Oct 11th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
The Maddow Era
Check out Sam Boyd’s American Prospect cover story on Rachel Maddow. It’s been out in print for a while, but for some reason the powers that be didn’t see fit to put it online to dovetail with the premiere.
One issue I’m interested in that I think hasn’t been aired yet is whether or not a new Obama administration will try to use the considerable leverage at its disposal to enhance the credibility and standing of some of the new more progressive media — with Maddow’s show certainly being a big part of that. People forget, but Fox News had quasi-pariah status at the beginning, but conservative politicians really insisted on getting it taken seriously and the Bush administration, when it came into office, did a lot to further entrench that.
60 Responses to “The Maddow Era”
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October 11th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
She was on Jay Leno the other night, and was great.
October 11th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
One issue I’m interested in that I think hasn’t been aired yet is whether or not a new Obama administration will try to use the considerable leverage at its disposal to enhance the credibility and standing of some of the new more progressive media — with Maddow’s show certainly being a big part of that.
How much have you read about Obama? He’s a consensus builder who would rather not piss anyone off. Hell, he went on O’Falafel’s show. I am not going to hold my breath waiting for him to crush Faux Noise or help Maddow and KO. If he does do things to further Progressive media, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Would you really want MSNBC turn into a lapdog of the Obama Administration? I want all networks to be critical of all administrations. The appeal of Olberman and Maddow will certainly diminish (for me, at least) if they quit being critical of all branches of government.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I agree. She was great on Leno. I loved when she made the point that the liberal/conservative paradigm was breaking down, and then followed that up with questioning the Republicans position on the bailout and the observation that a liberal position today would be the desire capturing or killing bin Laden. She’s an impressive surrogate for the progressive cause.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine and shut down the talk radio sewer.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Barack Obama was on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” in September, and he was interviewed by Olbermann.
Obama was on via satellite.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Maddow will of course analyze and criticize an Obama administration for actions and rhetoric that merit it — it’s just that the context is different. The Bush Jr. Republican mafia have, in fact, brought the country to the very tippy toe brink of collapse. It’s okay to critique that sort of thing a bit more feverishly than one might do ‘normal’ policy disagreements.
As a matter of fact, I think that the critique of a Democratic leadership will be broader, deeper, and healthier than it was in Clinton’s time.
And not just because the nut-squad Gingrich / militia right will be much weaker, but because the people that insider Democrats used to dismiss as crazy fringe liberal leftists etc. are fairly mainstream now.
In the Clinton era, the mainstream Democratic Party was pretty damn successful at snidely portraying the left / liberal / labor opposition to NAFTA as unsophisticated conspiracy theorist anti-trade anti-Mexican chauvinists. Of course, they reaped their rewards in 1994 and lost Congress for a dozen years.
And, of course, we were proven correct, just like the liberal left has been proven right on nearly every topic the Democratic capitulation caucus berated us for.
But I could be wrong — once in office, maybe once again the leading Democrats’ priorities will be to try to distance themselves from the very people on their side who helped put them in.
I mean, major Democrats sh*t themselves in rushing out to condemn Wesley Clark when he said that John S. Jesus Magic Maverick McCain wasn’t auto-magically qualified for office because he was a POW, but they’ve been pretty silent on the Palin ‘off with his head’ rallies.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I think — or at least hope, based upon her career so far — that the last thing Maddow would want is to become the mirror image of Fox News. If there’s a predominant ‘opinion’ to the work she does, it needs to be in the context of what David Brooks said about Palin: that the apotheosis of Bush-era conservatism is a disdain for ideas and intellectual curiosity and the detail and nuance of topics.
My guess is that an Obama administration would need, in its first year, to balance an economic situation that by necessity requires a certain inward focus with outward-looking bridge-building. The rest of the world will want to renew friendships with an America whose public face represents the things they like about the country. I’d hope that MSNBC gives Maddow greater reach to call upon the news division and its foreign-based correspondents.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
In deciding this, the Obama Administration would do well to remember that Fox, more than any other media outlet, is responsible for the large number of Americans who believe Obama is a terrorist and a Muslim. They were at the forefront of the gratuitous use of his middle name.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
this not about revenge or vindication. This is about the responsibility of the media. The national government has no role in disseminating propaganda to the population (ie. fox news). My hope is that an Obama administration would be above this!!! (Although, I do believe that the fairness doctrine should be brought back to stop the hate speech).
October 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Christopher Monnier Says:
October 11th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Would you really want MSNBC turn into a lapdog of the Obama Administration? I want all networks to be critical of all administrations. The appeal of Olberman and Maddow will certainly diminish (for me, at least) if they quit being critical of all branches of government.
In addition to the humor, this is part of the appeal of Jon Stewart, I think. While everyone knows that he is liberal, and he certainly is harder on Repubs than Dems, they don’t hesitate to criticize idiotic stuff from the left side of the spectrum.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Democrat fantasy land. First, Maddow was only very marginally a progressive before she hit the bigtime. And anyone who hasn’t seen her lurch rightward since the “TV machine” caught her is blind. Indeed, the TV rot has leaked into her radio show to the extent of making it unlistenable.
And why would a successful, center-right Democrat (Obama) think for a moment about “legitimizing” liberal (let alone progressive) viewpoints when the exact opposite has been their MO for decades? Any success the Democrats manage this time is of course going to be chalked up to their continued rightward stagger.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
OK article, but sort of weird. Mr. Boyd writes about Rachel Maddow’s rise through Air America radio and discusses the success and failures of AAR but completely ignores and fails to mention the next senator from the great state of Minnesota. It should have been noted.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I agree: bring back the Fairness Doctrine. No more propaganda news, on either side. It’s dangerous.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
richard: I don’t know if Air America counts as big-time, but, yes, Maddow was every bit the progressive back then, too, and she frequently was one of few voices on the air criticizing the Democratic Party (correctly) from ‘the left’. So, no, her identity as being left-liberal is not made up.
Being an actual leftist doesn’t require some reflexive bitter dismissal of anyone on the Democratic side, no matter the tone of CounterPunch.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
As she put it, “It’s sort of the first refuge of lefty scoundrels to say, ‘I get the real picture, and the mainstream media would explode if they ever handled it.’ But if you can make it interesting, the mainstream media is interested in it.”
I love Rachel, but in the linked article she’s is disingenuous when she says this. Bush’s failures and crimes made him unpopular fairly early, and after about a two-year lag you started to see liberal TV and cable. But Glenn Beck is still on the air even though he’s a hard-right lowlife and also has extremely low ratings.
The only way I can explain the media coverage of the Clinton impeachment, the Gore-Bush election, and the runup to the Iraq war is by assuming that major elements of the media are in the tank for the Republicans. Coverage since 2003 has been only slightly better, theough there have been fewer specific examples of stunningly bad, biased journalism.
My uderstanding is that the bylined journalists you see have been hired to do exactly what they do, and that most of them are either opportunist cynics, Republicans, or defeatist contrarian Democrats.
As for the owners and managers who call the shots, I think that they’ve been motivated, first, by a principled but journalistically dishonest hawkishness, and second, by the desire for less regulation and lower taxes, especially lower or no estate taxes. All of them belong to the tiny percentage of Americans who pay an estate tax, and they account for the enormous energy the Republicans put into this issue. The Seattle Times owner has testified to this effect, but it also influences the NY Times and the Washington Post.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Wow I was shocked by this. My home country, France, suffers from a real lack of democracy as a result of the dependency of the media on the state and government. The French media rarely hold public officials to account and there all sorts of conflicts of interest between politicians and journalists that partly explains the anemic state of the media there and the lack of diversity of opinions. Let’s keep government and the media separate.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Again with this? What, you weren’t joking the last time you posted it?
OK, look — just like there should be a separation of church and state, there should be a separate of news and state. Best for everyone involved.
Next time you get the urge to float this idea, why don’t you put up pictures of your latest armpit rash or whatever?
Obama/Biden ‘08
October 11th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
The minute Olbermann got a show and the scorecard read something like “Conservatives 35, Liberals 1″, highminded hacks and nut cases like Christopher Monnier started crawling out from under the rocks to mark the discourse with their feces.
Is he a troll? Is he a moron? Is he an idealist? — Who cares? Get him out of here.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Dems going on MSNBC and Rachel or Keith’s show in particular and speaking the truth from their perspective is not the same thing as Republicans going on Faux and making stuff up and outright lying without fear of correction. It has nothing to do with keeping government and media separate. I am puzzled every time I see someone espousing the view that honestly pointing out the lying and wrongdoing of the GOP is somehow the same thing as the GOP pointing at the Dems and knowingly lying.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Democrats tend to be morons, and while I’m not sure that they’re actually Democrats, Matt’s commentators are a notch more imbecile than the average Democrat.
Matt is right on this, and the majority of the commentators seem like they just came from an 8th grade Sunday School class.
If you don’t like the game, you don’t have to play.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
The Fairness Doctrine may become a popular rightie cause as “liberal bias” increases during the first Obama Administration (meaning Dems actually get heard for a change). Wingnuts are going to ramp up their whining, but insist fairness is only an issue with over-the-air broadcast television. Cable and syndicated talkers should continue to have the “freedom of the marketplace.”
Another thing GOoPers will get their knickers twisted about will be individual privacy and over-reach by intrusive government. Not only were they whipsawed by anti-DC grassroots anger in the last three weeks, GOP reps are going to be adjusting their minds to the fact they’ve handed the keys of totalitarian control to the Democratic Party! Wiretaps. Domestic spying. Warrantless records searches. Arrests without probable cause. Suddenly they’ll loudly care about it all, and the evils of liberal fascism will be 24/7 on Fox.
A third major thrust will be stoking anger over deficits yet unyielding opposition to every kind of revenue increase. Reagan only dreamed of crippling social programs by starving them. He didn’t do it because he didn’t hate America and write-off most Americans as expendable End Times fodder like Christianist barbarians do, and they make up the white-hot core of the modern-day GOP’s base. (Palin’s not an aberration, she is Karl Rove’s chosen Christianist figurehead for the next few election cycles. And believe me, Karl knew everything about her–including her charming stupidity and chilling calculation–before he sprung her on McCain as a “game changing” tactic.)
$2-3 trillion in off-budget debt for Iraq/Afghanistan and for the benefit of Wall Street profiteers is gonna do a number on Generations X, Y and Jones, maybe for life. The GOP permanent minority is gonna fight like hell to make your life even worse in order to run against Washington every two years.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
“The Fairness Doctrine may become a popular rightie cause…”
Good point which raises a bit of a Catch-22. Righties will label any attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine as “government censorship” unless and until the left has an equivalent or worse counterpart to talk radio and Fox News (and MSNBC is not even close). It’s unlikely we’ll be able to make things better unless we make things worse, first.
Besides that, I am philosophically inclined to return fire with fire until they’re sick of it, and only then offer a truce and a return to the FD. That’s what you have to do with bullies.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Unfortunately for Rachel, Matthews and Olbermann so diminished the credibility of MSNBC with their abominable coverage of the convention (even Brokaw and Jennings were embarassed, and forced a change), that viewers exited en masse, and Rachel’s potential audience has become much, much smaller.
Essentially, Rachel is talking to the choir, and anyone who might have been “convincable” has already run in the opposite direction from MSNBC.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
When Mary says “even Jennings and Brokaw were embarrassed”, she shows her colors. Brokaw and Jennings are mediocrities and tools. Embarrassing them is positive accomplishment.
Olberman’s fine, Maddow’s fine, Matthews has always been a jerk and Olbermann doesn’t like him much, and Ann is a clown.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Mary! Mary! They all look the same to me. Mary is a clown.
And there’s nothing wrong with preaching to the choir.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I think it’s time to return to the days when the news media’s agenda was to impartially report news; and not to be a propaganda arm of the government, of either party.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Matt is right on this, and the majority of the commentators seem like they just came from an 8th grade Sunday School class.
I have a feeling that liberal political parties only really thrive and work in a Parliamentary system where they can serve as minority “kingmakers,” forever a minority, but presented with opportunities to push through their interests when someone needs them. Liberals seem to have a congenital problem with the acts of gaining and wielding power and have no idea how to function when they’re not the underdog. They all want to “build bridges,” and no one has the instinct to blow it up while the enemy army is marching across.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
By virtue of his not being a sappy liberal or a Jewish progressive (i.e. uncritical of Apartheid Israel) – Chris Matthews positively influences a wider share of the electorate than just the choir. Unlike Maddow or Olbermann – he’s not a twerpy, chirpy lib stereotype extolling the polls or harping on Todd Palin’s Alaska secessionist leanings. Every guest they have is some kind of effete intellectual beatweed. What working-class swing State white folks are Maddow or Olbermann ever going to get to see the light? Matthews actually has the ability to eschew DNC talking points and cut through the grease. Maddow and Olbermann are just marginally better than a Lanny Davis or Bob “The Loser” Shrum.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Maddow a “twerpy, chirpy lib”? Have you even watched her show?
October 11th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Before we start making plans for how we’re going to use the powers of the Presidency to transform the landscape of American Media, can we please win the freaking election?
I’ve got a feeling that people are getting pretty sick of being spun around by Fox News and Co. If we win the election and then Democrats govern well (meaning we may have to clean out a lot of Blue Dogs), Americans will turn away from the fools at Fox News on their own.
Remember, Father Coughlin used to be popular too, and his popularity ended a bit faster than it began.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Radio Hussein Head, the idea of permanent republican minority is a nice thought but hopelessly optimistic in my opinion. The Wall Street bailout is just like the $500 billion Savings and Loan bailout under Reagan and the GOP bounced back from that. Bush is a national disgrace like Nixon was, and it is leading to his party losing the WH to a Democrat, just like they lost to Carter in 1976. Just four years later, Reagan was elected.
The so-called fairness doctrine is not anywhere near enough to counterbalance conservative control of the media. The only real way to create fairness is to bring all media under network neutrality, so that everyone with something to say has equal access to it.
October 11th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
27: I think it’s time to return to the days when the news media’s agenda was to impartially report news; and not to be a propaganda arm of the government, of either party.
Those days are a myth. Matt’s comments are full of morons.
Trevor: moron hack! The master of cliche! “Working-class swing State white folks” — possibly a Hillary dead-ender.
Yet I keep coming back. The dog returns to his vomit. Compulsion to repeat. Please shoot me.
October 11th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I think it’s time to return to the days when the news media’s agenda was to impartially report news; and not to be a propaganda arm of the government, of either party.
That would be nice wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, the right has been doing exactly that for 20+ years. They changed the rules, the left is just now starting to play by them.
October 11th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
The first half of that last comment was meant to quote comment by judyinnm at 3:23 pm. I regret the formatting error.
October 11th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Please recall that MSNBC hired RM and KO because they deliver
lots of traffic (for the station to run ads), but that the ownership is basically conservative and had not the guts or integrity to run paid ad that asked the McCain’s medical records be disclosed in full.
I enjoy RM but then with KO, followed by RNM and then a repeat of KO–gets a bit thin and tiresome.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
The last time Yglesias raised this, I thought he might be joking.
Now it looks like he wasn’t. Disappointing.
A presidential administration has no legitimate business trying to “use the considerable leverage at its disposal to enhance the credibility and standing” of any part of the media.
An administration’s responsibility is to inform the public about what they are doing. This involves all the media, not one with any particular lean.
If “new more progressive media” like Maddow’s show are to have credibility, they must earn it for themselves, on their own steam. To hope for anything else is really wrongheaded.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
And now we have Gherald. That’s quite a Sunday School class!
I have no idea where they get that pious shit — most Sunday Schools have little to say about media theory. Perhaps these guys are home-schooled or something, and missed the last twenty years of American political history.
October 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
An administration shouldn’t be using the press for propaganda purposes—that used to be understood. But it is refreshing to me to see more liberal viewpoints like Olberman’s and Maddow. The day Jim Hightower is on prime-time, I’ll dance a jig.
October 11th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
It’s pretty easy for the administration to reward journalists simply by giving them some exclusive interviews. Fox News is big in part because that is where you can see interviews with Bush, Cheney, and administration officials. They don’t go on Fox to the exclusion of other stations, but Fox does seem to get more interviews, longer interviews, and probably faster responses to press inquiries.
October 11th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
“Trevor: moron hack! The master of cliche! “Working-class swing State white folks” — possibly a Hillary dead-ender.” (J. Emerson)
J. Emerson: dipshit fool! The mistress of myopia. Hillary?! Been an Obama supporter from day 1.
October 11th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Namecalling is always wrong, Trevor. You should be ashamed of yourself.
An administration shouldn’t be using the press for propaganda purposes—that used to be understood.
This is just plain not true and never has been true. Why do you think that?
October 11th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Well John Emerson, it was never perfect, but I remember a very different media environment, a time when people were challenged by investigative journalists, and a time when conflicts of interest were serious matters that people with a high school education were aware of, and they talked about it. There was more open debate, in general. People remembered what they learned in their civics classes, and took it to heart.
Media consolidation has changed the news climate for the worse. Compare reporting on Iraq to reporting on Viet Nam on network news. There is a world of difference. Compare coverage of Watergate to Troopergate.
Your average ‘Joe’, so to speak, used to be a much more informed, and questioning audience. Newspapers and newscasts gave more raw footage, and more information. Sure it was biased. What isn’t? But it was absolutely superior to the infotainment environment of today.
October 11th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Wiley, every administration I’ve observed, since Kennedy, has put a priority on managing media coverage, and the successful administrations have done it best. (I’m in my sixties, and highly-honored media people like Alsop and Lippmann and Reston were playing insider games before I was born).
What I might be saying is that the media should not let them be manipulated by the party in power — i.e., that they should retain their independence. That’s nice if you can get it, but in any case any administration will try to manipulate the media.
What Matt said would make sense if all he meant was “Marginalize propaganda outlets like Fox, the WSJ editorial page, Bill O’Reilly, and The Washington Times”. But it’s cool with me if it also means “Find sympathetic media sources and help them build themselves up by giving them scoops.” In fact, that’s what I demand that they do.
October 11th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
“What you might be saying”.
October 12th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Democrats tend to be morons
John Emerson, you’re edging onto the ageold question.
Mean or stupid. Which is worse?
October 13th, 2008 at 7:13 am
I was beginning to think everyone here was missing the point, but John Emerson finally nailed it in comment 44.
The point is not for an Obama administration to try to turn part of the media into a liberal propoganda machine, it is to for them to find popular progressive voices in the media and responsible journalists of all persuasions and help them build audience share through increased access, exclusive interviews and early notification of upcoming news releases.
Yes, doing all of this can lead the media to becoming so dependent on this access that they will slant their news to avoid losing it. This, in addition to conservative corporate ownership, is part of why it took so long for reality to intrude on the uncritical acceptance of Bush administration talking points. However, it does not have to be that way if the Obama administration and the media remember the appropriate separation of functions of the media and government.
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