Maria Bartiromo’s pivot from market mover to Trump booster

Maria Bartiromo

Andrew Kirell and Maxwell Tani of The Daily Beast write about Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo, whose content has shifted from covering the markets to political advocacy for President Donald Trump since she left CNBC in 2014.

Kirell and Tani write, “Former Fox Business and Fox News brass suggested to The Daily Beast that Bartiromo’s head-spinning pivot represents a response to Trump-era media market forces.

“‘She was never a political being until she got to Fox,’ one former Fox executive told The Daily Beast. ‘I think the whole part of why she does this is because she knows the best way to move up the ladder at Fox News is to keep saying far-right bullshit.’

“Indeed, in recent months, as multiple scandals — including special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign — have heated up, so have Bartiromo’s rhetorical flourishes in defense of the president.

“‘There’s a cabal that wants to destroy Donald Trump,’ she said in April, dismayed by the withdrawal of a Trump Cabinet pick over misconduct allegations. ‘They want chaos around him.'”

Read more here.

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.