On Tuesday night, Mark Haines, the long time anchor at CNBC unexpectedly passed away. He was 65 years old. I grew up watching the guy when he anchored the original 7:00-10:00 AM edition of Squawk Box and obviously the Squawk on the Street which impacted more people I suppose. He had a legal background from University of PA Law School, and worked at three stations at KYW-TV in Philladelphia, WPRI-TV in Providence and WABC-TV in New York. He then was the original anchors up the startup known at the time as the Consumer News and Business Channel.
I remember watching the program during the dot-com bubble and how goofy the cast including then stocks editor Joe Kernen, and correspondent David Faber while Maria Bartiromo was across the Hudson at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when at the time the floor was literally flooded with traders. It was that program that allowed cameras on the trading floor under the direction of middle management of NBC and the then head of the NYSE, Dick Grasso, THE defender of the trading floor and a strong proponent of open markets.
What I remember the most was the goofiness of the program. The crew would silly stuff such as playing sound effects, also poking fun at the ETrade commercials of the 90s, with David Faber doing the “I wanna Dannnceee!” (I’ll post the YouTube link of original commercial later.)
He was known to being not fake, and doing what he wanted to do regardless if the General Electric or NBC execs or middle managers of CNBC felt embarrassed. They got tons upon tons of emails of viewers or wall street types of disgrace of letting CNBC run Squawk Box which has been mentioned during the time.
Mark Haines was the everyman and his lawyer instincts was obvious to me, as one that observes inferences a lot. He was best known on camera for ripping people apart for the defense of the at home shareholder which is not seen that much through other CNBC talent of today.
With his legal background he had the smell for BS. If he knew something was amis, he would say it outright in true honesty. I had noticed that in the crash of 2008 and what led after. I can’t describe it because of the depth of that bubble. When he would have guests on, he would treat them as they were guilty of a crime (the lawyer in him) and the guests had to prove that they were innocent. Especially during the bubbles of the last decade and half. If a guest would blurt out a claim without any data or numbers to back up the fact, Mark Haines would quickly catch on that.
I actually have a lot of respect for journalists as with legal background because of how the best lawyers will go on both sides of the table. (Not the fakey journalists that are on “Court TV” with legal background where they are always on the side of the prosecution and feel for the victim on every trial they cover.) The BS theme that has been mentioned about him is something every person should learn, to always be somewhat skeptical and not believe everything you hear see or read and try to sort it all out and be truthful as well.
I remember watching the clips of September 11th, which was his highest moment. He was calm as any reporter at that time of day can be. I did record 6 hours of live coverage on the markets reopening on September 17th on a VHS tape and again he had that same demeanor. It’s pretty errie that the anniversary of the attacks along with a reporter that was covering that dreaded day happens to be very close.
The local stations he worked at mentioned above were all Eyewitness News formatted newscasts. Those formats included the one liners, the honest laughter and just normal people covering the news for the normal audience. Oh don’t forget the movie soundtracks which was often played back in the early years of Squawk. When I had looked at his bio many years back, I felt that personality that is common on those stations. That’s probably why it was successful – it was the Eyewitness News for business news.
I stopped watching CNBC in the last year, since the looks look pretty fancy, the reporters look like Photoshop-fakey-non human-type of personalities (he was the direct opposite.) As I had mentioned earlier I don’t watch the present Squawk Box or the one he was at the NYSE not as religiously as before because it wasn’t the same as back prior the changes in late 2005 or even when they moved their studios out of Fort Lee, New Jersey in an office building just off the George Washington Bridge. That was also CNBC’s more humbler days. Even when CNBC moved into a very lavish studios that was worth over $140 million dollars, Mark Haines brought his humble self over.
(Edit: I was watching the many clips from CNBC, and one of the reasons why he did the show at the NYSE was so he wouldn’t run into the management!) Also from the clips he loved to dress down and when they relocated to Englewood Cliffs, NJ or started his show at the exchange he wasn’t able to wear PJ bottoms, jeans or whatever else that wasn’t dress pants. Bob Psiani, the floor reporter had kidded around that he looked like a homeless man when going into the exchange and out. Since he was a smoker, he took breaks outside of the exchange to smoke with the fellow traders, and diehard viewers that would walk by saw a different side of him that isn’t shown on the air. In fact producers had to arrange the program’s time to fit his breaks.)
He was also was a family guy and instead of talking about the markets to the traders or his guest, he could “talk for hours” about his two kids. Part of the original Squawk gig was after his program, he would leave CNBC and go home to pick up his kids from school since he would only be in CNBC’s building for up to 4 hours in the early years. He would drive his son throughout the East Coast for his volleyball tournaments and with pride as well.
Often when I don’t pay attention to the day’s news, I miss everything. It was less than a month ago Erin Burnett left to go to CNN. I watched the goodbye online and oh boy, did Mark fall apart on live TV than I had ever seen him do before, if he had done it at all. He was a smoker, and overweight, but regardless CNBC or even the business journalism lost someone that was gone too early.
Its unfortunately that its an end of an era, this time in Wall Street reporting.
I just want to say out of someone who hearted Wall Street in his teenage years, with everything that happened during the times I was watching CNBC, and his personality, that I will miss him sincerely.
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Editorial Note: Apparently his family is requesting for in lieu of flowers, to send donations to Autism Speaks. Giving his former corporate boss, Bob Wright that founded the organization, apparently on their website, he made the importance of first World Autism Awareness Day thanks to his Squawk on the Street program. (See Autism Speaks’ obit.) I’m not aware of his connection with Autism Speaks, but as of Friday morning, the hits linking to this post are from searches with Autism, Autism Speaks and Mark Haines or all together from the search engines.