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TCA — MSNBC's Rachel Maddow isn't worried that the ascension of Barack Obama will impede her ability to criticize political leaders.
“I don’t think we’re at risk of idiocy going out of fashion in Washington,” she told TV critics attending the winter press tour in Universal City. “Whether Republican or Democrat … I don’t worry about not having George Bush to beat up on anymore.”
If anything, she says, with Bush exiting office she prefers not to focus on him.
“Beating up on George Bush, I'd rather not, a little bit,” she says, and later predicted the president will "give a big speech tonight then go away."
When a critic compares MSNBC with Fox News, Maddow bristles.
“The idea that there’s any equivalency between us and Fox News…” she says. “Fox is a political experiment. Imagine them having somebody as liberal as Joe Scarborough is conservative doing their whole morning? It doesn't make sense."
"We're less about ideology than Fox News," adds the news network’s president Phil Griffin.
Yet after the panel, Maddow told a huddle of reporters she doesn’t own a TV and has “never seen a show on Fox at any time ever.”
And Griffin, when asked if MSNBC would ever hire a conservative commentator, seemed reluctant.
“I don’t know, I don't think they would be a pure conservative,” he says. “There might be somebody with conservative tendencies… if they’re smart and clever and get along with our other guys.”“We’re becoming a network,” he says. “We made a decision to take a little risk [with Maddow] … the first time she ever read a teleprompter was last June … For the first time in MSNBC history, we had a show beating Larry King. It made the network feel bigger … we're blossoming, full of energy, life.”
Says Maddow: “I’m having the time of my life, and hope I can keep doing this for a long time.”
Maddow is simply horrible. Her smirks and unfunny attempts at humor, insane opinions that she tries to disguise as reporting, and her overall unprofessionalism make her one of the worst television personalities on today. I wish it was her that was going away.
Rachel Maddow has a new and unique style that is a breath of fresh air. I love that she only has one guest at a time so I can actually hear what they have to say. I can’t stand when shows have multiple people on arguing and talking over each other or when a host belittles a guest like it’s some kind of competition. Rachel Maddow avoids all that and gets to the information.
Honestly, Maddow is mediocre at best. And the fact she has the audacity to claim MSNBC is less political than Fox just further proves my point. Their nightly lineup of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Maddow leans overwhelmingly left, all sense of integrity is negated. At least own up to that fact the way Fox does. In some sense, it’s even worse!
AJ, while I fully agree that MSNBC is, in fact, quite left-leaning and political, I think you’re wrong in saying Fox owns up to it. Let’s not forget “Fair and Balanced.”
Maddow and Olbermann are lying, gutless cowards.
Maddow is repulsive.
Is Maddow high? These are the most contradictory and ridiculous comments I have heard in a long time. MSNBC less political? That’s a good one. As other posters mentioned, MSNBC is far left, as is she, so I guess from her vantage point, she cannot see the political bias. She is then a talking contradiction by admitting MSNBC would not hire a conservative commentator unless they were moderate and played well with other kids on the MSNBC playground. Uh, excluding someone based on their political beliefs is politics/bias in it’s purest form. Fox consistently has liberal commentators involved in its editorial programs, while MSNBC very, very rarely does. So on the Fair and Balanced scale, Fox is at least an 8, while MSNBC is barely a 1. Maddow is a joke.
Sorry, should clarify that MSNBC very, very rarely has a conservative commentators.
Half a dozen comments above bash Maddow personally, but not one of them responds on the substance of her remarks.
So I’ll repeat for her: “Imagine them having somebody as liberal as Joe Scarborough is conservative doing their whole morning?”
Can you imagine it? Replace Fox & Friends with Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller. Think that will ever happen? Fox has NEVER had a program headlined by a liberal. MSNBC presently has Scarborough doing 3 hours (Keith and Rachel only get an hour each) and has previously had Michael Savage and Tucker Carlson.
Mark, as for the substance of her remarks…“The idea that there’s any equivalency between us and Fox News…” she says. “Fox is a political experiment. Imagine them having somebody as liberal as Joe Scarborough is conservative doing their whole morning? It doesn’t make sense.” Followed by…”We’re less about ideology than Fox News,” adds the news network’s president Phil Griffin.
Yet after the panel, Maddow told a huddle of reporters she doesn’t own a TV and has “never seen a show on Fox at any time ever.”
So if she has never even seen a program on Fox, how can she comment about it. She is just another liberal spouting off about something she obiously knows nothing about.
I want to know who is the equivalents on MSNBC of people like Great Van Susteren (A Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter) and Geraldo Rivera (huge liberal). There are none. I’m personally mad that Colmes left Fox. But there are no equivalents. Anyone who watched MSNBC’s coverage of the conventions is not going to call it balanced. Olberman and Matthews, so worried the Democrats were not coming together as a party, were pushing an outright lie after Hillary clinton’s speech, saying that of course the two are together on the same page. Even MSNBC’s own liberal viewers in a poll didn’t think Hillary was sincere.
I’ve been analyizing both liberal and conservative media for years and the claim that MSNBC is less about ideology than Fox is laughable. This statement is testimony to the shear one sidedness of their
leftist idiology and view of the world.
They are intellectually dishosnest in assumng that their core liberal beliefs and like minded slanting of
all their news coverage is defacto the proper mainstream opinion. Most thinking people I know who enjoy listening to both sides of the political spectrum have simply stopped watching MSNBC due to its predictable apologist stance for all things liberal and vicious attacks against all things conservative.
is she a crossdressing male?…the fact it comments about fox news and has never even seen 1 show from the fox channel..shows the liberals whackjob agenda….PMSNBC is a joke anyone who watches this channel is a joke..and should not be allowed to vote PERIOD!!
What an idiot. I’ve watched Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, really all of the news channels, Fox News is the only one that even attempts to present both sides of an issue. Yes, they have conservative commentators, but they also have regular news, and I have no idea whether Shep Smith is a conservative or liberal. I’m pretty sure I know where Maddow falls on the political spectrum. And, even the conservative commentators on Fox will have liberal guests, and debate the issues. The other news shows are all liberal, all the time, they don’t have any objective news reports, it’s all editorialized.
We quit subscribing to our local newspaper under the premise that smart people don’t pay someone to lie to them. One by one, as each organization has abandoned objective reporting for pushing the liberal agenda, we have quit watching network news. The same for CNN and MSNBC.
FoxNews is the only news channel that at least attempts to present both sides and, as it should be, we’re not usually aware of the ideology of the people reading the news. Commentators such as Geraldo and Combes are presented as liberals, with no artiface or apology. They certainly don’t try to deny they’re liberal as Rachel Maddow has done in her comments.
As for “entertainment” shows such as Letterman, The View, Oprah, ad nauseum, both network and cable, an old saying comes to mind: It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. — Mark Twain
It’s easy to quit the newspaper, but less pointed to just quit watching a certain television program. A current listing of network sponsors for each program would certainly come in handy.
Maddow doesn’t think MSNBC is about ideology? Apparently, she is more deranged than her confused personal makeup would indicate.
MSNBC has ONE employee who is not either a Democrat hack turned media hack or an activist liberal and virtually every employee on NBC is in the same category. Scarborough is the token non-liberal and to put him on TV they have to put three other liberals to balance him out. Scarborough doesn’t do partisan but yet the entire daily lineup is Bush-bash after Bush-bash and Obama as Messiah commentary dressed up as news analysis. Ask an actual conservative like Laura Ingraham what it was like to work at MSNBC.
Nobody can seriously think that MSNBC is anything but an attempt to corner the hard left and scrape off 1% of America who lives on hate. MSNBC hired these glorious winners: Ron Reagan Jr. & Scott McClellan & John Dean. Could you imagine Fox News hiring Amy Carter or Jennifer Flowers as ‘political analysts’? It would literally enrage liberals (like everything else doesn’t…).
GE appears to have decided that they don’t give a crap about news anymore and they are just letting the brand name get run into the ground. There is nobody left trying to do news or reign in the people who are spending literally every day of their lives trying to settle political scores or score political points.
Take Ms. Maddow, for instance. Wanna guess how many non-liberal guests she has had on her show since Nov 4th? Virtually none. And that is barely better than prior to the election but at least there was some CYA with something like 12 to 1 lib-to-conservative guests and considering how liberal Maddow is where was there going to be a discussion of any kind? She is just preaching to the choir which she can’t get on radio but with the financial backing of GE.
They have shows that cannot even get guests to come on who aren’t Democrats. How radioactive do you have to make yourself to prevent politicians from wanting to get themselves on TV on your network? And they don’t seem to care. When William Ayers get his show on MSNBC, you’ll know the end has arrived. I’d give it about six months before they float the idea.
““Beating up on George Bush, I’d rather not, a little bit,” she says”
This coming from the woman who has constantly berated Palin and Bush for not always using complete sentences in interviews.
There is no truth in media today. Yes Fox leans to the right and the rest lean to the left. 99 percent are left leaning and in the tank for Obama. Not that that’s a bad thing. C’mon the russians got past pravda.
MSNBC will continue to bash President Bush for the next few months and then the small number of viewers that watch their shows will turn the channel to something else. They are pathetic.
John Dean routinely shows up as the token Republican on Keith Olbermans show. How much more fair and balanced can a show get?
Is this story linked to Drudge? Must be.
I think Rachel likes chicks.