Newsmax TV


Rob Finnerty: I Love Morning TV


A


“You wake up and fire out of a cannon.” BY MARISA HERMAN


s soon as the boston Bruins took the ice, a 10-year-old Rob Finnerty would jump up to mute


the TV, turn his hand into a micro- phone, and begin announcing the game before a live audience of his mom and dad. While it took a few years before he


actually became a TV star — he offi- cially got his start in the spotlight as a 23-year-old sports anchor in Boston — the host of Newsmax’s Wake Up America said that from a young age, his parents knew he was destined for a different career path than his three lawyer siblings. When he graduated college,


Finnerty landed a job covering the Boston sports teams he grew up rooting for. “There is something really intoxicating about covering your hometown’s team,” he said. From New England Patriot


Super Bowl appearances to Red Sox World Series victories, Finnerty said it was an excit- ing time — when “everyone was winning in Boston.” While rushing to grab a side-


line interview with a player after a win is not something many sports fans ever imag- ine they will get to experience, Finnerty said the late nights and long weekends eventually caught up to him. Realizing he could make more


money and not “live out of a suit- case,” he worked at Merrill Lynch for a couple of years before he ultimately decided that his heart wasn’t in the finance sector. “I wanted to get into news and poli-


28 NEWSMAX | JUNE 2024


tics, specifically politics,” he said. His return to the camera brought


him across the country to Bakersfield, a conservative enclave in the blue state of California, where local Rep. Kevin McCarthy — who went on to become House speaker — would come into the studio for interviews with KBAK-TV. Later, his TV career brought him


to Kansas City, Missouri, and Tampa, Florida, in moves that prepared him for his current role as the morning anchor at Newsmax. “If you don’t spend time and live


in different places in this country, you are not as prepared as you would’ve been for a network-level job,” he said.


national audience. “I’ve voted in Massachusetts, Cali-


fornia, Missouri, and Florida,” he said. “It really helps to know the country.” Because “every successful network


has a successful morning show,” he said the launch of Newsmax’s power- house morning show was prioritized. “This has been my dream for as


long as I can remember,” Finnerty said. “I love morning television — just because you wake up in the morning and you fire out of a cannon.” As viewers get dressed and grab


a coffee before starting their day, he strives to provide a show that strikes a balance between delivering serious news and having silly moments. “The most successful shows have


been able to do that, and it’s a target we try to hit every day,” he said. While Finnerty has never been ner-


vous to go live on-air, he said there is a “little feeling” he gets in the pit of his stomach before a “big moment.” A mix of “nerves, excitement, anticipation, and preparation — all in one,” he calls it the “best feeling in the world.” “It’s in that moment I pinch


myself,” he said. That butterfly feeling set in


as soon as Finnerty hooked up his microphone to begin a sit- down with Donald Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey. With little time to prepare,


Finnerty focused on develop- ing a rapport with the former president, and his allotted four minutes quickly turned into a 20-minute conversation. Finnerty said he would like


to have a similar sit-down with President Joe Biden. Considering he spends half of his morning show talk-


While it isn’t uncommon for a


local New York news anchor to land a job with a cable news station, he said spending time covering and liv- ing in various parts of the country played a pivotal role in shaping how he now covers news for Newsmax’s


ing about Biden and his policies, he would like to have a conversa- tion with the president — who rarely grants one-on-one interviews and has never been on Newsmax. “I’d ask him hard questions,” Finnerty said. “I’d be fair. I’d call


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