Rachel Maddow is Becoming Un-Listenable To-Able

[Paul in Qatar]

I like Rachel Maddow. She is a smart cookie. But she is not reacting well to the Recent Unpleasantness.

I do not watch her show. I listen to the podcast. It seems she starts the A-Block with a shaggy-dog story that starts in the 1920's then winds its way across three generations to get to something in the here-in-and-now.

Gosh darn it, there is news out there. Right now she is Minute Twelve of Thirty-Eight Minutes and is up to Strom Thurmond. What the heck is she trying to do?

I will give he a chance. I have been a long-time fan. But frankly she is losing me.

Or perhaps I am just not liberal enough or smart enough. Maybe its not her, its me.

[BJMoose]

Nah. She really is getting rather bombastic.

[Paul in Qatar]

I think she is at a turning point. She is talking too much about one topic. She needs to cover more stories. I half-expect her to start reading Thurber stories as Olbermann did.

[Pere]

I haven't listened to/watched her for quite a while. I found her a bit too repetitive and a bit too conventionally dogmatic (though not nearly so much as her closest counterparts on the opposite side).

On the other hand, I often like longer-form storytelling-with-point podcasts, so this,

Originally Posted by Paul in Qatar

It seems she starts the A-Block with a shaggy-dog story that starts in the 1920's then winds its way across three generations to get to something in the here-in-and-now.

Gosh darn it, there is news out there. Right now she is Minute Twelve of Thirty-Eight Minutes and is up to Strom Thurmond.

sounds kind of intriguing. I think I'll check it out.

If it's tight news you want, there are certainly better places to go.

[Pere]

:searches podcast player: Wait--the podcast is just "the audio from each night's [television] show in its entirety"? There's no separate audio production at all? That doesn't bode well.

[AuntiePam]

Originally Posted by Pere

I haven't listened to/watched her for quite a while. I found her a bit too repetitive and a bit too conventionally dogmatic (though not nearly so much as her closest counterparts on the opposite side).

Agree, especially about the repetitiveness.

I'm liking Vice, the 30-minute HBO news program. Not much time to go deep but they're covering things that don't make news in the US, like the problem with the currency in whatever country that is that is taking some bank notes out of circulation.

[eleanorigby]

India? The second most populated nation in the world?

I think Rachel is attempting to actually educate in terms of history, so that our present predicament can be better understood. Frankly, I think most of America could stand an entire series of lessons on How Our Government Works at this point.

[Simple Dog]

Originally Posted by Pere

:searches podcast player: Wait--the podcast is just "the audio from each night's [television] show in its entirety"? There's no separate audio production at all? That doesn't bode well.

The audio podcast is a relic of the pre-Comcast days when MSNBC put a bunch of its shows online to watch for free after they aired. Comcast took down the video version within about six minutes of buying NBCUniversal, but hasn't done so with the audio version (yet). It was never something separate from the show, just a way to consume it on demand.

[Paul in Qatar]

Originally Posted by Pere

There's no separate audio production at all? That doesn't bode well.

I rarely watch TV. I find most TV is passable as radio.

[Inner Stickler]

Oh man, I love her political stories from Yesteryear. Quite often I only listen to the first 20 minutes or so of her show. News? I got flipboard, I'm good for news. What I want is commentary and analysis of the news I already know.

[pickle berry]

The one time I tuned into her she was lying by omission and thus changed the outlook of the story. One I was already well aware of the facts. I got enough of the media lying to me I don't need any more.

[SmartAleq]

I used to love her but when she started toeing the party line and making fun of Bernie and pooh-poohing any idea of a third party and slobbering all over Hillary's knob I flushed her like used groceries. I have to say, the Democratic primary certainly made my viewing choices a whole lot simpler.

[Paul in Qatar]

Originally Posted by pickle berry

The one time I tuned into her she was lying by omission and thus changed the outlook of the story. One I was already well aware of the facts. I got enough of the media lying to me I don't need any more.

I remember when she was in a full-on panic about a census worker being found dead. It turned out to be a suicide, but she never corrected the story.

[Pere]

Originally Posted by Paul in Qatar

I remember when she was in a full-on panic about a census worker being found dead. It turned out to be a suicide, but she never corrected the story.

It appears she did update the story twice following the investigation. The suicide had been staged to look like a political murder, so I don't blame her or the other media for getting excited by the initial discovery.

[Paul in Qatar]

Originally Posted by Pere

It appears she did update the story twice following the investigation. The suicide had been staged to look like a political murder, so I don't blame her or the other media for getting excited by the initial discovery.

Well, I listened to her each and every day during the period. I suppose I could have missed a "Department of Corrections" piece. I am however unaware anyone at all covered the story in the US.

[eleanorigby]

I listened to her 11/19 and her 11/21 podcasts. Except for one glitch where one segment replayed twice, I didn't hear anything bombastic. Dumbed down a bit, sure, but all TV news is dumbed down, as is most talk radio.

But thanks for the new podcast suggestion, however inadvertent. I'm always looking for new ones.

[stichomythia]

I'm a longtime Rachel Maddow fan, and I actually like the shaggy-dog stories she opens with. They're quite entertaining, in a sort of Paul Harvey "rest of the story" way. I got rid of cable a couple of years ago, so I'm stuck with the audio podcast. It's fine, except for the rare occasions that she uses a visual aid.

HOWEVER. Since the election, I've been listening much less. Her overall theme has become "Trump is MUCH stupider than you've been told, and he's going to do EVERYTHING he promised to do, and it's going to be MORE horrific than you can possibly imagine." I just can't take all that apocalyptic stuff right now.

Rachel has a history of going down blind alleys. I remember how she came up with an alternative theory of Bridgegate and worked it like a dog with a bone for weeks, always ending with her breathless catchphrase, "watch this space." I hope that she'll eventually get back to covering a wider spectrum of political news instead of just doing TRUMP HORROR OF THE DAY for an hour, but I'm not optimistic.

[Paul in Qatar]

I am a long-time fan. Olbermann turned me (and everyone else) onto her. It took me a couple of months to realize Keith had gone nuts. Now I feel as if I am in the same situation with Rachael. I am willing to listen, I am willing to give her a chance, but I admit I am being much more critical of her. (Nothing wrong with that.)

Some other lady covered for her the other day. Even though she was using the same writers, I sort of preferred the holiday replacement.

[BJMoose]

Originally Posted by stichomythia

I hope that she'll eventually get back to covering a wider spectrum of political news instead of just doing TRUMP HORROR OF THE DAY for an hour, but I'm not optimistic.

That was Olbermann's big problem. He got so wrapped up in bitch-slapping the Bush Administration that he mostly lost sight of everything else.

[Pere]

Originally Posted by stichomythia

I hope that she'll eventually get back to covering a wider spectrum of political news instead of just doing TRUMP HORROR OF THE DAY for an hour, but I'm not optimistic.

I don't know what her angles have been, but as a general matter I think this is the right focus. If he does prove worse than most people think (which was pretty bad), then honestly there aren't many more important political stories.

[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by Pere

I don't know what her angles have been, but as a general matter I think this is the right focus. If he does prove worse than most people think (which was pretty bad), then honestly there aren't many more important political stories.

Yep. Brace yourselves for wall to wall Trump and his Cabinet of Incompetents, with some GOP shenanigans thrown in for good measure. It'll make a change from Obama is a Kenyan/Muslim/Space Alien! and Hillary is a woman--so shun her! stuff. Either way, I do hope Rachel et al focus on actual content and not hysteria. We can't go apeshit over everything Trump et al do, because then it becomes the new normal. He is far from normal. Best to choose wisely and focus the outrage. Then again, he displays so much incompetence already, it's hard to know what to focus on...

[BJMoose]

God. It'd be great if reportage is limited to his actions as President and nothing more. 'Twould drive him nuts. Ain't gonna happen, though.

[stichomythia]

Originally Posted by Pere

I don't know what her angles have been, but as a general matter I think this is the right focus. If he does prove worse than most people think (which was pretty bad), then honestly there aren't many more important political stories.

I don't know about that. Rachel has spent a lot of time covering the Flint water crisis; that's exactly the kind of important story that might be crowded out by wall-to-wall coverage of the endless flow of Trump inanities.

In a recent episode, Rachel spent a couple of minutes talking about a Trump staff member who was getting a tour of the White House and asked "how many of these people will be staying on?"—apparently this staffer didn't know that Trump would be expected to fill every position at the WH. Okay, I get why Rachel mentioned this; it's emblematic of how unprepared Trump is. But if this is the level of Trump minutiae she's going to get into from now on, there won't be time for anything else.

[Clothahump]

Rachel Maddow is Becoming Un-Listenable To-Able


Becoming? How about has been for quite some time.