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Feb. 26, 2025 - Lionel Nation
22:32
Rachel Maddow Torches Her Own Failing Network and Commits Career Suicide: Analysis

Rachel Maddow Torches Her Own Failing Network and Commits Career Suicide: Analysis

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future.
Allow me to provide this dissection of the speech, the disquisition, the announcement that Rachel Maddow made regarding changes at MSDNC.
Let me remind you, Why this is important is not because of the fact that it's MSDNC, but because it's the end of a message.
The reason why Joy Reid was removed was because nobody was watching.
The reason why MSDNC has been completely disconnected from NBC is because nobody's watching.
The January numbers in the 25 to 54 demographic were the worst ever.
So understand something.
This is not about President Trump.
I mean, maybe, but this is about numbers.
I promise you, I promise you, if they were getting numbers, if Joy Reid or whoever these other people were, or are, were getting the attention, getting the numbers, none of this would be...
Even discussed.
They would be doubling down.
They'd be doing repeats and the best of.
Remember, MSDNC is a weird group of people.
Remember years ago, some of their biggest numbers ever came when they ran Lockup.
Actual prison shower documentaries.
I mean, this has been their story since the beginning.
Okay.
All right.
Let's look at this.
Who are we talking about?
We're talking about this person right here.
This is Rachel Meadow.
Rachel Meadow has one of the...
And by the way, I have nothing personal against her.
I know her years ago.
She's always been nice.
So I'm not one of these people who, you know, dislike her.
That's not it.
I'm curious, though, about looking at this in terms of the style and how she comes across and the way she comports herself.
I think she one time said, or someone said, she comes across almost in the assistant principal style.
Very nice, never abrasive, never mean, just very, very, very friendly.
It's an affect, I think, that has done her well over the years, and something which is important for us to note.
Let's listen to what she says, and I'm going to be stopping when I think there's something to be pointed out.
So that's a big change.
An even bigger programming change is at 7 p.m. Eastern, where Joy Reid's show, The Readout, ended tonight.
It ended tonight.
It ended.
The show ended.
It wasn't canceled.
It wasn't yanked.
It wasn't expurgated.
It just ended.
It's like the end of the trajectory.
And Joy is not taking a different job in the network.
She is leaving the network altogether.
And probably everything that you know to be anything network related.
Because who in their right mind, knowing what she knows now, who else is there?
CNN.
That's it.
They're not going to take her.
But watch.
And that is very, very, very hard to take.
Why is that hard to take?
Let's find out.
I am 51 years old.
I have been...
Gainfully employed since I was 12. And I have had so many different kinds of jobs, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.
But in all of the jobs I have had, in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid.
Nobody that she has ever met since she was 12 years old.
Think about this.
She was 12 years old.
In almost 40 years.
Joy Reid.
Joy Reid.
Nobody.
And that's great.
And I think that's a statement.
It's very, very nice.
But think about that.
Joy Reid.
Number one.
Joy Reid.
Not anybody from Meager or Joe Scarborough.
Joy Reid.
I love everything about her.
Everything about her.
Her sensibility.
Her sense of proportion.
Her outlook regarding racial harmony.
I have learned so much from her.
I have so much more to learn from her.
I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC.
I've learned so much from her.
Proportion, sensibility, kindness, and never saying anything that is in any way considered problematic in terms of your career.
And personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door.
It's a bad mistake to let her walk out.
She didn't walk out the door.
She was shown the door.
Understand this.
Now, she is the, put it this way, she is the Sean Hannity of MSDNC.
Because he's the number one in terms of tenure and numbers and all that.
So this is it now.
Remember, for Rachel, after this, that's it.
There are no more MSDNCs.
That's it.
And I'm sure she consulted with her agent and said, I'm going to go on and I'm basically going to slam the management.
Okay?
Think about this.
It is not my call and I understand that.
But that's what I think.
That's what I think.
I love her affect.
I do.
I like the style.
I don't know.
I will tell you, it is also...
Unnerving to see that on a network where we've got two, count them, two non-white hosts in primetime.
Here we go!
Here we go, ladies and gentlemen.
Get ready.
Here comes the race card, but from a different deck.
Both of our non-white hosts in primetime are losing their shows.
Why do you think that is?
Obviously because of race.
It's the anti-DEI, right?
Isn't that it?
She's bringing this out.
MSDNC freaking out, hanging on at the C-suites or whatever you want to call it.
Now you've got the main person basically calling out race.
Think about what she's doing.
Race.
Lest you be confused, she's saying it.
It's race.
Joy Reid was canned because she's black.
As is Katie Fang on the weekend.
Katie Fang.
I didn't even know.
That's my fault.
I don't know any of these other names.
I don't watch.
And that feels worse than bad.
That's worse.
It's not that people are going to go, but Katie Fang?
No matter who replaces them.
That feels indefensible.
Indefensible.
Do you hear that?
Here's the gauntlet.
I'm throwing it down.
Here's the glove.
Slap.
Got that, management?
Got that?
And I do not defend it.
But there's just one other piece of it that you should know.
From your side of the TV screen, you will mostly see changes in terms of who's in the anchor chair.
And actually, everybody who's going to be in anchor chairs from here on out are great colleagues and great at what they do, and you are not going to be disappointed in who's on our air and what you're going to be seeing.
We'll see.
But one thing you cannot necessarily see is that the people who get our shows on the air, they're really being put through the ringer.
The people, the little people.
That's nice.
That's true.
That's absolutely true.
Yeah.
And remember something.
When you have been sidelined, when you have been shadow banned, when you have been called out, when you, throughout the years, because of your affiliation and maybe your alignment with President Trump, and you have basically lived it, Kind of a sad existence.
Remember, nobody stood up for you.
Dozens of producers and staffers, including some who are among the most experienced and most talented and most specialist producers in the building, are facing being laid off.
Imagine being a producer for Joy Reid.
Would you want people to...
If you went into it, I was a producer for who?
For Joy Reid.
For Joy Reid, the one who talked about white tears?
The one who spewed this bilious bile, which is redundant, I guess.
This racist, I mean, but drippingly sarcastic, vehemently racist.
You want to put that down?
Would you ever do that?
They're being invited to reapply for new jobs.
But there is going to be no more MSDNC.
You do know that, right?
They've cut them off.
It's like you are, I hate to say it, they're almost like this, and this is a terrible example.
You know this, these astronauts that are kind of floating around, and I hope they come back.
They're like that, but they won't be returned.
There is no more MSDNC.
You can reapply to MSDNC, but it's like as the Titanic is going down, we're going to move shifts.
You can work the evening shift as the...
As the craft slips beneath the waves.
Do you hear this?
That has never happened at this scale in this way before?
It's something, isn't it?
Because you are in the middle of a revolution.
And, let me see if I can get this.
Rachel, and I know you know this.
Nobody's watching this.
Nobody's watching this.
Does that make any sense?
Let me say it again.
Maybe you missed it.
Nobody's watching this.
When it comes to programming changes, presumably because it's not the right way to treat people, and it's inefficient, and it's unnecessary, and it kind of drops the bottom out of whether or not people feel like this is a good place to work, and so we don't generally do things that way.
What do you think this is?
Seriously, what do you think this is?
Like a retreat?
Do you think this is...
Have you ever been...
Maybe you've been lucky, maybe you haven't been in a lot of places, but anybody who's been in media, in particular, know, we know this.
This happens all the time.
When the station is sold, when it's, quote, blown up, in the figurative sense, when the show is cancelled, it happens all the time.
And it's happening right now.
At levels you can't even imagine by virtue of the transition from terrestrial to cable to now digital platforms, non-linear.
This is going on.
It's like she has been so...
This is a woman who's worked since she was 12 years old.
I don't know what that means.
And for the past, I don't know how many years, one day a week.
So she's not really connected with how things work.
Look around you.
Did she show any concern when Tucker Carlson might have been in any way?
You get the point.
Maybe all of our folks, including most of the people who are getting this very show on the air right now, maybe they will all get new jobs here, and I hope they do.
But in the meantime, being put in this kind of limbo, the anxiety and the discombobulation is off the charts at a time when this job already is extra stressful and difficult.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
You know when, who is it, Aaron Rodgers, or when they fire an NFL coach, or anything happens when people, when President Trump had his election stolen in 2020?
You know, a lot of people had to be let, you know, let go.
I mean, it happened.
Nobody cared about that.
Nobody.
So for her to take the idea or to focus on merely the little people, it's admirable because let's face it, in today's rough and tumble world, nobody cares about the middleman.
But this is absurd.
This shows a naivete.
I mean, it's kind of like this disingenuous but weird perspective.
It's kind of like they're...
Sort of blaming you for this, I guess?
It is not news for me to tell you that the press and freedom of the press are under attack.
Tell me about it.
Tell me about it when those people who dared to utter an idea regarding COVID or vaccines or safety or anything, when they were systematically targeted by the Biden administration and then had...
via social media had proxies go after and and take them down tell me about it oh i want to hear this oh no no i'm with you on that one rm i'm with you a way that is really um it's a big deal for our country it's very visceral for us here oh yeah i know that the business of the press is not an easy thing but you have to have numbers you have I don't understand.
Why somebody who has been working since you were 12 years old doesn't understand this.
If you work at a restaurant and nobody shows up or anything, if you're on a team and they lose, does she really not understand this?
I think she understands it.
And I know that no job is forever.
But I think I'm safe in saying for all of us anchors who you know through the TV.
She's an anchor now.
She's an anchor.
Please know that what pains us the most is not what happens to us.
No.
Because we are set.
This woman has made, what, 30-something million for how long?
She's not worried about herself.
And she shouldn't be.
And God bless her.
You know what?
This is America.
This is capitalism.
Good for you.
Of course you're not worried about you.
Of course.
It is what happens to our co-workers.
And how much of your salary are you giving?
How much of you have you met with all of your other millionaire?
You know, cohorts and putting together a pool.
Hey, God.
Maybe she did.
Maybe she did, for all we know.
And if she did, God bless her.
But I'd like to hear about that.
On whom we depend and who you don't necessarily know, but we respect and love them and depend on them.
And did I mention we respect them?
I think you did.
Especially those people who helped write those scurrilous, racist screens.
That joy spewed the drivel, the invectives, the philippics, those rancid polemics.
Yes.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you for the camera people and the sound people who mic'd her up to make sure that that bile, that hate could be heard clearly and with limpidity.
This is a difficult time in the news business.
Not really.
But it does not need to be this difficult.
No.
Believe it or not, it's different for you because of the fact that, let me show you if I can say this again because I don't think Rachel guesses.
Nobody is listening or watching or caring.
There are baby monitors.
Baby monitors getting better ratings than you.
You know that 1600, what is it?
When you go to the airport, they used to have that tune in for the parking.
They get better numbers.
You got that?
It's not what you think, Rachel.
We welcome new voices to this place and some familiar voices to new ours.
It's going to be great, honestly, and we want to grow and succeed and reach more people than ever and be resilient and stay here forever.
But your message and you, you see, it's not that people are being mean to you.
Are you going to change your message?
Are you going to figure a way?
Why you're not resonating, or resonating, as somebody once said.
When you have, what, 77, 80 million, whatever Americans who voted for President Trump, roughly, you have told them, basically, there's something wrong with them.
And Joy called them all racist.
Are you going to, just curious, are you going to be addressing that at all?
I also believe, and I bet you believe, that the way to get there is by treating people well.
No.
See, I can have a restaurant that treats the help perfectly.
I can give them the best.
But if the food stinks, let's say it's a restaurant, and nobody buys it, does it make any sense?
Do you hear how she's...
It's weird.
She's detaching herself from the reality of the business and making this out to be mean.
It's like this.
Veteran employee, since she was 12 years old, now is having a difficult time in reconciling this thing called, oh, what's the word?
Oh, yeah, reality.
Finding good people, good colleagues, doing good work with them.
Oh, this is called lacrimation.
When you wax lacrimose, the tear, the quiver, this shows her humanity.
I don't know what this does.
How this is supposed to pull anybody in?
Is this the pity vote?
The sympathy vote?
Why not scream at President Trump?
That might be something.
But what is this?
What is this?
You want to show a picture of somebody who had to sell their therapy dog or has to have their...
CBD gummies or whatever it is, you know, some real can't get the, you know, some story, you know, will spew vile racist epithets, you know, for food, you know, standing on the corner.
Maybe that, but this, you're supposed to feel bad and what?
Keep watching or call somebody?
What is the take action here?
And then having their back.
That we could do a lot better on.
A lot better.
I'll be right back.
What is this?
Seriously, I have seen some things.
What is this?
I have seen some stuff, seriously, in my life that I thought, well, this is kind of interesting.
What was the takeaway?
Let's assume you either watched it, liked it, or might consider watching it.
What am I supposed to do with this?
What am I supposed to do with this thing that she just said?
This message?
It's fascinating.
I would have loved to have been the head of programming or whatever it is.
She said, Rachel, can you come to my office and say, Rachel, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
We are hanging on by a thread.
And basically, what you told the 10 people who were watching our network is that we're dicks.
And that we're mean.
Thank you.
You're next.
Because let me tell you something.
Her only thing after this is she'll go to maybe, what, HBO?
I don't think CNN's going to want her because once you're part of the stench of a rotten...
Because MSDNC is really bad.
CNN kind of was it, but they're kind of doing something.
They're doing Scott Jennings.
They're trying a little something.
These folks were strident.
They were not just the left.
They were the enemy, so to speak.
So anyway, my friends, what do you think?
Put your thoughts and comments down.
What are your thoughts?
How do you think she handled that?
Is that the way to do it?
Let me know.
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