Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

Rachel Maddow: Our Favorite Rhodes Scholar

AmandaPanda

By AmandaPanda
in The Rachel Maddow Show

  • Reply
  • Start Topic

Recommended Posts

freddi

freddi

4 hours ago, M. Darcy said:

There's a Biography  of Rachel coming out next year. 

From what I have read of this, it is information complied from available sources, not a book prepared in collaboration with Rachel.  I have not yet read anything from it I did not already know.  Looking forward to hearing more.  

  • Love 2
Link to comment
  • Replies 175
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

shok
shok

It happens every day, every week... because that's how Rachel does her show and how she has done it for ten very successful years. It's how she tells her story and enough people like it to make her th

SpiritSong
SpiritSong

There seems to be some kind of (maybe?) coordinated attack on Rachel going on with the media. I've seen articles in The Guardian, Slate and Politico just this week all going after her for her coverage

Sesquipedalia
Sesquipedalia

Just finished Catch and Kill, and Rachel comes across very positively in that book. After Farrow was blacklisted at NBC, Rachel told him no one dictates to her what to do with her show. She was the on

meowmommy

meowmommy

Ouch.  WaPo media critic blasts Rachel for her coverage of the Steele dossier.

Quote

The case for Maddow is that her dossier coverage stemmed from public documents, congressional proceedings and published reports from outlets with solid investigative histories. She included warnings about the unverified assertions and didn’t use the dossier as a source for wild claims. There is something fishy, furthermore, about that Mueller footnote regarding the “tapes.” In their recent book on the dossier, “Crime in Progress,” the Fusion GPS co-founders wrote that Steele believes the document is 70-percent accurate.

The case against Maddow is far stronger. When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them. At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report. She seemed to be rooting for the document.

 

  • Love 1
Link to comment
ahisma

ahisma

Rachel was on Late Night with Seth Meyers last night. 

In answer to a question that has gone around these boards before, Rachel’s parents do watch the show every night and she hears it from her mom if she even gets close to saying a swear word.

video 1: fishing and Iran

video 2: her book Blowout and parents

 

 

 

  • Love 3
Link to comment
Sharpie66

Sharpie66

They were asking for her name after playing a clip from the audiobook (it was an audible(TM) category). The contestant struggled for a few seconds before saying her name in a questioning tone (hiding which contestant, since spoilers if you’re saving the eps to binge watch).

  • Love 1
Link to comment
meowmommy

meowmommy

2 hours ago, Sharpie66 said:

They were asking for her name after playing a clip from the audiobook (it was an audible(TM) category). The contestant struggled for a few seconds before saying her name in a questioning tone (hiding which contestant, since spoilers if you’re saving the eps to binge watch).

Thank you for not spoiling.  We just watched the second match.  And yes, he didn't sound confident at all.  

Link to comment
meowmommy

meowmommy

7 hours ago, M. Darcy said:

Rachel is selling her NY Apartment

I know some people just love that white-on-white look, but man, that place looks sterile and cold to me.  Maybe it looked warmer with her stuff in there instead of staged furnishings.  But it's definitely not the comforting refuge I would want after a long day at work.

Link to comment
cynicat

cynicat

13 hours ago, possibilities said:

She was talking with LOD on air tonight, from home. Maybe they can give her a remote feed because I'll sure miss her a lot. But then again maybe she could use the time off, as well. 

I have to think that after diligently reporting for the last 4 years, the last place she wants to be right now is off the air.

  • Love 4
Link to comment
meowmommy

meowmommy

4 hours ago, MMEButterfly said:

Has anyone else read Bagman? I was able to get it from the library yesterday and I'm almost through it. It is quite a fun read as well showing the interesting parallels. 

Our library has one e-book copy and 183 people on the waiting list...

  • Love 1
Link to comment
ebk57

ebk57

Mr. ebk has the book.  I may read it after he's finished.  I looooved the podcast and will be listening again soon.  I live in Maryland and am old enough to remember Agnew, but I never realized how much was going on there.  Yikes. 

It's a great listen.

Link to comment
meowmommy

meowmommy

WaPo review of Rachel's book

It's a bit of a mixed review.  They like some aspects and not others.

Quote

At times, though, the Agnew-as-Trump analogy is overwrought. The authors give Agnew too much credit for innovating a brand of politics that owed as much, if not more, to the era’s grass-roots conservative mobilization, the growing influence of far-right media, and leaders even more influential than Agnew such as Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, George Wallace, Phyllis Schlafly and Newt Gingrich...

Some of the writing tends toward the glib.....

Nonetheless, this fast-paced and well-researched book underscores how the nation’s legal and political systems struggle to hold the most powerful elected leaders responsible for their crimes.

 

  • Useful 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment
possibilities

possibilities

On Thursday's show, Rachel said she'd see us all "tomorrow" and then on Friday's show, Ali was hosting. I'm just wondering if that's happened before-- that she's acted like she'd be there, when she had scheduled time off, or if it might be an indication that something else has gone awry. These days, every unplanned absence gives me shudders, lest it be medical, not just a vacation day.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
BuckeyeLou

BuckeyeLou

Rachel was on the Ellen Degeneres show yesterday & it was a fun & interesting conversation, I like to see Rachel when she is more relaxed.  Ellen asked about Susan & Rachel said Susan is still suffering effects from her Covid.  Then Ellen congratulated her for being nominated for a Grammy...she is up against Meryl Streep so Rachel laughed & said she did not expect to win(I guess its for the Audible of her book).  She did the interview from her home with the barn doors behind her.

  • Useful 2
  • Love 2
Link to comment
freddi

freddi

4 hours ago, M. Darcy said:

Rachel is staying!

Wow, what a relief!  I did not think her departure was likely until I heard Ali Velshi give her that wistful mountain of praise about a week ago in the handoff:  "You are incredibly important to me, and also to this network, and I want you to know that."  It sounded like the beginning of a farewell.  (and a hope of Ali to move into primetime?)  

  • Love 3
Link to comment
meowmommy

meowmommy

The speculation as to who might replace Rachel is already rampant.

Quote

The list would start with the people who fill in for Maddow: Nicolle Wallace, Ali Velshi and Ari Melber. All three are very well-liked by MSNBC viewers.

Wallace helms the 4 and 5 p.m. hours and appears on special event coverage. In the past she has resisted management's suggestions to move her later in the day, sources said, because she prioritizes time in the evenings with her son.

Melber anchors the 6 p.m. hour and serves as MSNBC's chief legal correspondent. He typically posts some of the channel's highest ratings outside prime time.

Velshi anchors on the weekends and fills in across the weekday prime time schedule, like a Swiss Army Knife. Some insiders speculated that he would be in line for 11 p.m. if Williams leaves that time slot.

Other than maybe Nicolle, moving a current host into that slot just feels tired and lame.  It's really time for MSNBC to find some fresh talent, even if it means working hard to find and/or groom that person.  But then, this is the same network that continues to pay JoMika a combined double Rachel's salary to perform about 1% of the work she does, at a level about 0.5% of the level at which she performs.

  • Love 3
Link to comment
possibilities

possibilities

There's a reason she's the only host on the network that's doing a show like she does. Even though she's their most highly rated host, they still don't get that it's not just luck, it's because her show is different than their other ones.

  • Love 8
Link to comment
jenkait

jenkait

On 8/23/2021 at 6:11 AM, Morrigan2575 said:

Looks like she's only staying temporarily. If this article is right, her deal moves from 5 days a week to a weekly show sometime next year.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/22/media/rachel-maddow-nbcuniversal-reliable-sources/index.html

I can only be happy for Rachel!  I adore her but I’d love to see her semi-retire at 50 and enjoy the rest of her life with her partner; none of us know how long we have here at the best of times.
 

I do hope rachel will come back for election specials too maybe :)

  • Love 2
Link to comment
nichelle

nichelle

4 hours ago, Hedgehog2022 said:

Is this the same interview where she is praising Tucker Carlson and says that "He is doing great work"??? Stunning commentary from her and extremely disappointing.

Hmmm... that's not quite the tone she expressed in the article. Maybe that was from something else?

From the article:

A few months later, I asked Maddow what she thought of the Times’ recent series that unpacked how Fox News Channel’s number one host “weaponizes his viewers’ fears and grievances to create what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.” What Maddow found “most interesting” about the series, she told me, was an interactive analyzing Carlson’s rhetoric from 1,150 episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonight. “For me,” she said, “more than the issue of, you know, how dangerous are Tucker’s ideas, and how do they interact with the growth of the authoritarian right in the Republican Party, more so than that question, which is obviously what the central thrust of the reporting was about, I was interested in how they deconstructed why it works.”

Rather than engaging on Carlson’s politics, Maddow talks about him and other cable news rivals as fellow practitioners. “If you think about baseball players,” she said, “who are extremely competitive and who are fighting to win and who have rivalries, and some of those rivalries are bitter rivalries, that doesn’t mean you don’t study the pitching technique of their star pitcher. It doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate whatever they’re doing in terms of, you know, where they put their shortstop in order to give them a better defense. There’s a sort of, like, respecting the game, in terms of people who are doing well and people who are good at it. I mean that was the basis of my professional friendship with Roger Ailes. I wanted tips from him about how to be better on TV. And he was willing to talk to me about what I was doing well, and doing poorly, to help me get better.”

  • Love 2
Link to comment
Hedgehog2022

Hedgehog2022

22 hours ago, possibilities said:

But baseball is a game. News is real life. It matters what you say, not only how well you say it.

And given what we now know about Roger Ailes and his sexual harrassment of female employees, etc.etc...he would be the last person I would ask for advice on anything. 

  • Like 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment
Hedgehog2022

Hedgehog2022

(edited)
On 8/8/2022 at 8:54 PM, nichelle said:

Hmmm... that's not quite the tone she expressed in the article. Maybe that was from something else?

From the article:

A few months later, I asked Maddow what she thought of the Times’ recent series that unpacked how Fox News Channel’s number one host “weaponizes his viewers’ fears and grievances to create what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.” What Maddow found “most interesting” about the series, she told me, was an interactive analyzing Carlson’s rhetoric from 1,150 episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonight. “For me,” she said, “more than the issue of, you know, how dangerous are Tucker’s ideas, and how do they interact with the growth of the authoritarian right in the Republican Party, more so than that question, which is obviously what the central thrust of the reporting was about, I was interested in how they deconstructed why it works.”

Rather than engaging on Carlson’s politics, Maddow talks about him and other cable news rivals as fellow practitioners. “If you think about baseball players,” she said, “who are extremely competitive and who are fighting to win and who have rivalries, and some of those rivalries are bitter rivalries, that doesn’t mean you don’t study the pitching technique of their star pitcher. It doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate whatever they’re doing in terms of, you know, where they put their shortstop in order to give them a better defense. There’s a sort of, like, respecting the game, in terms of people who are doing well and people who are good at it. I mean that was the basis of my professional friendship with Roger Ailes. I wanted tips from him about how to be better on TV. And he was willing to talk to me about what I was doing well, and doing poorly, to help me get better.”

Wow...it's not the same piece I'm thinking of but her analogy with baseball and TV news shows is puzzling to me. There is no one and nothing on Fox News prime time shows that I would even deign to compare with what she and her fellow primetime colleagues on MSNBC do. Tucker is a rich dude...heir to the Swanson TV dinner fortune, an exclusive country club kind of guy. He's speaking the language of blue collar bigots and KKK members but secretly laughing at them behind their backs. There is nothing that he does that is even remotely like the work Rachel puts out on TV or otherwise. Why she feels that she needs to "figure them out" is weird. 

Edited by Hedgehog2022
  • Like 2
Link to comment
ahisma

ahisma

On 8/9/2022 at 9:14 PM, Hedgehog2022 said:

There is nothing that he does that is even remotely like the work Rachel puts out on TV or otherwise.

I think there are certain things Rachel was interested in learning about the craft of cable news. For example, asking questions engages the viewer—that is a proven rhetorical device. Tucker looks constipated and confused when he does it, while Rachel looks purposeful and focused. And Rachel follows up her questions with answers based on history / law / reporting. But “asking questions engages viewers” is good advice no matter who it comes from. It does sound disconcerting to hear Rachel talking blithely about hanging with Tuck and Rog, though. 

  • Love 3
Link to comment
Hedgehog2022

Hedgehog2022

On 8/13/2022 at 6:08 PM, ahisma said:

I think there are certain things Rachel was interested in learning about the craft of cable news. For example, asking questions engages the viewer—that is a proven rhetorical device. Tucker looks constipated and confused when he does it, while Rachel looks purposeful and focused. And Rachel follows up her questions with answers based on history / law / reporting. But “asking questions engages viewers” is good advice no matter who it comes from. It does sound disconcerting to hear Rachel talking blithely about hanging with Tuck and Rog, though. 

Rachel is smart...Roger Ailes was a pig. I wouldn't have asked him for advice on anything. She was in talk radio for awhile and did some TV before MSNBC...she didn't need advice from the beleagured sex offender. And as for Tuck'ems...all the praise she lavished on him was vomit worthy. Tucker is using his show as a call to arms against our government. He is white nationalist who espouses racist ideaology and rhetoric. For Rachel to validate this makes me wonder why she is doing this? All she had to say was "Tucker and I compete for viewers in the same time slot but we have two very different points of view and ways in which we express these views to our audiences...I respect him as a fellow cable news personality but disagree with him on just about everything".

And finally I would like to add that Tucker has defended the January 6th terrorists and also took a trip to Hungary to interview (and ass kiss) the facist dictator of Hungary Viktor Orban... an anti semite and LGBTQ hater. For that alone, Rachel should not have heaped praise on Tucker...maybe all the $$$ she is making as per her new contract with MSNBC as gone to her head and she's not thinking clearly. Sad.

  • Love 4
Link to comment
tessaray

tessaray

Rachel was not a natural - I remember her early days and she was earnest and smart but not broadcast savvy. But she learned and if she wants to credit TC and even RA, I think that's just her innate honesty. Also, she rarely says anything negative about people. 

Rachel really is a scholar at heart. She isn't a political activist, though her fans want her to be and it's easy to think that she is because she is fascinated by people and politics. 

  • Love 4
Link to comment
ruby24

ruby24

Does anyone know why she hates Keith Olbermann so much?

I've been listening to his podcast and he's still the same old Keith, but he sure doesn't seem to hate her the way she apparently hates him. What did he really do that was so bad?

I would have liked to see him back on MSNBC

  • Love 3
Link to comment
meowmommy

meowmommy

1 hour ago, ruby24 said:

I've been listening to his podcast and he's still the same old Keith, but he sure doesn't seem to hate her the way she apparently hates him. What did he really do that was so bad?

I don't know, but it pisses me off royally that she doesn't want to do her own show, but she has enough Queen Bee power at the network that she can block someone else from doing it.  It's supposed to be about what the viewers want, not what their star in the stable wants.

I would totally watch Keith Olbermann and will absolutely not watch Alex Wagner.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Xena

Xena

(edited)

Rachael never praised Tucker's politics.  She is (as always) curious about the world around her - and in this moment wanted to understand the inner mechanics of how he is able to get and retain eyeballs.   When we study Hitler's speech patterns and how he phrases his (horrible) ideas, how he frames those ideas into an ideology that can motivate people to commit horrible actions - we don't do that to figure out how he was 'right'.  We do it to figure out how does this happen?  How are people brainwashed?  If your enemy is doing something that is working you need to know what that is so that you can use it yourself- or weaken it.

Edited by Xena
Brevity
  • Love 3
Link to comment
meowmommy

meowmommy

21 hours ago, possibilities said:

Did Wagner do something terrible that I haven't heard about?

No, not that I know of.  I just remember seeing her on The Circus and being underwhelmed by her talents.  I won't waste my time for her program.

  • Sad 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...