The Revolution Will Be Televised (on CNBC)

Bill Griffeth

Age: 43
One of three graduates of California State University, Northridge currently on CNBC's on-air staff. The other two are Sue Herera and Ron Insana.
Griffeth on whether CNBC should cheerlead the market: "We should not be rooting for the market. Up isn't necessarily good, nor is down necessarily bad."
Most unconventional Power Lunch guest: Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell, playing holiday music.

Mark Haines

Age: 54
Background: Earned JD from the University of Pennsylvania, after years in local radio and TV as a reporter and news director.
Wake-up time: 4:15 a.m., to be ready for a 7 a.m. show.
On being the morning curmudgeon: "I'm not worried about the positive story. The CEO will have no trouble getting that out. My job is to find the negative story. My job is to figure out if you're lying."

Sue Herera

Age: 42
Married to a doctor.
Outside of work: Gardening.
Her morning: "My day begins at 6 a.m. when a regular source calls me from Hong Kong."
On learning to cover the commodities markets in the early 1980s: "I'd call up and say, 'This is Sue McMahon. How's live cattle doing?' I'd hear click. I'd call back and say, 'I think we got disconnected.' One day, a guy said, "It's evident that you're not gong to go away. Here's how to ask questions.'"

Ron Insana

Age: 39
Married, with a daughter
Reason for shedding his toupee last summer: Found wearing a hairpiece "somewhat incongruous with being truthful."
Outside of work: Playing drums, working on a book called The Message of the Markets.

Joe Kernen

Age: 44
Married to Penelope Scott Kernen, associate producer of Squawk Box.
On how he went from molecular biology to the stock market: "My dad gave me $5,000 in 1979, and a guy turned me on to options trading. I was bitten by the bug. I got a C my last semester at MIT, because I was too busy playing the stock market."
On the talent he encountered at MIT: "I was on the fifth floor of a building where David Baltimore and Phillip Sharp (two Nobelists in medicine) were working. These guys were head and shoulders above what I'd ever be able to do."
Life as a new father: "I've changed two diapers -- exactly two."

Sidebar: How to Make Really Must-See TV

Bruno Cohen is Senior CNBC Executive overseeing content for CNBC's daytime business programming. Until recently, he had a full beard, which, combined with his thoughtful style, made Cohen seem a bit like a rabbi in charge of a rock-music network. Here are his five principles for running CNBC, which the former news director of New York City's WNBC calls "the best gig I've ever had."

1. We have a point of view. "All consumer-news services have to have a point of view. CNBC's primary audience is the individual investor. In order for our audience to value what we do, we have to know whom we're talking to."
2. We are advocates as well as reporters. "We're advocates for individual investors. We advocate to get individual investors the same information that institutional investors get. To do that, we use our offices and our abilities to manage data."
3. We ask what our viewers need from us. "Our viewers aren't viewers; they're users. The Weather Channel has users too. We talk about money--how to use the equity markets to enhance your financial position. That position orients us toward content, not style."
4. We aren't scared of technology. "When I first came to the network, I was always looking for video clips, for a picture that told our story. But most of the time, for us, the best picture is a historical stock-pricing chart. In the early days, we needed 15 or 20 minutes' notice if we wanted to put a chart on the air. That's because we had to translate data for TV. It may sound easy, but it took us 10 months and $1 million worth of time and technology to be able to do those charts immediately."
5. Fancy graphics are no substitute for the judgment of smart people. "Our on-air personalities need a lot of information. they need to be current and to think on their fee. Really, the anchors work as program coproducers -- making decisions about where to go next, what questions to ask, and how to follow up. A lot of newspeople on other networks wouldn't succeed here."

Sidebar: The CNBC Ethics Policy

The people at CNBC talk about stocks all day, both on the air and off, but they aren't supposed to trade all day. The network has imposed rules restricting its staff's participation in the stock market, both to comply with federal insider-trading laws and to avoid CNBC employees' using the network and their positions for personal gain.

CNBC has a two-tier ethics policy: one set of rules for all employees and a more restrictive set for newsroom staff. According to Howard Homonoff, general counsel to NBC's cable networks (CNBC and MSNBC), all new CNBC employees must sign that policy and must give CNBC the right to audit their brokerage accounts if the network suspects any violations.

Here, then, are the rules as laid out by Homonoff.