Rachel Maddow is keeping it real and showing journalists how it's done

At a time when news organizations are laying off reporters and changing how they gather news in order to cut costs, investigative reporting is becoming a thing of the past. But MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow understands that thoroughly investigating a newsworthy story is the way to advance the story and provide balance for her viewers. Maddow keeps it real with her viewers, and her “dog with a bone” approach to a story shows journalists how to get the job done.

Columnist Bill Mann said, “Maddow often reminds me of Edward R. Murrow—fearless, going wherever the facts lead her.”

While other networks repeated the same coverage of the controversial law passed in Arizona to combat illegal immigration, Maddow didn’t bury the story in repetitiveness; she took a different approach and identified all of the characters involved in getting the law passed and their associations.

It was her “dog with a bone” approach to the story that many Americans learned for the first time that the sponsor of the Arizona law, Republican State Senator Russell Pearce, had been associated with “hugging a neo-Nazi.” It was Maddow's investigative reporting that many Americans’ learned that the writer of the law was Kris Kobach, a Republican running for Secretary of State in Kansas, who believes that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and not in the U.S. She uncovered that the controversial organization FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) was the legal arm of getting the law passed.

When Maddow appears on NBC’s “Meet The Press”, she comes equipped with her own internal fact-checking as Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) found out when he appeared on the same MTP show with Maddow. In a debate about the Stimulus bill, Representative Schock took the Republican position of “big government spending” while boasting of the bill’s benefits in his own district. Maddow accused him of blatant hypocrisy. “I just read that you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district," she said. "You voted against the bill that created that grant."

Maddow holds Democrats and Republicans accountable for what they say versus what they actually do. She challenges the Obama Administration’s Afghanistan strategy, the war on terror, repealing Don’ Ask Don’t Tell, and financial reform. During the 2008 presidential election, she called out John McCain and Sarah Palin for flip flopping on issues.

She called Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown a “liar” and masterfully took him to task when he wrote in a campaign letter soliciting donations that the Democratic political machine in Massachusetts was trying to recruit Maddow to challenge his re-election in 2012.

Recently Steve Johnson praised her coverage of the Deepwater Gulf Oil Spill disaster as “…by far, the most informative and fact based program about the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster on US TV.” ABC News Anchor Diane Sawyer described her as “great television” and Martha Stewart said, “Her program is thoroughly researched.”

Maddow's work is equal to or superior to seasoned journalists. She understands that the public will lash on to every word of her reporting, and she has a responsibility to make sure it’s accurate, thoroughly investigated, and balanced.
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© 2010 Shar’Ron Maxx Mahaffey. All rights reserved.

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