On November 14, 2014, Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis told viewers of her program, “Money with Melissa Francis,” that she had been “silenced” while working at CNBC. She said managers there had told her she was “disrespecting the office of the president” because of what she said on air about the Affordable Care Act.
CNBC’s public relations office rejected the account. The exchange became a short-lived dispute over how cable business networks covered the health law, and over what happens inside a newsroom when an anchor’s comments are seen as political.
The context: a video and a question about coverage
Francis made her remarks the same week Jonathan Gruber, an economist who had advised on the health law, drew attention for recorded comments about how the law was passed. Francis opened the segment by criticizing coverage of the Gruber video. She said NBC, ABC, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press and others had not mentioned it.
She then turned to her own experience. She said that while at CNBC she had told viewers “the math of Obamacare simply didn’t work.” In her words, she was talking about arithmetic, not politics.
What Francis said happened at CNBC
Francis said she had argued on air that millions of people could not be added to the insurance system, and insurers required to cover preexisting conditions, without raising costs for others. She also said she had questioned the promise that people who liked their plans could keep them.
She said that as a result she was called into management and told she was “disrespecting the office of the president.” In a follow-up interview with Fox News’s “MediaBuzz,” host Howard Kurtz asked whether managers had objected only to her tone. Francis said the words used were that her tone was inappropriate and disrespectful to the office. She added that she had been called in more than once. She described herself as a trained economist asking guests how the claims could hold up.
The segment on her program also included a discussion with Fox Business senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino and Kurtz about their experiences with earlier employers in mainstream media.
Francis repeated the account on “Fox & Friends.” The Daily Signal reported that she said executives at the NBC-owned business channel had tried to silence her and called her “too political.” The same report said she left CNBC in 2012.
CNBC’s response
CNBC disputed the claim. The Washington Examiner quoted Brian Steel, the network’s vice president of public relations, who said the allegation was “laughable.”
On Monday, November 17, Francis said she would not name the manager involved. She said she found CNBC’s reply glib and condescending. She said the manager was not CNBC President Mark Hoffman, and she stood by her earlier account, according to the Examiner. She said she had been told she was disrespecting the office because the president was the one “really selling” the law.
Why the exchange drew attention
The episode was a dispute between a former employee, who had since moved to a competing network, and her old employer, with no independent account of the meetings in the results. Francis did not identify the manager, and CNBC did not describe any meeting or discipline. Each side’s position rests on its own statements.
Francis later repeated her account in other interviews. The Blaze reported her telling it on a radio program, with Francis noting her Harvard economics degree and saying she was reprimanded for the on-air comments. The search results do not show any further response from CNBC, or any later change at either network connected to the dispute.
Fox Business used the clip across its programming that week. Its framing, in which Francis said Fox Business was the only network not “complicit” in keeping viewers uninformed, was her own characterization. The other outlets she named did not respond in the material available here.