5 Reasons Rachel Maddow is the best news personality on TV now.

[grantcart]

1) Story Selection.

Even if you like other anchors (and there are few too choose from) they inevitably are answering stories already in the mix. I am always interested in what Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Hayes have to say but they are, more often than not, responding to items already in the media. When you watch Rachel you can watch an entire show that is either of completely fresh material or an angle on a big story that is so refreshingly different that it takes on new life.

It is no accident that Rachel was the one that took what seemed like a lame local story and made it into a national story. She is the most intellectually ambitious the entire bunch.

2) Story Framing

Perhaps her strongest suit is that she frames the story with meticulous detail and fairness. The bridge story is a classic example and at every point she didn't raise the volume beyond the facts, always saying "This may be nothing but . . .".

She also makes sure that the story has the maximum presentation of relevant facts possible. What is known is reported and what is trivial is mentioned in passing.

3) She is fair

At every point she welcomes the people involved to come on the air and set her straight, and a couple of times they have taken her up on it. The reason that people don't come on her show isn't because she isn't courteous (please see #4) but because she is so well informed and know they can't snowball her. She doesn't pick out one fact out of context and over animate it.

4) She is personable

When she has guests on she engages them. If they are diametrically opposed to her obvious position she still treats them with courtesy and respect. It would be hard pressed to find anyone who is more civil in the most aggravating circumstances and she always is willing to put herself on the line by inviting the most disagreeable people on her show.

5) She loves her job

Sometimes she is going over very wonky statistical material with tedious policy implications, and yet she loves doing what she does. If you aren't taken in by the story you simply cannot resist the allure of a smart confident woman who is not only competent but also completely engaged and enjoying her life.

You just have to love Rachel and the work she does, she is just irresistible.

[spin]

1. She is definitely the best anchor on MSNBC. (n/t)

[Gothmog]

2. Rachel is a Rhodes Scholar

Rachel does a great job of making complex issues easy to understand

[Cofitachequi]

7. A slight disagreement with your post.

I believe that one of Maddow's talents is not making the complex easy, but the ability to educate up her audience to the point that they get complex and nuanced subjects at an educated level.

Folks like Limbaugh take complex issues and boil them down to the inane for the sake of his dimwitted, narrow minded audience.

Maddow takes the intellectually curious and satisfies their interest by starting at the bottom and building the complex story to its peak.

[malaise]

11. And that is linked to her academic training

She is a first rate PhD

[Gothmog]

12. We are not really in disagreement

My point is that it takes a very intelligent person to explain a complex issue correctly and in terms that are easy to understand by someone who is not familiar with the issue. It is not easy boiling the relevant facts of a story or issue into a simple narrative that is easy to understand by someone who is cold to the issue or who is not as intelligent. The best trial lawyer have this talent. The trial lawyer gears his narrative or story with a large audience in mind and that audience is not as knowledgeable about the issue as the trial attorney. The top trial attorneys who have this talent are very very bright.

As a corporate lawyer, I have to break down the details of a deal or transaction in such a fashion so that my clients can understand all of the aspects. My clients tend to be very bright and so my job is easier with some clients than others. When I am explaining some of my legal issues to other lawyers who do not practice in my area, it can be a challenge while the job is very easy with people who practice in my area. My mentor is a very very bright person and now he is one of my clients. My mentor and I tend to talk between ourselves in a fashion that other people have trouble following and I occasionally have to translate for the other lawyers on a deal.

Rachel is great at making a complex issue understandable to a broad audience. Many times, I have already read about the issue that she is discussing and so I get to sit back and watch/admire her work. When Rachel is discussing voter id and similar issues, I have fun because I can usually predict what her next point will be.

My first explanation in my first post on this thread showed that I did not do a good job of explaining my point. Rachel would have done a better job.

[Gothmog]

13. BTW, welcome to DU

[Cofitachequi]

18. thanks for the welcome

[grantcart]

35. Welcome to DU

[madokie]

3. Rachel by far is the best

Everything you say and then some.
Gotta' love her honesty, integrity and sense of fair play.
She simply Rocks

[Cha]

4. I saw a stellar example of all your points in the

Six Segments that Tx4obama provided us last night.

The Story Framing was compelling and as she rightly reminded us.. they were the ones who were talking about this when no one else was!

I very much appreciated her interaction with Shawn Buborg.. the reporter from The Record who first broke this story and would not let go. She made sure to give a lot of credit to Local News.. saying that's where they find many of their stories they report.

Mahalo grant

[solarhydrocan]

5. But she's gun friendly!

(that's what some are saying to discourage support for Brian Schweitzer)



Rachel Maddow at the Westside Pistol & Rifle Range
TV's top lefty gets her gun

June 27, 2012 1:18 PM

She's America's leading lefty wonk, complete with chunky glasses, Ph.D., and a deep faith in activist government. But Rachel Maddow is also, a little unexpectedly, totally into guns. Which is how come she ended up at the Westside Pistol & Rifle Range in Manhattan for a recent Rolling Stone photo shoot. (Maddow is profiled by Ben Wallace-Wells in the current issue of the magazine.) "I used to bring my radio producers," she says in this clip. "Everyone here's really nice."

Click here to see a video of Rachel at the Range
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/videos/rachel-maddow-at-the-westside-pistol-rifle-range-20120627

[Tanuki]

16. Careful, now. I got alerted on when I posted that pic a few weeks ago, when Rand Paul

hinted that he wanted to challenge Rachel to a duel when she reported on his plagiarism! No, I'm not kidding! And if I remember correctly, there were 3 votes to hide!

[AlbertCat]

26. Being "gun friendly"

is not being a gun nut. Or for that matter "totally into guns". I'd say she's MUCH MORE into some other things.

[grantcart]

36. Given her ability to hit the right target dead on, I say give her this:

[okaawhatever]

50. I read somewhere she met her girlfriend at a NRA ladies day. She is the daughter of a career

military man. (Navy, I think). When your family uses guns in their occupation you're much more likely to be exposed to them and taught how to use them. Police officers will routinely teach their children to shoot and the danger since there will inevitably be guns around the house. Same with me. My dad was Air Force so he didn't have guns around the house and he didn't use them in his job as a pilot, but my Army boyfriends always had them and would go practice at the range. It's part of their job and it's a different mindset.

[TexasBushwhacker]

62. That was their first date

Rachel was doing odd jobs when she came back to the US to work on her dissertation. Her girlfriend hired her to do yard work.

[okaawhatever]

64. Thanks for the info. Didn't know that. nt

[Brainstormy]

6. One of the few journalists

who makes up smarter. I'm a HUGE Maddow fan!

[rurallib]

8. maybe not exactly a journalist, but Thom Hartmann

on Free Speech TV is damned good also.

But yeah, Rachel is #1. Got to kill FUX that a woman and an open lesbian is so much better than their crap.

[grantcart]

9. That's why I used "news personality". Not a journalist or a pundit or a traditional anchor.

Kind of morphing into something unique.

[wyldwolf]

10. I have to agree. While I didn't care for her on Air America Radio, she shines on MSNBC

[AlbertCat]

29. I loved her on Air America!

I always knew.... a lot!.... about things from listening to her show there, like, days before anyone else I knew was aware of them or they were on the TV news.

[NewJeffCT]

52. It's been amazing to watch her progress

agree she was not good on Air America in the beginning. Heck, she was only so-so when she first started subbing for Keith Olbermann. But, she's so smart & so talented that she just kept working at it and kept getting better and better.

[ms liberty]

14. I agree. k&r. n/t

[Mr.Bill]

15. I would add she is totally fearless.

She is not afraid of who she takes on and what they may do to her. She took on the entire top end of the government in Virginia and turned a red state blue. Who's next?

[Triana]

17. Aaaaaand...

She's cute!

(sorry I know that's not a valid reason)

[Sienna86]

19. Amazing tonight...

I think she's onto something with the key to the story.

[grantcart]

21. Yep she just raised it to another level

[longship]

20. I listen to her show every night.

It's available via audio podcast, about 10 MB per hour, easy for us rural folks with no broadband access.

Just go to iTunes and search for Rachel Maddow. (Or your favorite podcast aggregator.) I use the iPad and iPhone "Podcast" apps. Works on both.

Yup, there's no video, but it's Rachel!!

R&K

[AlbertCat]

31. Yup, there's no video, but it's Rachel!!

There's also a video podcast.

[ProgressSaves]

22. One of the few real journalists we have left. nt

[bullwinkle428]

23. She's proving your point once again tonight! I think she just found

the smoking gun in the Bridge scandal! (Revenge against Senate leader Loretta Weinberg, who just so happens to represent Fort Lee as part of her district, one day after Christie's irrational rant about why he decided to prevent a Republican judge on the state Supreme Court from facing a hearing with Senate Dems.)

[grantcart]

24. she connects the dots.

Tonight was a classic. She first built the case why it couldn't be about endorsement retribution. Using Christie's own words.

She followed the logic. Christie is going to wish it was about retribution.

Now we have an entirely new story about judicial retribution and pettiness.

[bullwinkle428]

30. Watching all of this unfold is going to be priceless!

[bayareaboy]

25. Rachael is the best kept secret of Castro Valley Ca.

Well not really a secret anymore. We don't have to many Rhodes folks in town.

My Daughter went to middle school with her and she says that Rachael in a couple of classes was just as important than the Teacher, because she framed the question so well that folks understood the instructors response better.

[Misskittycat]

27. Yes, tonight Rachel nailed it.

She connected the dots that no one else bothered to consider or investigate. Brilliant reporting!

[grantcart]

37. Yes she did.

[sufrommich]

28. She is on fire tonight,what a show. nt

[grantcart]

34. epic just epic

[adieu]

32. I am so hooked to her show

that I have an IV line of her show dripping into my veins every night by 9pm (online version). The withdrawal symptoms when SK of MPH subs for her is unbearable.

[Jamaal510]

33. Sometimes I find her show boring, but

I agree for the most part that she is among the best news personalities currently on TV. Rachel is so skilled that it has always been tough for her to attract RWNJs to her show. During the 2012 GOP primaries, I don't think that any of the candidates (except for Pawlenty) even attempted to come on her show. No sign of Romney, Santorum, Bachmann, Palin, Trump, Paul, or Cain--none of them. In fact, Gov. Christie has yet to come on her show to clear his name. All of them fear that Rachel will really throw the hardballs at them. At least Obama did appear on O'Reilly's show once a few years ago (and was interrupted 48 times), but the RWers think they're too good for Rachel (and the rest of MSNBC).

[90-percent]

38. Rand Paul was on her show a few times

I think she asked him some difficult questions and he embarrassed himself with some of his answers? I give him credit for making the appearance, though.

-90% Jimmy

[Jamaal510]

39. Yeah I remember him appearing,

but besides Rand, RWers have oddly been few and far between on Rachel's (or any other MSNBC host) show. It's a shame because I have been dying to see Bachmann on Ed's show after he called her out a few times.

[VA_Jill]

45. Most of them

are scared to death of her because she is way smarter than they are and they know it. They know she will expose their shortcomings in a New York minute, and they could not stand that.

[grantcart]

40. Morning kick

[arthritisR_US]

41. You are spot on! She is absolutely my

favourite and when she's away my neurons go through withdrawal.

[Stuart G]

42. # 6...equally important...simplicity...

She often takes a complicated story, and delivers as much of it as possible in an easy to understand way. It is still complicated and involved, but after her explanation, and that explanation is fair and objective, we understand it much better.
In my opinion, that may be the strongest of her news broadcasting skills..

[SCVDem]

43. Best news" personality"?

That word may be accurate but a different word popped up when I read that.

Professional !

It's Friday! Time to get sent to prison!

[tclambert]

44. Jon Stewart.

He jokes. He admits they make things up for laughs (though the truth surpasses their imaginations every time). Yet he says what all the other new people wish they could say.

[randr]

46. I have watched Rachel from the begining and love her

I am extremely proud when she unveils one misdeed after another. I only have one wish. Rachel, please, stop repeating yourself. We are not third graders. If you only said what you need to once your show would be over in 30 minutes.
There I got it off my chest.

[LittleGirl]

51. ^^that is why I don't watch her anymore^^

I loved Rachel but my husband noticed her repeating things and he just got up and never came back. He will watch a segment or two but we haven't seen Rachel in 6 months.

[SCVDem]

53. That LittleGirl (and hubby)

Is why I multi-task.

Rare are the shows I shut off everything and just watch.

I tune out repetitions of things covered to death by Ed, or Chris. Even Rachel and L.O.

It will be nice to actually have a job again and not have so much dead time.

I also DVR and FF through the second + ACA (Obamacare) bits and whatever bores me.

Give it a try!

[LittleGirl]

55. I rarely watch tv anymore

We don't have cable so cheat and watch the 'free tv' links that have cable channels (probably illegally), ooops. I get my daily dose of politics here at DU and catch clips now and then. I can't stand Al's yelling and Chris, Ed and L.O. seem to cover the topics on the same evening so we catch Jon Stewart instead. We get about 2 hrs of tv viewing a day in this house. I do miss the DVR and FF through commercials which you can't do on these 'free tv' links.

[SCVDem]

57. I never watch network TV

Except for SVU and Almost Human. I love my Sci-Fi.

I never miss The Daily Show or Colbert!

[LittleGirl]

58. LOVE those guys! eom

[MynameisBlarney]

47. I Love me some Dr. Maddow

For all those reasons.

On a side note.
I cannot stand O'Donnell. He is one arrogant prick and his tone makes me want to reach through my screen and pimp slap him. Even when I agree with what he says.

[SCVDem]

54. He really went over rhe top

When he had Carlos Danger on the show.

Offset by the K.I.N.D. fund though.

It evens out, kinda.

[mopinko]

48. she laughs at the laughable.

that makes her quite unique.

[Swede Atlanta]

49. Rachel is, by most measures, the best television journalist in the business...

The traditional news shows are shallow and lame.

Maddow is fair, relentless and focused.

The right only have shills like Limper and the Faux News crew.

[SCVDem]

56. Don't forget the things nobody else does.

Moment of Geek Great

Best New Thing in the World Today Insightful

Last but not least!

Coctail Moment!!! (No smilies for coctails)

Who else has mixed cocktails on their show? Simply a nice way to end the week and a reward for watching the (news).

(MSNBC, the place for politics, not news)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

59. MSNBC replays her show at 4am

good to wake up to

[Kablooie]

60. She also has fun with some stories by adding props or performances.

[SCVDem]

61. I have watched from the beginning

and unlike Air America, we now can see some of those props.

She can indeed take a joke at her own expense as some of those have been goofy!

True or False? Ding! True!

[AngryAmish]

63. isn't like being the tallest midgit?

If you don't find everyone on television repulsive then the problem lies with you.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

65. Don't tell anyone....

But we have this guy to thank: