Maddow on Maddow
Rachel Maddow appears on Keith Olbermann’s show to analyze the news that Maddow will get her own show:
I actually think this deserves some serious analysis. Liberals joke about the “no liberals on teevee” rule, but it’s really true. Olbermann’s Countdown has become a pretty liberal show, but as The New Yorker’s recent Olbermann profile this was genuinely an accident and not something that either MSNBC or Olbermann actually planned to have happen. One could say something similar, I think, about Paul Krugman’s role at The New York Times. And there really was something of a genuine “no liberals” rule. Phil Donahue got fired from his political talk show simply for being too liberal. But beyond that, the entire structure of television commentary was heavily shaped by the conservative “media bias” routine. Electoral victories by conservative politicians convinced a lot of people in journalism that the press was desperately out of touch with the nation and that, therefore, the point of view of journalists — not liberal pundits, but neutral reporters — needed to be “countered” by the point of view of conservative pundits. This left, of course, no room for liberal pundits and put a strong rightward drag on everything.
We’re now at a moment, however, where some of the assumptions that have governed American political discourse for decades are coming under questions. Things like “hey, maybe if we had a liberal on television, liberals would watch it”now seem to be under consideration.
44 Responses to “Maddow on Maddow”
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August 20th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Phil Donahue got fired from his political talk show simply for being too liberal.
[citation needed]
The only reason *anyone* gets fired from TV is because of ratings; more precisely, ratings such that the show doesn’t make (enough) money.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Donahue was the highest rated show on MSNBC at the time it was canceled, managing to beat out even Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” in the ratings.[4] Soon after the show’s cancellation AllYourTV.com reported it had received a copy of an internal NBC memo that stated Donahue should be fired because he would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war”.[4][5] Donahue was the only host of a talk show on any cable network who was decidedly in opposition to the then-proposed invasion of Iraq in 2003.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:03 am
hah.
Citation angel kicked total ass right there.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Once upon a time, there were quite a few liberals with shows of their own– but they got shouted down, literally. I suppose the ‘I win because I’m louder’ style of argument will continue.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Sorry, no chance. With all due respect to Ms Maddow, television itself is utterly irredeemable.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Phil Donahue got fired from his political talk show simply for being too liberal.
[citation needed]
Well, he had the highest rated program on MSNBC at the time it was canceled so ratings doesn’t look like the right answer. A memo at the time worried about Donahue being the “face of the network” at the start of the Gulf war. I think it is pretty generally accepted that he was fired for being too liberal.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:23 am
A show featuring some Maddow on Maddow action would surely get my viewership.
In all seriousness, she is very bright and I look forward to her getting her own show. Hopefully her producers don’t mess it up.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:26 am
To be fair, he wasn’t fired for being “too liberal,” he was fired for being against the war in Iraq. The extent to which this correlated with being “too liberal” is not clear.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am
what i truly don’t understand is why journalism has become home for so many shallow people.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Maddow would be the first actual liberal with her own show on MSNBC right now. Keith Olberman is a partisan, and detests Bushism, but he’s hardly a Liberal.
Ever hear him go on about the unequal distribution ow wealth? Gun control? Abortion rights? Equal treatment of homosexuals? Single payer health care? Not really. Not as subjects separate from how much the Republicans have screwed these things up anyway.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:41 am
It’s been a couple of years and I don’t have Lexis, but I’m pretty sure that Olbermann said in an interview that his understanding of the Donahue cancellation was that it was more about production costs– the studio audience, larger staff, etc.– even than political unpopularity. The decision still stinks, but I can see how an enormous budget would have provided a too-convenient excuse.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I like that Rachel’s liberal, for sure, but what’s more important to me is the fact that she brings the substance that is lacking in our political discourse. When people make claims unsupported by fact or logic, she–more than most–actually challenges them on it. She’s not perfect at it, but she tries, which makes her awesome.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I’m thrilled about Maddow’s show. Not only will there be a true liberal voice on cable news, but finally, a truly brilliant one at that. We’ve had liberals out there before, but too often they’re in the Alan Colmes mold – spectacularly wimpy and unpersuasive. Maddow’s smart enough that she might be able to change some hearts and minds….
August 20th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Amazing. A woman who is not a generic blond is getting her own show. Bonus, she is really intelligent. Even more amazing she is an open liberal (oops progressive). And she’s “gasp” a lesbian.
Why I’m watching MSNBC more and more is that it is frequently populating its programs with people who are at least somewhat smart. Fox is unbearable not so much because of its right wing bias, but because it is filling with vapid and biased talking heads. CNN has given too much air time to the likes of Lou Dobbs (who isn’t stupid but is slightly insane), and Glenn Beck (who is stupid and more than slightly insane).
August 20th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Wow, they managed to find a Jew to put on television. Guess the other 435 ethnic groups in the United States are still somehow magically coming up short.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
[citation needed]
You know, you don’t seem to be aware of all Internet traditions . . .
This is matt’s blog. he can write what he wants, and doesn’t owe you or anyone else citations. In particular, he’s not required to engage in constant proof of the well-known. He can say the earth revolves around thje sun without linking to Copernicus’ website.
Your role, as a blog commentator, on the other hand, is to add value. If you think Matt is wrong, give us a link that proves your point. If you don’t want to be bothered with proof, say what you like, but don’t expect to be taken seriously.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
1) Actually, this is all a clever ploy by NBC to deal with Fox News Attacks. After Olbermann made fun of Bill O’Reilly, O’Reilly and Fox retaliated with a jihad against NBC –with stories of NBC owner General Electric doing business with Iran,etc.
2) But NBC knows that Bill O’Reilly could never get angry with a beautiful woman who tongue-kisses other women.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
DING! DING! DING!
It’s good to know that a network has FINALLY realized substance matters more than an ability to yell loudly and say controversial — and, often, clinically stupid — things to a large audience.
What amazes me about the rightward lean of the punditocracy since about the mid-90s is not that they lean right politically — it takes all kinds, and there used to be some decent thoughts floating around.
Rather, it’s that so many of the rightward pundits are utterly, totally, unabashedly, lying sacks of shit.
That’s not to say every liberal is a fount of truth and honesty. Not at all.
But Neocon gasbags are absolute masters of making lies into truth … of using totally false facts to make a case … of just making crap up when nothing in reality is available for use … of playing The Politics of Triviality … of being completely uninterested in the actual outcomes of their policies … of dividing the country for political gain … and of personally destroying whomever threatens their hold on power.
Again, having rightwing pundits is not the issue.
Treating proven liars and dishonest smear merchants as legitimate commentators is the problem.
Hopefully, this Maddow hire will start a shift not back to the left, necessarily, but toward substance.
Hopefully …
August 20th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I like that Rachel’s liberal, for sure, but what’s more important to me is the fact that she brings the substance that is lacking in our political discourse.
Of course, the tendency of MSNBC will be to dumb it down, and she really has to resist that. If she gets saddled with a dumb format — she can’t ape Countdown, and Cross/balls shouty-shouting isn’t ideal — then it’ll fail, and be taken as an indictment of her own abilities. That requires a budget.
Frankly, the ‘Morning Joe’ setup or the old Aaron Brown ‘Newsnight’ are the places to look, not the Abrams/Gregory shows. Or even Buckley’s ‘Firing Line’, or Bill Moyers, or Dick Cavett when he had political guests. A remit to go beyond being ‘today’s storm in a teacup seen from a different perspective’.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Thank you for the answers. As a GE shareholder, it annoys me that they made such a crappy business decision. (Their lackluster stock performance over the last 5 years indicates it’s not the only one)
August 20th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
“And she’s “gasp” a lesbian.”
Not really that groundbreaking. I believe Tucker Carlson was the first lesbian to have her own political show.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
This all harks back to Saint Ronald Reagan, who managed to get the Equal Time rules thrown out. Theoretically, the airwaves still belonged to “the people” – but since opposing sides were no longer required to be represented, the rich conservative station owners could present only one side, leading to the sorry state we now find ourselves in. Bring back equal time!
August 20th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
In this clip, essentially teasing the show, when Olberman asks her what she’ll be talking about, all she comes up with are naked man stories and something else so inane it’s already left my mind. Not a good sign!
August 20th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Re Kolohe’s comment “As a GE shareholder, it annoys me that they made such a crappy business decision. (Their lackluster stock performance over the last 5 years indicates it’s not the only one)”
————–
1) As a former GE employee, let me say that I hope you took a fucking BATH. It’s what you dumbshits deserve for believing Jack Welch’s bullshit.
“Neutron Jack” made his numbers in the 1990s by tossing GE employees out on the street (nickname referred to how he would visit GE plants and leave the buildings standing but uninhabited.)
2) WHen that didn’t work, he tried cooking the books. The Pentagon wasn’t amused (ouch) so Jack directed his “creative accounting” talents to GE’s Commercial Credit division –rightfully confident that the drunken ass-kissers on Wall Street would be too stupid to notice.
3) After Jack bailed out (just before Sept 11!) , the Board started to notice that the Moneybags were giving off a rank smell of catshit.
A $9.4 BILLION shortfall in insurance reserves. It’s taken Immelt almost a decade to dig out from under that rubble.
4) See Barron’s expose “You Don’t Know Jack” at
http://www.smartmoney.com/barrons/index.cfm?story=20051228
Read ‘em and weep, Rube.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I’ve never felt that Countdown was all that liberal a show. Despite Keith’s attacks on the administration (welcome as they were), his lineup was always the same group-think Beltway MSM usual suspects: Dana Milbank, Howard Fineman, Chris Cillizza, and so on.
As happy as I am to have Maddow get her own show, it’s not the liberalism that attracts me, it’s that she might do a show that’s not a bloody copycat of all the other copycat crap talk shows (which is half the appeal of Countdown). If she wants to talk about the Iraqi national soccer team, I’d rather hear that than another segment on Casey Anthony,
August 20th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Re Donohue, Olbermann clearly states in this video clip that it was the cost of maintaining a live audience that killed the show.
I don’t know if that’s true – and I suppose he could be either covering for or not knowledgable about the reputed NBC memo.
I really don’t know why the cost of a live audience would be that huge (presumably depending on the size of the audience). Hell, Alex Bennett used to have a morning radio show in San Francisco that had a live audience – basically anyone off the street could walk in and sit down – including hookers coming off their nightly walks.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
A lesbian running a TV show? How do we know she won’t harass female staffers, even over the phone, perhaps suggesting that they couple with the assistance of Middle Eastern food and squash-birthed scrubbers?
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