Los Angeles Times reporter Stephen Battaglio wrote a piece in December 2020 about Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo who had earned considerable respect among her colleagues for her journalism.
Battaglio wrote that Bartiromo began her career as a news producer for CNN and then went to work as reporter for CNBC, becoming the first journalist to report daily from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Few business journalists were better known.
Punk rocker Joey Ramone wrote a song about her.
Bartiromo won Emmy Awards for her work on CNBC. She was the first female journalist to be inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame and was honored by the Library of American Broadcasting.
Bartiromo moved to Fox News in 2014, serving as an anchor on the Fox Business Network. She co-moderated with Neil Cavuto of FBN a GOP presidential primary debate in 2015 that delivered the highest viewership of any program in the network’s history.
Her annual salary at the time was $5 million.
Bartiromo decided, at some point, to cash in her journalism and become a flack for Donald Trump, and in doing so, transformed from a journalist – or a reasonable facsimile thereof – to a conspiracy peddler, a fraud, a swamp rat, and an agent of disinformation.
Fortunately, for Bartiromo, this change of priorities did not require a change of business address because she was already working for Fox News.
“Bartiromo’s former colleagues — many of whom admire her reporting skills and tireless work ethic — are wondering why she allowed her programs to become a vessel for President Trump’s last gasp efforts to overturn the election results,” Battaglio wrote.
“CNBC insiders and alumni often exchange texts with tweets or clips of Bartiromo and the question ‘What happened?’”
Bartiromo repeated Trump and company’s baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election and this put her in the middle of Dominion Voting Services’ defamation suit against Fox News.
Court documents repeatedly mention Bartiromo’s name because she repeatedly spread President Trump’s falsehoods about election fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Bartiromo was among four Fox News and Fox Business Network personalities named in the lawsuit. The others included Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, and Lou Dobbs, who had since left the company.
Bartiromo is identified as a news anchor.
This means she had a responsibility to report news and not just make up shit.
The documents said that Fox News colleagues and executives expressed concern that she “was influenced by right-wing conspiracy theorists,” the Los Angeles Times said.
Bret Baier, the network’s Washington D.C. anchor, warned network executives that Bartiromo was pushing false claims about the election, Battaglio wrote in a separate story for the L.A. Times.
Battaglio reported that Gary Schreier, a Fox News producer, told his bosses that Bartiromo was influenced by Trump’s most extreme supporters.
“The problem is she has (GOP) conspiracy theorists in her ear and they use her for their message sometimes,” Schreier texted Lauren Petterson, the head of Fox Business Network.
Schreier sent Petterson a Bartiromo tweet endorsing conspiracy theories, Petterson, suggested Bartiromo should “get off social [media] all together.”
Schreier noted that Bartiromo was “say[ing] crazy s—t” online.
Bartiromo was also saying “crazy s—t” on her broadcasts.
In January 2021, after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, Bartiromo interviewed Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro, who falsely claimed that Trump had won the presidential election.
SEE PETER NAVARRO
Bartiromo agreed with Navarro, falsely claiming: “We know that there were irregularities in this election.”
https://www.vox.com/2021/1/14/22230772/trump-capitol-riot-statements-election-lies
She also falsely claimed that Democrats were behind the insurrection.
The court depositions in the Dominion Voting defamation lawsuit showed that Bartiromo continued to report baseless claims even when she was provided “correct information provided by Dominion and other Fox News journalists,” Battaglio reported.
Bartiromo, for instance, exchanged tests with Trump advisor Steve Bannon – who puts the Anon in QAnon.
Medialite reported the exchange between Bartiromo and Bannon as follows:
“I am watching the world move forward & it’s so upsetting steve,” Bartiromo wrote Bannon a few days after the presidential election. “I want to see massive fraud exposed. Will he be able to turn this around. I told my team we are not allowed to say pres elect at sll (sic). Not in scripts or in banners on air. Until this moves through the courts.”
“Seventy-one million voters will never accept Biden,” Bannon ominously responded.” This process is to destroy his presidency before it starts. IF it even starts.”
“But I’m scared and sad,” Bartiromo replied.
“You are our fighter,” Bannon said. “Enough with the sad! We need u.”
Bannon told Bartiromo that she should run for the U.S. Senate to challenge Democrat Charles Shumer.
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit journalism and research organization, examines journalism practices and operates the fact-checking network, Politi-Fact.
Poynter said the following in mid-January 2021 about Bartiromo after she had been given a tryout to host a Fox program during prime-time:
“Maria Bartiromo, who blew up her reputation as a respected business journalist by going all-in on election fraud and her support of the president, will soon be getting the keys to Fox News’ new 7 p.m. Eastern opinion show — at least for a few days.
“It’s a disturbing development considering we just saw a mob attack the Capitol, trying to overturn an election that they’ve wrongly been told was rigged in favor of Joe Biden. While it’s true that Donald Trump is the most vocal about a stolen election, he has had help from those in the media. That includes Bartiromo, whose sycophantic interviews with the president helped fan the anger of a riot that raged out of control less than two weeks ago at the Capitol.
Bartiromo did not get the prime-time job.
This means she’s no longer a journalist and not-yet-a prime-time bloviator.
