The story that Dylan Ratigan was going to leave MSNBC after three years on the network was a good scoop for The New York Times' Brian Stelter, but it's frustratingly incomplete because Ratigan has only vaguely hinted at what he'll do next.

Aside from saying he wanted to "put into practice what he has talked about on TV," Ratigan hasn't elaborated on his future plans because he doesn't have anything solid lined up after his June 22 final broadcast. But he's sure clearing the decks in terms of his cable news hosting career, having given notice at MSNBC three months ago and released his agent in January. One interesting detail in the report was that Ratigan makes close to $1 million a year, "unusualy high" for an MSNBC daytime anchor. The money quote from Ratigan per Stelter:

"Once you’ve said your piece, you can either keep saying it — and then it’s a job, good job, pays well, everybody knows your name, it’s great — or you can decide what you’re going to do about it," he said. "And the answer is, I don’t know. But I do know, in order to figure it out, I have to dismount."

Marketwatch's Jon Friedman suggested that Ratigan, whose sharp market knowledge, reformist sensibility, and "irreverent" style make him an up-and-coming cable star, could be fielding offers from other networks soon. But he also pointed out that Ratigan had made noise about writing a book. "Ratigan is always thinking ahead. As he was leaving CNBC in 2009, he told me, while we sipped cups of on coffee in his apartment in lower Manhattan, that he was strongly considering writing a book for children about the economy," Friedman writes.

That volume hasn't materialized, though he did publish Greedy Bastards in January. But writing books and signing on for new television shows doesn't jibe with Ratigan's stated desire to stop talking and do something. 

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Adam Martin