’re dealing with systemic policy failures that have rendered a catastrophe the likes of which we’ve really never seen, the role of journalism is to ask questions of money and power from the broadest possible platform.
And I happened to have a contract that was expiring. If I had been in the second year of a five-year deal, none of this would have happened.
Here’s the thing that people get confused by. “He has a hot show on a hot network, and they’re going to pay him a bunch of money…and he walks! There must have been some terrible thing there!” Management must have been bad, or whatever. And then they say, “Whoah, we found out he fought with one of the managers! That must be it!”… “They didn’t pay him!” It’s not even that some of the things aren’t true. Did I fight with management? Sure. Did I fight with everyone in management all the time? Absolutely not. Did it have anything to do with the departure? Absolutely nothing… People think that my departure was in some way a reflection on CNBC. I’m telling you, it was a reflection on me.
Read more here.
