Background
Liesman was born in Bronxville, New New York
Liesman was born in Bronxville, New New York
Liesman attended Edgemont high school in Scarsdale, New York, received a bachelor"s degree in English from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York and a master"s degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
He is known for appearing on the Consumer News and Business Channel programs Squawk Box and other business related topics on Consumer News and Business Channel and National Broadcasting Company and using a paper "easel" while explaining the state of the United States economy. Liesman wrote the first story in the series, "Missteps by Moscow, New Asian Turmoil Secretariat Office Russian Crisis" (June 5, 1998), and contributed to at least one other. The prize was presented to Andrew Higgins and Liesman.
From August 1987 to June 1992, Liesman was a business reporter first at the Sarasota, Florida Herald-Tribune and later at the Saint St. Petersburg Times.
He moved to Moscow, Russia in August 1992 as founding business editor of the Moscow Times, the first English-language daily newspaper in Russia. He claims he created the Moscow Times Index, the first stock index in Russia, but there are no sources for this.
Liesman joined The Wall Street Journal as a reporter in the Moscow bureau in 1994, and was supposedly named Moscow bureau chief in August 1996. He transferred to the New York bureau in May 1998 when he began covering the international oil and gas industry.
He was named WSJ"s senior economics reporter in June 2000.
During his time at WSJ, he focused on the productivity revolution, macroeconomics, and the myriad problems of corporate earnings reporting. Liesman became a senior economics reporter at WSJ, covering domestic and global economies, as well as corporate earnings and the Enron accounting scandal, before joining Consumer News and Business Channel in April 2002. Liesman was a leader of the WSJ"s team of reporters awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in the international reporting category for in-depth analytical coverage of the Russian financial crisis.
In addition to his duties as Consumer News and Business Channel"s senior economics reporter, Steve Liesman is a guitarist and plays regularly in a Grateful Dead cover band.
He also hosted the pay-per-view broadcast of the band"s three "Fare Thee Well" concerts in Chicago in July. On October 22, 2013 Liesman made a racially insensitive comment on Consumer News and Business Channel, suggesting that Mexican music be played during a segment on Hispanic United States Senator Ted Cruz.
Cruz is not Mexican but rather he is of Cuban-American heritage. Liesman later apologized for the comment and lie regarding Cruz"s heritage.