Interview: Rachel Maddow Discusses Her New MSNBC Television Show With ThinkProgress
Interview: Rachel Maddow Discusses Her New MSNBC Television Show With ThinkProgress
MSNBC recently announced that liberal Air America radio host Rachel Maddow will get her own television show. We interviewed Maddow in St. Paul yesterday to discuss how the show came about and what she hopes to accomplish with it:
What’s the mission of the show going to be?
The mission of the show is…it seems kinda obvious, which is that, in the eastern time zone, Keith Olbermann is on at 8 and then Keith Olbermann is on at 10. It’s repeated. And there’s an hour in between. And Keith has very high ratings. … The idea is, in between two hours of Keith, what can we do to hold on to as many of those viewers as possible and even to attract new ones. And they think I’m the person to do that. So that’s the mission — keep Keith’s numbers.
The strategic approach we are taking…is figure out a way to do television that allows you to be yourself — that allows your personality to come forward. … If I’m competing on any other grounds other than my personality and my quirks and my take on things, I’m not going to win.
Are you going to be the left’s version of Fox News?
I know very little about media. I don’t have a television. I have never watched more than three consecutive minutes of Fox News ever, ever. I’ve never even seen a single segment of a single Fox News program. So I don’t know all that much about what they do. […]
I know that what MSNBC wants from me is for me to be myself, to be open about where I’m coming from, and to be entertaining and to have integrity. … So if people look at me…and they say ‘wow, she’s like O’Reilly but with even less hair,’ then you know, fine. Ok whatever. Other people’s opinion of what I do is less important to me than me feeling like it’s something I’m proud of and having fun doing.
Watch it:
More from the interview:
How did your show come about?
It’s a little bit of a mystery to me. … I don’t really know why they decided to give me this show. … In terms of why they like me? I don’t know. […]
Ultimately this January in this primary season, MSNBC called and decided they wanted me to stop going on CNN place. And that meant that they asked me to do an exclusive contributor deal with them and then they started talking to me about TV.
How have blogs helped you do what you do?
Bloggers are aggregators of information, they are opinion columnists, and they are occasionally reporters. And that’s what you need in terms of putting together a television show or a radio show — left, right, or center. […]
It’s not the New York Times opinion page. It’s not the Wall Street Journal opinion page, where people end up there for Lord knows what reason. It is in the blog world, you’re going to get more attention, you’re going to get more clicks, you’re going to rise to prominence if what you’re writing is provocative, interesting, or accurate. … So the fact that the blog world is very meritocratic is very helpful.
“I am a big fan of ThinkProgress,” Maddow told us. “Thank you for having me. I feel like I’ve hit the big time.”
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Maddow on Palin: ‘It is becoming less likely by the hour that she will be McCain’s nominee.’
Maddow on Palin: ‘It is becoming less likely by the hour that she will be McCain’s nominee.’
In an interview with ThinkProgress earlier today in St. Paul, progressive radio (and soon-to-be-TV) host Rachel Maddow called the decision-making process for John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin “shocking.” “Nobody can quite believe that John McCain picked her,” she said, adding, “I think the question right now is whether or not the choice is going to be withdrawn.” The decision to replace her needs to happen “very quickly,” Maddow said, “before it gets very complicated with the rules of the RNC“:
And I think that that’s actually what people are thinking about, rather than what will Sarah Palin mean for the country. I don’t get the sense that anybody is totally committed to the idea that she is going to be vice president, or even the vice presidential nominee.
This has been greeted with such shock — and with every salacious detail about stuff that wasn’t vetted coming to the floor seemingly with each hour of the news cycle — it is becoming less likely by the hour that Palin will still be John McCain’s nominee even by the end of the week.
Watch it:
Drudge rules Nina Easton’s world: ‘I think Drudge has gotten less partisan.’
Drudge rules Nina Easton’s world: ‘I think Drudge has gotten less partisan.’
In a book he co-authored in 2006, Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin — speaking for traditional media — wrote that the Drudge Report “rules our world.” During a media panel hosted by the Politico this afternoon in St. Paul, a questioner asked the reporters what websites they turned to first every morning to get their news. Nearly all the reporters said Drudge still rules their world. Fox News contributor and Fortune Magazine journalist Nina Easton had lavish praise for Drudge:
NINA EASTON: I use Drudge. I think Drudge is really, really useful on keeping up on things. If I have to go on-air in 10 minutes, and I need to make sure I’m not missing something, something didn’t break. I just click on Drudge. I think Drudge has gotten less partisan, or you know, whatever it was at the beginning. I think it really is, if you want to know what’s in the water table of the news, you gotta click on it several times a day.
Watch it:
Only Politico’s Jim Vandehei mentioned a liberal site. “Almost every day, I start by going to Drudge and then Huffington,” he said, to get an idea of “what people are popping on both the left and the right.”
Conservative Media Elites Blast Commenters On Liberal Blogs As ‘Vicious,’ ‘Hurting The Country’
Conservative Media Elites Blast Commenters On Liberal Blogs As ‘Vicious,’ ‘Hurting The Country’
Today in Minneapolis, The Huffington Post hosted a panel discussion about the rise of new media with a host of leading traditional media personalities. Conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham applauded the rise of the online journalism. “Look, the old media blew it; the free market does work,” she said. But many of her conservative co-panelists lamented the perils of this free market.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said the flip side of the emergence of the blogopshere is that “it’s so ugly now in some parts of the internet” that good people are being dissuaded from running for office. Scarborough explained that he thought about running for Senate in 2005, but when word leaked out online and commenters began “trashing” him, he said, “screw this, I’m going to get paid for talking on TV.”
His fellow conservative media elites chimed in with similar criticisms:
Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan: The commenters “are much like what you would have gotten in 1880 if you walked into a bedlam with a megaphone and said, ‘I’d like to say a few words.’ It’s wild, it’s crazy, and it’s awful, and it’s often quite vicious.”
Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson: People are “really underestimating the vitriolic dumbness” that’s out there. “I don’t think there’s any way to understate it. … It’s mostly on the left,” he said, and it’s “totally intolerant.” It’s “the least liberal thing I have ever seen — the default position is ‘I don’t agree with you; you are either stupid or corrupt,’” he said. “I think it’s actually hurting the country.”
Conservative pollster Frank Luntz: “You’re right,” he said to Tucker. “Mean would not describe it. It is as humanly vicious as it possibly can be,” he said, adding that it is “deliberately insulting.”
Even liberal columnist Margaret Carlson echoed the views of her conservative peers. “The left is as vicious, if not more so [than the right used to be] and cruel,” she said. “There’s an element of ‘they’re mad and they’re not gonna take it anymore.’”
Scarborough then proposed a solution. “Why don’t internet sites that want to be respected make people [commenters] put their names and their phone numbers”:
If you are going to accuse me of being responsible for starting the Holocaust in 1939 or 1940, then you can put your name, and you can put your telephone number on there so I can pick up the phone and say, “Brother, my lawyer’s going to be calling you in about 10 minutes.”
Arianna Huffington agreed with him about the need to keep commenters from “hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.” Watch it:
More coverage from the New York Observer.
Palin Served As Director Of 527 Group Called ‘Ted Stevens Excellence In Public Service, Inc.’
Palin Served As Director Of 527 Group Called ‘Ted Stevens Excellence In Public Service, Inc.’
The Washington Post’s Matthew Mosk reports that Sarah Palin “began building clout in her state’s political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens“:
Palin’s name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the “Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.,” a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings.
Last October on Fox News Sunday, John McCain said, “The 527s need to be eliminated.”
Stevens is hardly a model of “excellence in public service.” He was indicted in July “on seven felony counts of failing to disclose gifts that he received from an oil services company,” VECO. That same oil company has ties to Palin, contributing 10 percent of her total campaign fund when she ran for lieutenant governor in 2002.
After Stevens was indicted, Palin vocally defended him. In turn, Stevens endorsed Palin as McCain’s vice presidential pick last week, stating that he has worked with her “for over a decade.”
Sarah Palin announces her teenage daughter is pregnant.
Sarah Palin announces her teenage daughter is pregnant.
In a statement released just as Hurricane Gustav was striking the Gulf Coast, Sarah Palin and her husband announced their 17-year old daughter is pregant and plans to keep the baby. “Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that, as parents, we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned,” the Palins wrote. “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.” McCain officials said the news of the daughter’s pregnancy was being released to rebut what one aide called “mud-slinging and lies” circulating on liberal blog sites.
Iraq war vets rally in St. Paul.
On our way into St. Paul this morning, several members of ThinkProgress stopped to listen to a rally held by a group of Iraq war veterans who are opposed to the war. After denouncing Sen. John McCain’s treatment of veterans and his failure to vote for increase funding for veterans health programs, the speaker of the group said his fellow Iraq vets would travel to New Orleans to serve in relief efforts. “We hope that the world is watching; we hope that America is watching as returning war veterans continue to sacrifice and serve their country,” he said. Watch it:
McCain may deliver convention speech from disaster zone.
McCain may deliver convention speech from disaster zone.
Politico reports that the impending landfall of Hurricane Gustav has forced Republicans to scramble their convention plans. President Bush may not attend at all, and John McCain may deliver his acceptance speech from the hurricane-stricken areas:
McCain was scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday but now may do so from the devastation zone if the storm hits the U.S. coast with the ferocity feared by forecasters.
“It just wouldn’t be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near-tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster,” McCain said in a taped interview for Fox News Sunday.
I know that if I lived in an area that was trying to prepare / evacuate in advance of a major national disaster, what I’d really want would be for a presidential candidate to swing by for a campaign appearance, distracting local political officials and drawing down resources of the local public safety agencies. After all, it’ll look good on camera to be engaged with the problem!
Gustav growing into ‘monster Category 5 storm.’
Gustav growing into ‘monster Category 5 storm.’
Hurricane Gustav is growing into “a monster Category 5 storm” as it heads towards the Gulf Coast. The storm is moving into the Loop Current, a deep bed of hot water in the Gulf of Mexico that is helping to intensify the storm. In May, climatologists reported that the Gulf has been experiencing warmer waters than usual:
Off St. Petersburg, water temperatures have been 2 to 4 degrees above the 80-degree average for this time of year. In Fort Myers, temperatures have been similar. If that warm water continues to deepen and spread, it could be disastrous if a hurricane enters the gulf. … The gulf, with its loop current of deep, warm-water pools, is a hurricane minefield. If the water heats up enough, it can send storms spinning headlong into the coast.
ABC News writes, “Many scientists predict over the next decade we’ll see stronger hurricanes — Category 4 and 5 hurricanes even more violent than Katrina. The cause, some argue, is rising sea surface temperatures caused by global warming.”
